Blue Jays are the bird of choice for many this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner is looking a bit different for one Vancouver couple this year.

The normally well-stocked table, with Turkey and all the fixings, will be replaced with a takeaway turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce, and the usual dinner table conversation replaced with a much-awaited Blue Jays baseball game, said Helen Vlahos.

Vlahos was visiting Toronto with her partner, Wolf Schneider, for a family event this weekend.

“This is more important than having a big, full-blown turkey dinner,” Vlahos said.

The Blue Jays are slated to play Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday against the Seattle Mariners. It’s the first time they’ve made it this far since 2016.

Game two is scheduled for Monday.

The games coincide with Thanksgiving this year — a reason enough for many fans to move their dinner from the dining table to in front of their TVs.

Vlahos and Schneider said they’re expecting to arrive in Vancouver just in time to get home Sunday and get settled on their couch for the game. While their holiday plans this year were to keep things light, Schneider said the day wouldn’t have looked any different if they had planned a big celebration alongside the game.

“If we were going to be having Thanksgiving dinner … chances are we’d still be together (and) we’d be watching the game while having dinner,” he said. “Or the Thanksgiving Day might have moved to a different day.”

Before returning home, the couple managed to squeeze in an early-morning visit to the Blue Jays’ official merchandise store in downtown Toronto on Saturday, and finally picked their Schneider jerseys.

“We had made kind of a little bet that if the Jays could make it to the championship series, then we would finally buy our shirts, because we’ve been putting this off for a long time,” said Schneider, who also shares his last name with the Blue Jays’ Davis Schneider.

The series will shift to Seattle for Game 3 on Wednesday and Game 4 on Thursday, and Friday, if a fifth game is necessary.

Toronto would host Game 6 on Oct. 19 and Game 7 on Oct. 20 if needed. The ALCS champion will advance to the World Series against the National League champion. The Blue Jays haven’t won the Fall Classic since 1993.

But this time, fans countrywide are rooting for the Jays ahead of the playoffs, with some choosing to go to the game over Thanksgiving plans.

Kohlman Zarowny and his six-year-old son, Kai, are on a boys’ trip, visiting Toronto from Lloydminster, Alta., to catch the game in action at the downtown Rogers Centre. The Jays game and a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame have taken over their traditional holiday celebrations this long weekend.

“This is going to be fun,” said the six-year-old.

Kai said he’s hoping the team will win again “because they’ve been winning all year.”

According to a survey from Rogers published on Sunday, nearly half of Canadians would skip Thanksgiving dinner to go to a Blue Jays game this weekend. Meanwhile, 52 per cent of Gen Xers would pick the game over dinner.

The report surveyed 1,503 online Canadians between Oct. 6-8.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

For Sudbury, Ont., resident Nicole La Flèche, the baseball game is a way to spend time with her father.

“I just sit there with him, I ask him a lot of questions … and he just likes to explain it,” La Flèche said. “But that’s our time together.”

This holiday isn’t going to be any different for the duo.

“It’s family time, and I’m sure the game will be on while dinner is being served — the turkey and the baseball,” La Flèche said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 12, 2025.

Ritika Dubey, The Canadian Press