If you're married to the idea of AA, you have the additional idea of getting yourself to the west coast and catching an AS flight up to Vancouver. Alaska has a bunch of non-stops to YVR from most of the west-coast gateways (SEA, PDX, SFO, and LAX). While the SEA and PDX flights will be on regional jets operated by Horizon, they are EQM's on AA.

Then again, from that part of the world, I'd likely choose the CX flight from JFK.

Mike