‘The whole country’s team’: Quebecers rallying behind Toronto Blue Jays in playoffs

MONTREAL — Louis-Philippe Guy wasn’t always a Toronto Blue Jays fan.

As a young boy, his family would drive six hours south from his hometown of Chicoutimi, Que., to see the Montreal Expos play at the Olympic Stadium.

Now, 21 years after the Expos moved to Washington, D.C., the minor baseball coach from Montreal’s South Shore and Blue Jays lover drives for hours to see the team play in Toronto and other Major League Baseball cities, and says his kids love the tradition just as much as he did growing up.

“I had to mourn for 10 years after the Expos left,” Guy, 41, said. But when Quebecer Russell Martin started playing for Toronto in 2015, “I adopted the Blue Jays.”

With the Jays set to play against the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the American League Division Series this Saturday, Guy said he’s feeling hopeful more youth will take up the sport.

“The Blue Jays are a great inspiration for the kids,” said Guy, also a news talk radio host for 98.5 FM in Montreal.

There had been a slump in Quebec children playing the sport after the Expos left Montreal in 2004, Guy said, but that changed after 2015, when the Blue Jays took home a division title.

“They didn’t grow up with the Expos, they’re Blue Jays fans,” Guy said of young Quebecers who love the sport. “It’s really the whole country’s team, Quebec included. There’s no two solitudes when we talk about the Blue Jays, francophone and anglophone are hand in hand.”

The series that begins Saturday is going to be huge for the Blue Jays, said Marc Griffin, former Expos player and commentator for the French-language sports station RDS. “I’m pretty optimistic that they can play, that they can actually win this series to go to the American League Championship. They had a great season.”

A frequent attendee of their games, Griffin said he has no doubt many Quebecers will travel to see them live.

“I think Montreal is really cheering for the Blue Jays,” he said. “You can definitely see it for yourself at the games, you hear the French language, and you still see many fans decked out in Expos gear.”

When Jeremy Filosa took the train from the west end of Montreal to go see the Blue Jays play earlier this summer, he was taken aback by how many passengers were also on the way to the game.

“In the wagon I was in, it was just insane to see how many baseball fans there were, all the people dressed up in Expos gear, in Blue Jays gear,” said Filosa, who hosts a popular French-language podcast about the team alongside Gavino de Falco.

He said he’s taken the train in years past to cover the games, but the number of fans on board and the atmosphere this season has been “crazy.”

The Blue Jays haven’t won a playoff game since 2016. The team advanced to the World Series on two occasions in franchise history, in 1992 and 1993, and won both times.

Another reason Montrealers are drawn to the Jays this year, Filosa said, is because of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who joined the Blue Jays in 2019 and was born in Montreal. His father, Vladimir Guerrero, played for the Expos from 1996 to 2003 and was a fan favourite.

Quebecers, Filosa said, “absolutely love baseball.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2025.