This past weeekend I was lucky enough to be given 2 tickets to 2 games at the Skydome in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Bluejays vs the RedSox. So I took this opportunity to take my dad on a little road trip. And if you guessed by little I meant in a Ford Focus and 10 hours each way, you guessed it. Yes, we drove, as plane tickets to Canada with 2 days notice is not as cheap as you might expect ( $600 each ). I had been to Toronto before, reminds me of Boston in many ways, big buildings, diverse population, ridiculous accents, only Toronto is cleaner. The people are also… different.
I was curious to see how Canadian crowds deal with the purely American sport of baseball. If the stereotype is true, these are a hockey loving people who would prefer to get drunk before a game and start a riot during the game. But I digress. The first fact is that before each and every game in Toronto, they have to sing 2 national anthems. First the Start Spangled Banner and then O, Canada. How would that make me feel, if I had to hear 2 different songs every single game? Would I eventually just think O, Canada was the 2nd verse to the Star Spangled Banner? I do admit though, I do like their anthem. Proud and patriotic.
Now, I dont have much to compare to. The only other MLB Park I have been to is Fenway, the 100 year old stadium in Boston. The first thing I noticed about the barely 20 year old Rogers Centre ( Ill get to that ) is the crappy “grass” they have. It really does look like a carpet, and not even a good one. The stadium is in the shadow of the CN Tower, one of the tallest structures in N. America, if not The Tallest. I have been up it before, and it has an awesome view. The park itself was very nice, carpeted, fancy bars and VIP sections. There’s even a hotel attached to it, above the outfield. The seats were slightly bigger than Fenway’s, but not by much. No obstructed view seats either.
The crowd was a horse of a different color altogether. Subdued, polite, quiet, respectful… eerie, scary, weird, unsettling. Yes, as a crowd of 25,000 they were loud. But during batters, I think I couldve screamed a player’s name and got his attention. Individually, the Sox fans that were there, and there were plenty, were much louder than our Canadian cousins.
Then of course there was the funny spellings and metrics. Their funny money aside ( loonies, toonies I dont know if I can fully trust a civilization that uses that many coins ) everything was close, but just a little off. For example, the outfield. Centrefield was 400 ft or 122 m. Coco Crisp did not play center field, he played centre field, see the difference? I did.
Funny coins, accents, the metric system ( which I actually agree with ) aside, it was an interesting trip and look into all that is Canada.
