Montreal Wiener, Those Wacky Canucks

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Posted By: horseyoucameinon

Expos' last hotdog fetches $2,605
Canadian Press
10/20/2004
QUEBEC (CP) - Few things could draw a crowd to Expos games like hotdog night, with its promise of $1 wieners.
With the Expos gone, one high-profile fan paid $2,605 on Wednesday for what is widely believed to be the last surviving hotdog of the Montreal era in Major League Baseball.
Guy Laliberte, founder of the Cirque du soleil, paid about 700 times the original stadium price to win an online charity auction for the steamed wiener and plain white bun.
``He's a big Montreal fan, a big social cultural fan, and it put a big smile on his face,'' said Renee-Claude Menard, a spokeswoman for the Montreal-based circus.
``I've been bugging him all day, asking him what he's going to do with it now? Put some mustard on it?''
Energie 102.3 FM, the radio station in Trois-Rivieres, Que., that sold the hotdog on EBay, received 142 bids during a week-long sale. The money will go to a charity dedicated to buying Christmas gifts for poor children.
``I was hoping for $1,000 and people thought I was crazy,'' said Mathieu Roy, a morning man at the station.
For his high bid, Laliberte will receive a plaster replica of the wiener along with the original which is hermetically sealed in a stew of preservatives to ensure it survives forever.
``We were told the wiener just wouldn't keep any other way,'' said Roy.
The bun has been dried and varnished and placed with the replica wiener in the original Styrofoam container atop a trophy.
Roy and the station's morning team were in an exhausting 24-hour radio marathon in September when they brainstormed to think of unique memorabilia they could collect from the last Expos game.
They considered stealing seats from Olympic Stadium or fur from Youppi!, the team's mascot, before settling on the hotdog idea.
The station offered listeners four tickets to the final game, if they bought the last hotdog.
``I went back to the hotdog stand every inning because I was afraid they'd run out,'' said Remi Cote, the man who bought the hotdog in the eighth inning as concessions shut down.
On his way home to Trois-Rivieres, Cote, a hungry university student, nearly ate the dog.
``I almost couldn't help myself,'' Cote said. ``I couldn't imagine what they were going to do with it.''
Cote, who was interviewed this week by reporters from the New York Post and the Arizona Republic, said he is glad to get five minutes of fame from the last game in Montreal of his beloved Expos.
``That hotdog is making more news than the Expos did,'' Cote said.
The Expos played their last game in Montreal in September after 36 years. The team is expected to begin play in Washington next year.