Pro athletes express shock, sadness over mass shooting

John Axford remembers going to bars and concerts around Toronto’s Greektown neighbourhood years before he became a member of the Blue Jays.

When the right-handed reliever from Port Dover, Ont., saw a photo of the area on Monday afternoon — closed off by yellow police tape after a deadly mass shooting a night earlier — he shook his head.

“Devastating. It’s hard to put into words,” Axford said before Toronto opened a three-game home series against the Minnesota Twins.

“This summer seems to be unimaginable thus far with tragedies that have occurred here.”

The shooting, which happened late Sunday night in the lively eastend neighbourhood, left a 10-yearold girl and an 18-year-old woman dead after a man went on a shooting spree down one of the city’s busiest streets, police said Monday.

Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney, an American who has been with the MLS club since December 2013, said it was surprising to hear about the shooting.

“You see this stuff going on unfortunately in the U.S. and a lot of cities and you felt like ‘ Well, Canada and Toronto have been immune to some of that stuff.’ That’s always been ... something I’ve really appreciated about Toronto and Canada in general,” Vanney said.

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner, a 21-year-old from nearby Markham, Ont., was one of many athletes to express their condolences to victims over Twitter, saying he was “shocked and saddened” to hear the news.

Newly acquired Maple Leaf John Tavares, a native of Mississauga, Ont., tweeted a black-and-white photo of the city skyline with the hashtag #TorontoStrong written across in blue.