Quebecers rallying behind Toronto Blue Jays

Louis-Philippe Guy wasn't always a Toronto Blue Jays fan. 

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.”