There are two things you can always expect to see from the Toronto Blue Jays on July 1: lots of red, and an enormous Canadian flag sprawling across the outfield at Rogers Centre.

Canada Day is always one of the hottest tickets on the Blue Jays’ schedule, and while the club hasn’t performed up to expectations so far this season, it will still be a sellout crowd at 1 Blue Jays Way to celebrate Canada’s birthday.

Every Blue Jays fan should experience Canada Day at the Rogers Centre at least once in their lifetime. The atmosphere and the grandeur of the day are something that has to be felt in-person, much like opening day.

Last year, a win against a division rival like the New York Yankees was the cherry on top of one of the most memorable Canada Day games for the Blue Jays. There may not be as much gravitas to a Blue Jays-Mets series finale this year, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be one heck of a party at the ballpark.

Here’s a look at the Blue Jays’ overall record on Canada Day, some standout Canada Day game memories over the years, clutch performers, and whether those red jerseys truly are cursed.

Through 46 games on Canada Day, the Blue Jays own a 17-29 record. Thanks to the win last year, the Jays improved their Canada Day home record to 15-9 overall, while owning a vastly different 2-10 record on the road.

Thankfully, the folks in charge of scheduling at Major League Baseball have put the Blue Jays at home in Toronto on Canada Day for the last 15 seasons.

Most Blue Jays fans will recall their four-game set against the New York Yankees from June 30 to July 3 as the moment when the 2025 Jays arrived. The Blue Jays started that series two games back of the division lead (they were eight games back a month and change prior), and finished that series one game up on the Yankees.

The Blue Jays won last year’s Canada Day game handily, 12-5 over the Yankees, thanks to a Herculean effort by George Springer. He hit two home runs (a solo home run in the fourth inning off Max Fried, followed by a grand slam in the seventh inning off Luke Weaver), en route to driving in a career-high seven RBIs.

Springer supplied most of the fireworks the Blue Jays needed to defeat the Yankees on Canada Day, a victory which brought Toronto within one game of the Bronx Bombers in the AL East standings.

The red jerseys on Canada Day (or at least some portion of a red uniform) have been a fixture of the Blue Jays’ uniform for as long as I can remember. As cool as it is to witness the sea of red in the stands at Rogers Centre every July 1st, there was a small subset who were not fans of the red apparel.

It doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of national pride, but it was more so because of the overkill of the red jerseys. In 2017, the Blue Jays put a halt to wearing the red “Canadiana” uniforms during Sunday home games.

“When you’re two and seven in the red jersey, you just bang it. So we should probably shred ’em, burn ’em, give them away to charity or something, but they need to go,” Blue Jays infielder Ryan Goins said.

Thanks to resources like Uniform Tracker, we can see the red jerseys worked their way back into the rotation throughout the 2022 campaign, with no real rhyme or reason. Outside of the Canada Day game, the Blue Jays donned the red maple leaf and red jersey combo seven times that season.

The following year, starting pitcher Chris Bassitt opted to call an audible and revive the red jerseys during his start on July 31, 2023. It wasn’t long after that game — a 4-2 loss to the Orioles — that the uniforms went back into the archives again.

“We wore them, and then we sucked,” Bassitt told the Gate 14 podcast back in 2023. Everyone was like: ‘Bro, the red jerseys, they’re cursed. Do not wear them.’ Literally, every fan and every player was like: ‘These red jerseys are not it. Do not wear them.’ I was like: ‘Alright, never wearing them.'”

It’s wild to think that for 27 years, Canada had two national teams in the Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos, but only once did they ever face each other on Canada’s quintessential holiday.

July 1, 1997, was the only time the Blue Jays and Expos squared off on Canadian soil on Canada Day. It was the Blue Jays’ only sell-out crowd at SkyDome that year, with 50,436 fans in attendance to watch the only two Canadian teams in MLB square off.

Roger Clemens got the start that day, throwing 8.1 innings of two-run ball against the Expos, but Montreal right-hander Jeff Juden bested Clemens that day, limiting the Blue Jays to one earned run while striking out 14 batters.

Everybody has the occasional bad day at the office. For Doyle Alexander, it just so happened to coincide with a national holiday in Canada, a day when most of the public isn’t working.

Alexander was no match for the Boston Red Sox on Canada Day 1986, as he faced 19 batters over 2.2 innings of seven-run ball. With a Game Score of 13, it’s the lowest of any Blue Jays starting pitcher to take the mound on July 1.

In many ways, Chris Carpenter had a much worse outing on Canada Day 2000, when he surrendered seven hits and nine earned runs against the Baltimore Orioles, but because he made it through 4.2 innings and had three strikeouts, Carpenter’s 14 Game Score was slightly better than Alexander’s 13.

The list of Blue Jays hitters to go yard multiple times on Canada Day is as random as you’d expect, with some usual suspects, along with some “did he really play for the Jays?” journeymen.

The most recent multi-homer hero on Canada Day was George Springer in 2025, followed by Freddy Galvis in 2019, Justin Smoak in 2015, John Olerud in 1996, and Jesse Barfield in 1984.

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