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Amid a heated trade war, there’s been lots of love between Ontario’s Niagara region and Buffalo, N.Y.
In the latest show of camaraderie, Niagara Falls Tourism placed a full-page open letter in the Buffalo News on Friday, inviting Americans to cross the bridge and celebrate with border neighbours Ontario on Saturday night.
That’s when Niagara Falls will be lit up in the red, white and blue colours associated with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, accompanied by matching-coloured fireworks.
The open letter in the newspaper notes that when the Bills played O Canada at the Sept. 17 home opener at the new Highmark Stadium, “Canadians sang along from the stadium, in sports bars and on couches across the country.” The highly anticipated event featured the Barenaked Ladies singing O Canada and actress Auliʻi Cravalho’s rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.
Visit Buffalo also posted billboards across southern Ontario with the message, “O Canada, We’re Still Singing it, Love Buffalo.”
On Sept. 16, the team posted a video on social media showing retired Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and former wide receiver Stevie Johnson completing some cross-border football catches along the Niagara River, tossing to each other from aboard distant ferries.
‘We just want to say thank you’
Adam Stiles, interim president and CEO of Niagara Falls Tourism, noted the anthem tribute and other kind gestures coming from Buffalo.
Stiles said Canadians want to return some of that love and spread a message of coming together at a time tariffs and other political issues are dominating the news.
“When you get down to that human level, people want to rally around that idea and those gestures,” he told CBC News.
“We just want to say thank you for doing something nice for us.”
For the first time in the team’s history, the Buffalo Bills played the Canadian national anthem ahead of their home opener against the Detroit Lions — a nod, the Bills say, to the thousands of Canadian fans who have crossed the border to watch them for decades.
In a news release, Stiles said “Buffalo’s welcome [at the NFL game] meant a great deal to Canadians, and we wanted to return that warmth. Our communities share much more than a border: we share friendships, families and a love of the Bills.
“Saturday is our way of saying thank you and reminding our American neighbours that they are always welcome in Niagara Falls, Canada.”
The special illumination lighting is set to take place between 10 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. ET, with fireworks from 10 p.m. to 10:05 p.m.
