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The Ottawa Citizen reported Thursday that a city councillor has been negotiating with the Toronto Blue Jays about bringing a minor league team to Ottawa.

College Councillor Rick Chiarelli has been working on bringing a team here since last spring and club officials have seen the stadium.

Chiarelli is optimistic a deal can be worked out.

"If the (Blue Jays) were disinterested, I wouldn't be doing this," Chiarelli said. "I've discussed the possibility of an affiliated team."

Mike Hunt wrote:
The only thing that might make me believe that a Jays affiliate in Ottawa could work is that the one time that I went to a game and the crowd was huge (I'm talking 80% capacity vs. the usual 15%), it was an A.J. Burnett rehab start back when he was a Jay, which makes me think that there might be more Jays interest in Ottawa than there ever was in the Expos (the local sports radio station had been hyping the game quite a bit too). That day, the stadium was electric and it really was the most fun I've ever had there (Burnett struggled in the game and no one really cared).

City councillor Rick Chiarelli says he has talked to two potential local ownership groups who have expressed interest in taking at least a minority interest in a potential new Blue Jays affiliate in Ottawa, most likely at the Double-A level.

I spoke with Chiarelli not long after he had dental surgery, so perhaps the novocaine still hadn't worn off. But he seems convinced that, despite declining attendance and increasing losses for the Ottawa Lynx for several years leading up to their demise in 2007, baseball can thrive in this city.

"It depends on a couple of things coming together," says Chiarelli. "There would have to be a local owner who owns at least 25 to 30 per cent of the club. And there has to be a solution on the parking issue around the stadium."

Minor-league baseball teams with affiliations to major-league clubs have almost disappeared from Canada over the last decade. The sole exception is the Vancouver Canadians, who were Oakland's short-season Single-A affiliate for the past 11 seasons.

But now, it seems, the Blue Jays want to see more of their own minor-league teams in Canada. Toronto has signed an agreement with Vancouver to become a Blue Jays affiliate starting in 2011. Sometimes, the shuffling of an affiliation is done with little fanfare, but in this case the Jays brought out their heavy hitters. Team president Paul Beeston and general manager Alex Anthopoulos were both in Vancouver for the announcement, along with Phil Lind, the vice-chair of the Jays' parent company, Rogers.

Lind made it clear that aligning with the Canadians was done in part to build Rogers' brand on the west coast, where it competes head-to-head with Vancouver-based Telus. Earlier this year, Rogers purchased the naming rights for the Canucks' hockey arena, formerly known as GM Place.