5.14.2012

The Blue Jays are Canada's Team


This past weekend it's been great fun watching the 4 game series between The Blue Jays and the Twins down in Minneapolis. The games were close and the teams split the series 2-2. Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista seemed to find his stroke just as Ricky Romero and Kyle Drebek seemed to lose the strike zone.

But the real fun was watching the thousands of fans from all over the prairie provinces who'd followed their Jays down to Minneapolis to watch the series. Like the series, the stands were split pretty evenly too. Often competitive cheering matches broke out between the fans, especially late in the games after a few brewskis had been had by all sides. As most folks know just behind hockey comes beer drinking on the Canadian hit parade and the prairie folks didn't let that image down.

On Friday night the crowd from the great white north started cheering 'Go Canada Go' instead of their regular 'Go Jays Go' chant which naturally brought boos followed by U! S! A! cheers from the Twinkies home crowd. Back and forth it went, it got so loud eventually even the broadcasters, who seldom mention anything even remotely political in nature, had to talk about it.

The Jays fans had driven from Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and a hundred other little places to get there. So many of them came they clogged up the border crossings and filled up the motels and bars. The same kinda scene happens whenever the Jays play a series in Seattle or Detroit. In fact Canadians either displaced by work or on holidays can often be seen wearing the colors and draining a few cold ones at ball parks wherever the Jays are playing. All the Blue Jays' games are telecast coast to coast to coast up here in Canuckistan and they've truly become major league baseball's version of Canada's team.