FREITAS AWARD: CLASS A VANCOUVER CANADIANS

As Canada's only minor league team affiliated with Canada's only MLB team, Vancouver leans into tradition while also embracing new ideas

- by BA STAFF

It's only natural that a team called the Canadians hosted watch parties for the 2025 World Series. Considering that the Vancouver Canadians of the High-A Northwest League are the only affiliated minor league team in the entire country, and are affiliated with Canada's lone major league club, in Toronto, the watch parties were a chance to feed off the frenzy of attention that the Blue Jays created during their first pennant-winning season since 1993.

Canadians GM Allan Bailey was a child when those Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series in 1992 and '93. He remembers the way it energized his friends and peers about the game.

He recognized what was happening in the Vancouver community, so he and his staff set up watch parties for Games 1 and 3 at the club's Nat Bailey Stadium, in the heart of Canada's eighth-largest city.