Canadians who's favorite team is NOT the Blue Jays

[TheBeastCoast]

Such a weird stance... you can only like our NFL team if you also like our MLB team? I think it's interesting to find out who likes which teams and why, but at the end of the day just let people like who they want. It really doesn't matter or should affect anyone else at all.

Yeah and I mean at the end of the day for people on the west coast of Canada literally every single Jays game is available on TV and the Jays have made a point to market themselves coast to coast. The Mariners being closer doesn't mean a thing if they aren't readily available on TV to the extent that the Jays are along with there not being a Jays equivalent in the NFL. I am sure if the Jays didn't exist there would be a lot more Mariner fans on the west coast...but the Jays do exist lol

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Such a weird stance... you can only like our NFL team if you also like our MLB team? I think it's interesting to find out who likes which teams and why, but at the end of the day just let people like who they want. It really doesn't matter or should affect anyone else at all.

It shouldn’t be a rule that you should only like teams from the same city/region. But to each his own. I’m an Angeleno and proud of it. I just can’t fathom why I would cheer for a team that’s not based in my city. It doesn’t feel that there is a personal connection. Well, the exception is the Premier League. I’m a big Chelsea fan but yet I’ve never set foot in London. I used to hate sports fans that are geographically all over the place. But I’ve grown to just let them be. I’m sure someone like @punk_o_holic has never been to Houston, or @BostonBob has never been to Boston but they love their teams.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

It shouldn’t be a rule that you should only like teams from the same city/region. But to each his own. I’m an Angeleno and proud of it. I just can’t fathom why I would cheer for a team that’s not based in my city. It doesn’t feel that there is a personal connection. Well, the exception is the Premier League. I’m a big Chelsea fan but yet I’ve never set foot in London. I used to hate sports fans that are geographically all over the place. But I’ve grown to just let them be. I’m sure someone like @punk_o_holic has never been to Houston, or @BostonBob has never been to Boston but they love their teams.

I mean… so self admittedly, you can clearly fathom cheering for a team that’s nowhere near you. I get it, there’s no premier league in LA, but there’s also no MLB team in Vancouver.

Obviously to each their own, like you said. If the hill someone wants to die on is ‘you need to cheer for the team closest to you’ then go ahead and that’s fine. Fandom is fandom and it comes in many shapes and forms. To try and judge one type being better or more pure or right or wrong is just nonsense.

Sports would probably be a better place if people were more open to just choosing teams they like for various reasons rather than proximity and indoctrination.

And yeah, big time Canes fan over here who has never been to NC.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

I mean… so self admittedly, you can clearly fathom cheering for a team that’s nowhere near you. I get it, there’s no premier league in LA, but there’s also no MLB team in Vancouver.

Obviously to each their own, like you said. If the hill someone wants to die on is ‘you need to cheer for the team closest to you’ then go ahead and that’s fine. Fandom is fandom and it comes in many shapes and forms. To try and judge one type being better or more pure or right or wrong is just nonsense.

Sports would probably be a better place if people were more open to just choosing teams they like for various reasons rather than proximity and indoctrination.

And yeah, big time Canes fan over here who has never been to NC.

The Premiership is foreign so I would have no hope of having a team in LA. But it’s the most popular league in the world and I love the sport of soccer so I wanted to join in the fun. But then there was also no NFL team in LA for a long time. But unlike the Premiership, the NFL is still domestic so I still had hopes of one day my city would get an NFL team. That’s why I could never get into the NFL until the Rams moved back here. And unlike soccer, I was never a big football fan. Another reason why I couldn’t follow any team in the NFL.

I also see no connections between Vancouver and Seattle sports fans. They might be internationally close to each other but they are still over 100 miles away from each other and it takes a 2 1/2 hour drive. It’s not even close to the San Diego-Tijuana distance, who are basically neighbors. Seattle and Vancouver can’t be considered neighbors. Even Milwauke-Chicago has a shorter distance.

Were Seattle hockey fans supposed to be Canucks fans before the Kraken existed?

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

The Premiership is foreign so I would have no hope of having a team in LA. But it’s the most popular league in the world and I love the sport of soccer so I wanted to join in the fun. But then there was also no NFL team in LA for a long time. But unlike the Premiership, the NFL is still domestic so I still had hopes of one day my city would get an NFL team. That’s why I could never get into the NFL until the Rams moved back here. And unlike soccer, I was never a big football fan. Another reason why I couldn’t follow any team in the NFL.

I also see no connections between Vancouver and Seattle sports fans. They might be internationally close to each other but they are still over 100 miles away from each other and it takes a 2 1/2 hour drive. It’s not even close to the San Diego-Tijuana distance, who are basically neighbors. Seattle and Vancouver can’t be considered neighbors. Even Milwauke-Chicago has a shorter distance.

Were Seattle hockey fans supposed to be Canucks fans before the Kraken existed?

The soccer thing has been acknowledged. As mentioned, there’s no premiership in NA but obviously, as you statesd, you cheer for a team in UK so you can in fact fathom cheering for a team that is not rooted in your city. Is it a different circumstance because LA doesn’t have premiership, vs me growing up and living in Toronto but being a Canes fan? Sure there are differences but the basic facts are you cheer for a team you have no geographical connection to. Yours was more of necessity and mine was by choice but we got to the same place.

As for the Seattle - Vancouver question you posed… ‘were people in Seattle supposed to cheer for Vancouver before the Kraken came around?’. The simple answer is no, because no one is ‘supposed’ to cheer for any specific team. Just cheer for whoever you want to and your reason isn’t any better than anyone else’s. If you cheer for your home team that’s great if you cheer for a different team that’s also great. That should really be the extent of it. No one gets to decide what is the right or wrong way to be a fan or like something for other people. That’s not how life works.

 

[LightningStorm]

Such a weird stance... you can only like our NFL team if you also like our MLB team? I think it's interesting to find out who likes which teams and why, but at the end of the day just let people like who they want. It really doesn't matter or should affect anyone else at all.

Yeah and I mean at the end of the day for people on the west coast of Canada literally every single Jays game is available on TV and the Jays have made a point to market themselves coast to coast. The Mariners being closer doesn't mean a thing if they aren't readily available on TV to the extent that the Jays are along with there not being a Jays equivalent in the NFL. I am sure if the Jays didn't exist there would be a lot more Mariner fans on the west coast...but the Jays do exist lol

Based on who I cheer for, I do believe anyone should be able to cheer for any teams (also beyond my teams I do cheer for the Seahawks, while the Mariners are my AL team). I think it has more to do with the specific context when it comes to the BC Canucks/Blue Jays/Seahawks fans. The thing some find odd about it is Canucks fans hate Toronto during hockey season (and often in general), while they cheer for Seattle during football season. The main point being that in sports outside of baseball, their opinion of Seattle is much more favorable than Toronto (obviously subject to change now that the Kraken are around). Another way to put it is I've heard others find it odd that they would buy into the "Canada's team" narrative of the Jays considering how British Columbians commonly hate Toronto in general.

So even though I'm all over the place with my teams, there's still some instances where I understand why people find some combos odd. The oddest one I've ever heard of was a friend I had who was a (New York) Giants and Phillies fan. Despite her having family in NY and Philly, I still found it odd.

Typing this out has reminded me of something I've observed as a Mets/Bolts fan: In Tampa, the Mets might be more popular than the Rays, who aren't all that popular there and play across the bay in St. Pete. Yankees are probably the most popular team in the actual city of Tampa.

 

[LightningStorm]

I also see no connections between Vancouver and Seattle sports fans. They might be internationally close to each other but they are still over 100 miles away from each other and it takes a 2 1/2 hour drive. It’s not even close to the San Diego-Tijuana distance, who are basically neighbors. Seattle and Vancouver can’t be considered neighbors. Even Milwauke-Chicago has a shorter distance.

Were Seattle hockey fans supposed to be Canucks fans before the Kraken existed?

As for the Seattle - Vancouver question you posed… ‘were people in Seattle supposed to cheer for Vancouver before the Kraken came around?’. The simple answer is no, because no one is ‘supposed’ to cheer for any specific team. Just cheer for whoever you want to and your reason isn’t any better than anyone else’s. If you cheer for your home team that’s great if you cheer for a different team that’s also great. That should really be the extent of it. No one gets to decide what is the right or wrong way to be a fan or like something for other people. That’s not how life works.

In terms of who Seattle cheered for prior to the Kraken, some context to remember was Seattle didn't have a lot of NHL fans. Of the big 4 leagues, what makes the NHL 4th is how much it suffers in popularity in areas that don't have a team as oppose to always being the least popular team in their city, as plenty of NHL teams are more popular than another big 3 team in the city. So it's a much smaller group of fans than baseball fans in Vancouver. With that said, a plurality of NHL fans in Seattle (natives at least) were Canucks fans. I remember there being buzz around here during 2011 about them. Plenty of them did like the Canucks the most because they identified with them being a Cascadia team.

I chose the Lightning cause I thought their name and logo were cool. It also looked similar to the Orlando Magic, who I liked for similar reasons at the time (what kid wouldn't like the 90's Magic logo?), and who became my favorite team once the Sonics left. And of course there are tons of Bolts/Magic fans since they are each the closest team in the other league to each other.

 

[Gordy Elbows]

Dodgers fan since their Brooklyn days, although the LA version doesn’t have the same sense of attachment.
Could be tricked into cheering for the Rays pretty easily.
Edmonton.

 

[LightningStorm]

When I was in Minneapolis recently and went to Target Field since the Mets were in town, I was conversing with some Twins fans and they said it's common for Jays fans to come when they are in town, though not quite to the extent of ones going to Seattle. Probably cause Minneapolis is further from the Canadian border than Seattle.

It did get me wondering, since I assume the Twins are the 2nd most popular team in Winnipeg (it is a Vikings town after all), what it must've been like from 1991-1993, when either the Twins or Jays won the World Series all 3 seasons. They even played in the 1991 ALCS, which was the first ever playoff series to be played entirely indoors.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

When I was in Minneapolis recently and went to Target Field since the Mets were in town, I was conversing with some Twins fans and they said it's common for Jays fans to come when they are in town, though not quite to the extent of ones going to Seattle. Probably cause Minneapolis is further from the Canadian border than Seattle.

It did get me wondering, since I assume the Twins are the 2nd most popular team in Winnipeg (it is a Vikings town after all), what it must've been like from 1991-1993, when either the Twins or Jays won the World Series all 3 seasons. They even played in the 1991 ALCS, which was the first ever playoff series to be played entirely indoors.

Yup. Twins def have a town of support in the middle of Canada and Jays fans will routinely make the trip down to Minny for series there

 

[the]

I cheer for Seattle Mariners. I’ll never cheer for the Blue Jays after they disgracefully helped vote the Expos out of existence.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

I cheer for Seattle Mariners. I’ll never cheer for the Blue Jays after they disgracefully helped vote the Expos out of existence.

Expos were a disgrace of a franchise at that point but you are entitled to feel how you wish about all that

 

[MVP of West Hollywd]

I support the Cubs. I was a fan of some teams like Leafs and Bills and the pre 2016 Cubs just made sense you know?

 

[LightningStorm]

Yup. Twins def have a town of support in the middle of Canada and Jays fans will routinely make the trip down to Minny for series there

Now they play each other in the WC round. Should be interesting. Wonder how much of Winnipeg will be cheering for the Twins and how many Manitoban Jays fans will make the trip to Target Field.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

Now they play each other in the WC round. Should be interesting. Wonder how much of Winnipeg will be cheering for the Twins and how many Manitoban Jays fans will make the trip to Target Field.

Gonna be a cool atmosphere and I imagine. I think Jays and Twins fan bases get along well due to proximity and also a great Canadian player like Morneau making his mark with the Twins. Minny is definitely a team that I cheer for in general

 

[RedWhiteBlackGold]

I was a Braves fan growing up in Nova Scotia. Chipper Jones was my idol.