Rogers Centre Roof Report - "It's Open"

Rogers Centre mirrors my general impression of Canada: Clean and organized. The stadium has clean lines with an obligatory retractable roof to mitigate the colder Canadian climate. As a Blue Jay player stated in one of between inning breaks ("Roof Report"), the roof was open on this sunny Sunday afternoon game.

The game opened with the singing of both the American and Canadian national anthem, and we were impressed that the crowd joined the singer for the Canadian one.

I had forgotten that this stadium has hotel rooms overlooking the outfield. When I saw this I remembered the 1990 incident in which a couple thought their room window was one way glass. It’s not. The stadium crowd got an unexpected bonus show along with the game that night.

The staff was attentive and friendly, almost to the point of annoying. Its Canada, after all. However when the game is over they want you out of the stadium pronto. They would not let me see the roof getting closed which was disappointing.

Stadium Ratings are exciting, good, meh, bad, disastrous.

Facility - No view of the city but lots of entertaining things to look at inside the stadium including the Rogers Centre Tower. I always find roof engineering fascinating and this one was no exception. Rating: Good

Food - We did not try a lot of food options but of course had some hot dogs. The toppings available for the dogs were impressive. We did not notice anything all that spectacular however. Rating: Meh

Mascot - Ace the blue jay was fun, but we really enjoyed the energy of Junior who is the smaller version of Ace. Great between inning entertainment and crowd interaction. Rating: Exciting!