[Acajack]

Ottawa is not a boring city but obviously there are more things to do and more competition for the entertainment dollar in much larger urban areas like Toronto and Montreal. That said, I am not sure if this is a determining factor in the popularity of non-professional sports like major junior hockey. Plenty of large metros in the U.S. (some of comparable size to Toronto or Montreal) are very much into non-professional NCAA sports like football and/or basketball.