Blue Jays fans bearing Canadian flags cheer during the Game 7 World Series watch party at Nathan Philips Square in Toronto on Saturday. The Blue Jays, Canada’s only MLB team, were a salve for a country hit by President Trump’s threats and tariffs.Duane Cole/The Globe and Mail
As he strode into Rogers Centre on Saturday, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. chose an outfit to meet the national moment.
Rather than the over-curated drip so often associated with the modern athlete, he chose to don the hockey jersey of one of Canada’s greatest clutch performers, Marie-Philip Poulin. Known for scoring gold-medal-winning goals in three of the past four Olympic Games, Ms. Poulin is one of the best to play Canada’s national sport.
The Toronto Blue Jays star’s sartorial choice was an implicit acceptance of a role Ms. Poulin has often shouldered – Captain Canada – and an acknowledgement that this iteration of the Jays took on a significance that transcended any single city or province.
“It’s one of those Team Canada moments,” said long-time fan Aaron Bast, who brought his 12-year-old son, Carter, to watch Game 7 live.
A Toronto Blue Jays fan reacts to Game 7 of the World Series at a bar in Vancouver on Saturday.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
A resident of Kitchener, he considers himself part of the team’s bedrock fanbase, always there through bad trades, bad managers, bad records. He noticed that with every stage of success this season – securing first place in the American League East, beating the Yankees, beating the Mariners, pushing one of baseball’s historically great teams to the brink – the Blue Jays added another boost in support.
“You’ve got these concentric rings of support, true baseball fans, then Torontonians, then those who see it as Team Canada,” he said. “It’s what makes this team great and always will.”
Fans at Calgary’s Trolley 5 Brewpub cheer for the Jays on Saturday.LEAH HENNEL/The Globe and Mail
The term Team Canada is a relatively new phenomenon. In the weeks before the 1972 Summit Series pitting Canada’s best professional hockey players against those of the Soviet Union, the Canadian organizers hired the Toronto ad firm Vickers & Benson to do marketing. Team manager Al Eagleson had been calling them the NHL All-Stars. Nobody liked it. Copywriters for the ad firm came up with a list of roughly 20 names. Team Canada stuck for its easy translation to Équipe Canada.
In that same series, Team Canada came to symbolize something more than an athletic competition. It’s estimated that 15 million of the 20 million people then living in Canada watched the final game, many drawn by the idea that it amounted to a proxy battle in the greater Cold War.
Through the first five games of the World Series, Sportsnet was averaging 6.4 million viewers.
The Toronto Blue Jays stand for the Canadian national anthem ahead of Game 7 of the World Series at Rogers Centre.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
While the Jays vs. a series of star-studded American teams never reached the political heft of Canada vs. communism, the undertones were there.
Provincial premiers of every stripe joined Prime Minister Mark Carney in backing the team at a time when President Donald Trump’s fickle trade policies continue to damage the Canadian economy.
“There’s so much dark and negativity out there right now,” said Peter Muscat, another long-time fan. “This series, this team, they just brought so much light when we really needed it.”
Fans at Oasis, a bar in Halifax, stayed up until the early hours of Sunday morning to watch Game 7.Maria Collins/The Globe and Mail
It wasn’t just the wins, it was the way they won. This team, made up primarily of Americans, seemed to genuinely adore each other and having the country’s backing. After his three-run homer in Game 7 against Seattle, George Springer put it most succinctly: “I’m happy for our team, our fans, our city, our country.”
Newer Canadians have long made this association between the team and the country. When Lucky Singh immigrated to Canada from India as a kid, he was taken with a sport that was similar to cricket.
He was particularly enamoured with former Jays ace Roy Halladay, the best pitcher in baseball for much of the 2000s. A stoic perfectionist, Halladay maintained award-winning form for some awful iterations of the Blue Jays. He retired in 2013 and died in a plane crash four years later.
“It’s all wrapped up for me: coming to Canada, learning a new sport, falling in love with both,” Mr. Singh said outside Rogers Centre on Saturday night.
Toronto Blue Jays fans react after their team lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.IAN WILLMS/The New York Times News Service
The country’s growing enthusiasm had one downside: ticket prices. After the Game 7 loss, a disconsolate Sid Helischauer lay on a set of concrete steps looking up at the CN Tower. A life-long Jays fan originally from Toronto, he flew in from Calgary to catch Games 6 and 7 but couldn’t find tickets under his $3,000 budget.
“This is my connection to home,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. The whole Canada’s team thing I think is just marketing, just a bandwagon thing.”
Mr. Bast sees it differently. A devotee since he was 12 years old watching Joe Carter wallop the World-Series-winning home run in 1993, he welcomes all fans, new and old, east and west.
“I was talking to my barber today and he said he was cheering for Canada more than he was cheering for the Jays,” he said.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reacts after an inning-ending double play in Game 7.Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
For him, a single game can have a generational impact. He named his son Carter. Who’s Carter’s favourite player?
“Vladdy!” pronounces the 12-year-old.
As Jays players emerged from their loss to do postgame interviews, many in tears, Mr. Guerrero Jr. chose to keep wearing the Team Canada jersey.
While he didn’t acknowledge the country in his answers through translation, he didn’t really have to. The Maple Leaf was right there on his chest.