Members of the Montreal Titans baseball team train in Montreal, on May 7.Alexis Aubin/The Globe and Mail
Like many Canadians, Aneil Gokhale isn’t keen to travel to the United States right now. So as his son’s baseball team and his daughter’s soccer club each considered tournaments in Michigan, the Toronto father was twisted up about whether they should go.
He is one of the coaches for his son’s single-A baseball team, and they chose to pull out of the U.S. baseball tournament they’d booked for this summer. Against the backdrop of tariffs and tension between the two countries, it felt like the wrong time to go. The 13-year-olds will still have fun traveling to tournaments in Ontario.
Meanwhile his daughter’s team forged ahead to its spring soccer tournament in Michigan, and he didn’t want his daughter to be the lone player staying home. He worried about warnings that U.S. Customs can search phones or detain people, wondering if being South Asian made him vulnerable. But they went, travel was smooth, and the 10-year-olds and their families had a blast. The dad was left wondering if he’d over-reacted.
The Gokhales aren’t the only Canadians wrestling over youth team travel decisions to the U.S right now. Many spring sports are scrutinizing their summer schedules, while hockey teams are picking tournaments for winter and fall. The Globe asked coaches, managers, parents and tournament directors across sports what they are seeing.
Out of fear or even national pride, many people are rethinking their travel plans. Their concerns range from fears at the border to a weakened Canadian dollar and spending money in a country whose president has levied tariffs and spoken of his desire to make Canada his 51st state. After all, they’ve heard warnings to scrub phones of anything a U.S. border agent could find inflammatory, or of workplaces telling employees not to bring company devices to the states.
“It’s a tough situation to be in,” Gokhale says. “We are very pro-Canadian, and we’re mindful of the moment.”
In April, the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association sent a memo to its organizations regarding U.S. travel.
The memo warned of factors to consider before booking travel, from the costs of trying to cancel later, to evolving travel advisories and possible implications for OWHA participants “relative to U.S. positions on gender and on 2SLGBTQI+.”
The OWHA oversees all girl’s hockey teams in the province and had heard from some teams who had booked U.S. tournaments and then were short players when the time came as some parents declined to go.
“Make sure that if you’re booking into a U.S. tournament, all the parents are buying into it beforehand,” OWHA president Fran Rider said. “We didn’t want people making huge bookings and putting a lot of money at risk without the dialogue.”
Bliss Edwards, who manages a boys’ U-14 Triple-A hockey team in Mississauga, said as the team plans for the fall, many parents requested the team not make trips to the United States.
While their team has played many past tournaments in New York to face teams outside Toronto, some families no longer want to cross the border to stay in American hotels with steep nightly rates.
Instead, they’ll play tournaments in Ottawa and London this season. Edwards has noticed that Canadian tournaments are filling up earlier this year.
“I had a third to a half of our team say they didn’t want to participate in a U.S. tournament,” said Edwards. “So you don’t want to put people in an uncomfortable position.”
The websites for many big coming U.S. youth baseball and softball tournaments confirm many Canadian teams are attending this season.
Tom Davidson, the president of Pastime Tournaments, an American company that operates 100-plus high-level youth baseball and softball events across the U.S, says that while a few committed Canadian teams recently called to ask about cancelling this year, most did not pull out. The numbers of Canadian entrants remain similar to last year.
Pastime Tournaments attract teams with elite players chasing scholarships, hoping to be seen by U.S college scouts there, so they may be more inclined to attend. Davidson says in past years, some Canadian teams would charter a bus and stay in the U.S. for a month, travelling to play several tournaments in the country. This year, some Canadians told Pastime that they worry about being hassled at the border or they don’t want to spend their money at big American hotel chains.
“I think there’s definitely that thought in the minds of some of our Canadian teams, like ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go down to the U.S. as often,’” said Davidson.
While the dollar has made travel budgets tighter for Canadian basketball coach Vidal Massiah, his programs like Northern Kings and Cali Prep remain focused around taking Canadian teams to elite U.S showcases frequently. One of Massiah’s goals is for his players to get exposure to American coaches to advance their careers.
Toronto native Zach Edey, who earned a scholarship to Purdue University and now plays for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, is one of the coach’s success stories.
Massiah’s teams have had no problems at the border and their families aren’t stepping back from U.S. travel. It’s what they signed up for.
“NCAA scholarships are available to Canadians but people go where things are happening rather than wait for them to come and see you,” said Massiah. “The hope is that our players attract attention, attract coaches to come and see them on their own soil. But part of that process starts in the U.S. first.”
The Montreal Titans have five travel baseball teams, ages nine to 19, going to tournaments spanning Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and New York. The younger teams are doing one of the most treasured summer trips in the sport – to play in Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. They go to the U.S. for the nice facilities and to face top competition. Titans alumni have gotten interest from U.S. colleges.
Montreal Titans technical director Ian Jordan.Alexis Aubin/The Globe and Mail
Titans technical director Ian Jordan estimates a quarter of parents on his teams have expressed reservations about U.S. travel this year, citing worries at the border. The players are committed to travel, but some parents will stay home.
Jordan would think twice about taking players if he’d seen proof that Canadians are being mistreated at U.S. customs or by American citizens. But he thinks those concerns are overblown.
“The new administration in Washington has created a lot of ill will with Canadians, and I don’t blame [the parents], because I don’t feel thrilled about it either,” said Jordan. “But the people we deal with at these U.S. tournaments, they haven’t done anything to us. We’ve had nothing but wonderful experiences there for 20 years.”
That’s been on Matt Sandles’s mind too, director of The Motor City Classic, a youth baseball tournament in Michigan, which sees hundreds of teams from the U.S. and Canada. While he still has an estimated 48 Canadian teams among the 370 slated to play this July, a few from Canada inquired about cancelling.
Sandles can’t give refunds, because money has already been spent booking fields. Instead, he’s offered to transfer fees to another team from their association who might want to attend, or to put the fees toward the 2026 tournament.
Each year, Sandles individually e-mails teams across Ontario to invite them – both new and returning clubs. This year, his invites prompted a few prickly replies from Canadian coaches.
“One of the e-mails said ‘I would never bring my proud Canadian kids to a country with a leader that is doing and saying the things he is about our great nation. Never 51,’” said Sandles.
“I got about seven e-mails like that. What does that have to do with me? I just run a baseball tournament. And what does that have to do with the kids? I‘d like to say, ‘Well why not come make your point another way, by winning the tournament.’”
The company 200x85, which runs many big youth hockey tournaments and experiences throughout North America and Europe, says while it still has many Canadian teams entering its U.S. tournaments this year, it has heard some vow they won’t go to America this season.
“I believe it is not even so much on the dollar, but all fuelled from a full sense of animosity and anger toward the U.S. political climate/rhetoric – which is so disheartening,” said Kevin Mann in an e-mail to The Globe. The CEO of 200x85 is himself Edmonton-born. “I respect and understand the Canadians and their position, but the U.S. hockey families have not changed for the worse, and we will continue to welcome everyone with dignity that travels to our events.”
Meanwhile in Canada, the Bell Capital Cup in Ottawa, one of the world’s largest minor hockey tournaments, hosts some 250-300 teams over five days every year in late December.
Registrations are opened for the 2025 tournament and its general manager says spots are filling up faster than usual. Some teams have said they typically add Canadian and U.S. tournaments to their schedule, but are changing it up this year. The event is ready to accommodate up to 20 per cent more teams this year if needed.
“Canadian teams, and we’ve heard from some of them, they want to stay in Canada.” said Mark Sluban, general manager of the tournament, part of Senators Sports & Entertainment Group.
Sluban said his own family has halted travel to the U.S. His daughter is a competitive skier, and they’ve chosen to train in Ontario rather than Vermont. He also cancelled a trip to Florida for Spring Training.
“Like a lot of Canadians, I‘m trying to buy Canadian at the grocery store, so if I‘m doing that at home, how can I justify travelling over the border and spending thousands of dollars in the U.S.?”
The Montreal Titans baseball team debated not travelling to the United States this season due to growing political and economic tensions between the two countries.Alexis Aubin/The Globe and Mail
Editor’s note: In a previous version of this article, the final photo caption incorrectly stated the Montreal Titans baseball team has decided not to travel to the United States this season. The team debated not travelling to the U.S., but ultimately decided they will do so. This version has been updated.