As the Toronto Blue Jays prepare for the World Series, which begins Friday night, one fan traveled from England to show his support for a playoff berth.
“This is a big moment for the Jays and a big moment for me, so I had to go home,” Carla Courtney said.
The Blue Jays are home for Courtney, who grew up in Toronto while spending summers in Newfoundland.
“You want to be in Toronto to get some energy, you know? It's really exciting. Things like this don't happen very often,” she said.
Courtney changed her sleep schedule while across the pond to ensure she never missed a moment of the Jays' playoffs.
To keep herself busy while watching stressful games in the middle of the night, she took up knitting to calm her nerves.
Her first project was a Blue Jays sweater knitted with a lobster as a good luck charm. But that wasn't enough of a challenge.
Knitting a Blue Jays sweater for the lobster was the first step before venturing into playoff sweaters. The only time I worked on this was on game days.
Megan King / Global News
Courtney tried her hand at knitting the Blue Jays' post-season sweater, but could only tackle it on game days.
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“No matter how far we go, I'm going to do something to commemorate the season,” Courtney said.
She started wearing the retro-style sweater in Game 4 of the ALDS against the New York Yankees and documented her progress on social media.
Each section of the piece contains memories of different moments during the playoffs. The moment I got some mustard dirt during the match.
“We definitely lost those two games, so that's a tough point,” he said, pointing to the Blue Jays logo he made.
For Courtney, knitting keeps her in the moment and provides emotional stability during stressful innings.
“I'm only allowed to knit on game days, so I didn't break that rule,” she explained. “I knitted on the plane on the way, but it was a game day, so it's okay. I'm kind of watching the team's progress. So the longer the team goes, the longer I hope I can keep going.”
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She dedicated herself to her craft and continued the project while at the Rogers Center for Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS.
She remembers the game-changing moment in Game 7 when George Springer hit a home run to give the Blue Jays the lead.
“I grabbed the sweater and thought, 'I'm going to put mascara on,'” she recalled. “I cried, it was so exciting and everyone was so supportive, it was just really, really incredible.”
Courtney plans to stay in Toronto as long as necessary to watch the Blue Jays win the World Series.
“I'm not going anywhere, of course not, no,” she said. “I keep changing the tickets, but I don’t care.”
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