October 19, 1981: Game 5 of the National League Championship Series is played at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Rick Monday hits a solo home run with 2 out in the top of the 9th against Montreal's Steve Rogers, to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 2-1 victory over the Montreal Expos, and a trip to the World Series.
The loss becomes known as Blue Monday, due to having been played in bitterly cold conditions in Montreal (the roof hadn't been finished yet), the Dodgers' uniforms being blue, and the day being a very sad (a.k.a. "blue") one for baseball fans in Quebec.
The Expos were within 1 run of reaching the World Series. They would never find that run. In fact, they would never play another postseason game before being moved out of town after the 2004 season. The story of that team is one of dashed hopes and awful losses, including, ultimately, the loss to the fans of the team itself.
In 2019, the Expos franchise beat the Dodgers to win the NL Division Series, and went on to appear in the World Series for the 1st time, and win it. But by this point, they were the Washington Nationals, so it did Montreal no good.
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October 19, 1981, as I said, was a Monday. The New York Yankees had already clinched the American League Pennant, sweeping the Oakland Athletics in 3 games straight.
On ABC Monday Night Football, the Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears, 48-17 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.
The NBA season started 11 days later. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Quebec Nordiques beat the Vancouver Canucks, 6-3 at the Colisée de Québec.
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