2 weeks Ago
Fans attend a Toronto Blue Jays pre-season game at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Fla., on March 13. Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail Decked out in Toronto Blue Jays jerseys and hats, Rachel Deveau and her partner Dwight Roberts are bursting with excitement to be at a Jays spring training game in Dunedin, Fla.
They’ve been planning the trip since last September, and by all accounts, they’re having the best time. “For so many years I’ve watched spring training on TV and I’ve always been envious,” said Mr. Roberts, who’s dreamed for years about coming to Florida from wintery Nova Scotia.
“It’s amazing, just to experience Dunedin, Florida and the sunshine.” Despite all the good times, they have no plans to come again until Donald Trump is no longer the U.S.
President. “I did feel a little bad coming,” said Ms. Deveau, adding that they only followed through with the trip because it was all pre-booked.
Sheepishness is a common sentiment among Canadians at the TD Ballpark in Dunedin, which is home to the Jays every spring. The town is one of the last stops in a road trip that The Globe and Mail embarked on to find out whether Canadians are still following the time-honoured tradition of heading to southern U.S.
states during March Break, at a time when Mr. Trump talks of annexing the country and people are rallying around “buy Canadian” movements. Baseball fans at a Toronto Blue Jays pre-season game against the Baltimore Orioles at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Fla.
, on March 13. Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail The stands looked fairly packed and volunteers didn’t notice any change in attendance this season. Before the first pitch, Canadians hooted and cheered toward the end of O Canada, in what sounded like a more enthusiastic celebration than usual.
But the numbers tell a different story. The average attendance for the first 10 games of the Jays’ spring training has been roughly 5,900 people, a 13-per-cent drop from last year. Like Ms.
Deveau and Mr. Roberts, many of the Canadians at the game had strong feelings about not returning next year and only came because their trips were already booked and paid for. It was a common story for loyal spring training attendees to say they were swearing off the tradition, at least during Mr.
Trump’s presidency. Mike Bryson, who is from the Ottawa area, first started questioning this year’s trip back in November following the U.S.
election. In the last month, that turned into full on regret, he said. “When he talked about Canada being the 51st state and insulted our Prime Minister by calling him Governor, that was enough,” said Mr.
Bryson, who has been coming to Jays spring training for many years. “We’re headed for Portugal next year.” Rocky Marciano, 70, has been going to watch the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla.
, since 2015. He has a home in Dunedin, but is rethinking living there and might sell. Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail On the other hand, there were some Canadians at the game who had no hard feelings about travelling to the U.
S. right now. Lisa Feltz said the weak Canadian dollar was more of a deterrent than President Trump’s policies toward Canada.
“Our parents are very much against travelling to the U.S., but they respect that this is what we wanna do, they’re not comfortable with coming and that’s okay,” said Ms.
Feltz, who said she had no plans to change her U.S. travel habits and she hoped both sides would respect each other’s choices.
Outside of the ballpark, we were hard pressed to find a business that noticed a drop in traffic. It’s easy to see why: Dunedin is clearly a paradise for snowbirds – both Canadian and American – looking to escape winter, and the quaint streets downtown and the harbour area were much more crowded than our earlier stop in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Marti Moulson, owner of the Dunedin Smokehouse and a Canadian who has lived in Florida for many years, said there was no real change in business at his bar, which is steps away from the TD Ballpark. He did note the stands seemed less full when he went to a Jays game last week. The bigger concern is the impact from the recent hurricane season, which hit Dunedin hard for the first time in many years.
While his bar hasn’t been affected, he said less Canadian visitors certainly wouldn’t help businesses recover..
