{"id":86843,"date":"2026-06-13T11:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/86843\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:21:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:21:18","slug":"i-joined-canadas-fanzone-where-everyone-was-on-a-high-and-not-just-because-of-the-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/86843\/","title":{"rendered":"I joined Canada\u2019s fanzone where everyone was on a high and not just because of the cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh, Canada<\/a>, you have arrived. Not perhaps in the manner you hoped, or even expected, but certainly in the way you embraced and responded on a historic day.<\/p>\n

Of course, the spotlight fell on the colours and the drama and the passion at the actual stadium as, in their first match as World Cup hosts<\/a>, Canada eventually celebrated their first goal and first point at a World Cup. Yet, as ever, it is the activity in the streets and bars and \u2013 as is the modern way of championship finals \u2013 the fan festivals that define the occasion.<\/p>\n

Regardless of Fifa profiteering, the World Cup would be nothing without that proliferation of civic pride. And here, at the Fork York National Site \u2013 where the pamphlets tell us that British soldiers, First Nations warriors and Upper Canadian militiamen stood together in 1812 at the Battle of York to defend the town that is now Toronto against American attack \u2013 the national team\u2019s refusal to yield to those belligerent Bosnians was hailed to the forefathers.<\/p>\n

Not that there was anything tribally ugly about the atmosphere at this joyous gathering. There was frustration outside, as even at half-time, with the visitors in the lead, the queues spread hundreds of metres up the road. What can you say \u2013 where there is Fifa there is invariably a cock-up.<\/p>\n

But most, if not all, were inside when Cyle Larin equalised in the 79th minute. And then, arms and legs were everywhere and anywhere with pints thrown into the sky. In that moment, all of the cynicism and doom-mongering and vows of recrimination were obliterated into multitudes of mere droplets cast across the ground that was shaking so joyously. Oh, Canada, the Fort was booming and suddenly the notion of inferiority felt unfair and unwarranted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oh, Canada, you have arrived. Not perhaps in the manner you hoped, or even expected, but certainly in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33415,17,33414,15822,354,3294,2415,48,6829,3543],"class_list":["post-86843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-bosnia-herzegovina-football-team","tag-canada","tag-canada-football-team","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026","tag-football","tag-sport","tag-standard","tag-toronto","tag-us-content","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}