[Des!Munda DrippinLik3Fanta]

Well, it's better than the skate and the flying-V
Column by Iain Macintyre, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 29, 2007
They could be pink and made from velour. Or velveteen. They could have the drape of Luciano Pavarotti's dressing gown or Mama Cass's mumu. They could have puffy sleeves like Seinfeld's shirt, or puffy pants like Ronald McDonald's or fit like Toller Cranston's costumes.

The numbers could be in braille and the logo something bizarre and indecipherable like, say, an orange flying-V. The sweaters might be accessorized by a shawl or long pants like the Philadelphia Flyers wore in the 1980s. There could be elbow patches or, worse, tassels.

The colour could be washed out like white asparagus and, like the vegetable, make your urine smell. Worse than it already did.

The Vancouver Canucks' new uniforms could be any of these things and if the National Hockey League team won a Stanley Cup in them, our city would happily become the worst-dressed on the planet.

Who among you hockey fans would not trade cool clothes for one measly Stanley Cup parade?

Thirty-seven years after that chase began, the Canucks returned today to where they started: in blue and green and with zero Stanley Cups.

Nothing wrong with blue and green. They are the colours of the Pacific Northwest and the best choice the team could have made as it relaunched its look to usher in, slightly belatedly, a new era of Vancouver owners: Francesco Aquilini and his family.

(Or Ryan Beedie and Tom Gagliardi if the civil suit goes their way. I'm no Johnnie Cochran Jr., but mostly what Beedie and Gagliardi seemed to have proved so far in their legal bid to own the Canucks is that former CEO Stan McCammon was an #$!!&*@ and everyone already knew that. And that former owner John McCaw's memory improves with time and legal counsel).

New chief executive officer Chris Zimmerman, who probably knows a thing or two about marketing and merchandising from his previous gig at Nike, said today that he began working on the uniform project when he was hired by Aquilini last October.

Apart from the West Coast colours, the original Canuck logo -- a stick-in-rink stylized C that looks a little like a smiling Pacman -- was refined and returned to the jersey's shoulders, while the contentious killer whale logo was cleaned up and retained on the chest.

The whale, apparently vegetarian as it has square "chewing" teeth instead of jagged "ripping" chompers, appeared previously only because it meshed with McCaw's corporate identity in Seattle. Naturally, many assumed it would be dropped. Judging by man-on-the-street and radio-show-caller reaction today, the logo is already a bullseye for criticism.

Maybe the bar has been set low, but the whale is still a heckuva lot better than the Canucks' downhill skate which, resplendent amid an orgy of red, yellow, black and orange, looked like a boot dropped on a plate of linguini marinara. And let's not get started on the flying-V, which was like something the cleaning crew on the USS Enterprise might have worn.

The only really bad thing about the new sweaters, modelled by five Canucks at GM Place for 6,000 fans with nothing better to do on a gorgeous, summer weekday in Vancouver, is that shirt tails hanging out front and back are reminiscent of maternity wear and channel images of a pregnant Greg Luzinski when the Chicago White Sox briefly wore shirts outside the pants.

The worst thing about the old sweaters is that the Canucks so frequently lost in them.

The retro blue-and-green uniform was the team's most popular in recent years, striking a nostalgic chord that makes the more caustic reaction today to the new duds -- much the same as the originals except for the logo -- difficult to understand.

Funny, also, how there was no groundswell of outrage nearly three decades ago when blue and green were traded for black and yellow. Maybe the retro jerseys looked good lately because the Canucks actually won games while wearing them.

Bringing out new uniforms is not an exercise that can be "won" because there is always something to dislike. The best the Canucks could do was hope for a "tie" and Zimmerman knew this ahead of time.

"In this city and this province, discussions about the Canucks' uniform has become an art form," he said today. "It's non-contact, competitive sport. So maybe on some level, that's good for us. You know if you get too caught up... thinking you can please every person, you just realize it's not a reality.

"Someone asked me about the research we did; there is research out there every day. You just have to turn on the radio or pick up the newspaper. So what this would mean in this market was very clear [to me]."

Canuck runway models Willie Mitchell, Markus Naslund, Kevin Bieksa, Mattias Ohlund, and Trevor Linden all professed their like for the new jerseys. This just in: they all like their paycheques, too.

But if they're being dishonest, they're lying off the record, too.

"Seeing all the different [Canuck] jerseys -- and this has parts of a bunch of them -- hopefully, the group here can leave it's own mark with these jerseys," Mitchell, a British Columbian, said. "Hopefully, we can create our own legacy with these jerseys."

They'll look splendid if the Canucks start the season 5-0. And if they start 0-5, Karl Lagerfeld couldn't help them.

"Ultimately, when you look around at league-wide jersey sales," Linden said, "it's who has won a lot that [determines] which ones are successful."

Bieksa said: "I'm not surprised by the interest but I am happy about it. We were talking about that in the dressing room before we went out, that only in Canada would 6,000 people come to watch a sweater launch. Everyone will debate the jersey and what they like and what they don't like."

Complaints will continue even after it starts soaring off store shelves in two weeks.

[VaNuCkZ]

I didn't read all of it; but you can easily see Naslund, Linden, co. really don't like the jerseys. They just won't say anything because, well they play for the Canucks.

[6salopyatt9]

The article sucked/.

[Gary Bromley]

good read.

although I dont agree what the writer said about the skate logo.

best line....."shirt tails hanging out front and back are reminiscent of maternity wear and channel images of a pregnant Greg Luzinski when the Chicago White Sox briefly wore shirts outside the pants."

[-spike-]

6salopyatt9, on Aug 29 2007, 07:39 PM, said:

The article sucked/.

Speaking as an editor for The Sun, I find your criticism of our finest columnist's work a bit under-thought.

[The Dark Canuck]

Funny how there's no mention of the worst part...the huge "VANCOUVER" wordmark

[-spike-]

canucksbrad, on Aug 29 2007, 07:44 PM, said:

Funny how there's no mention of the worst part...the huge "VANCOUVER" wordmark

I think the VANCOUVER provides a bit of a link to the Millionaires uniforms

[TheGhostOfPetePeeters]

-spike-, on Aug 29 2007, 07:43 PM, said:

Speaking as an editor for The Sun, I find your criticism of our finest columnist's work a bit under-thought.

Is "under-thought" a word from the "English" language Mr. Editor?

[-spike-]

TheGhostOfPetePeeters, on Aug 29 2007, 07:47 PM, said:

Is "under-thought" a word from the "English" language Mr. Editor?

I just made it one. Don't forget the English language is a living organism, always changing. That's why you don't speak like Will Shakespeare wrote.

[TheGhostOfPetePeeters]

-spike-, on Aug 29 2007, 07:51 PM, said:

I just made it one. Don't forget the English language is a living organism, always changing. That's why you don't speak like Will Shakespeare wrote.

Way to save face.

I guess i have been over-witted.

[The Toilet_49]

Canucks92, on Aug 29 2007, 07:56 PM, said:

I was in the moment. But yeah, I do regret most of the things I said today.

I still don't like the jerseys though.

alright alright, i accept the fact that you dont like them..just didnt like some of the stuff used to say it, just worked up from everyone else talking trash about it all day

these will grow on people i know it.

[Sweet 16]

Gary Bromley, on Aug 29 2007, 07:39 PM, said:

although I dont agree what the writer said about the skate logo.

I remember how furious I was when they changed from the V to the skate. (Of course, I didn't actually figure out that it was a skate, and not an odd looking bee, until quite a few years later. ) It was the least attractive, by far, of all the Canucks' logos.
It just goes to show that what people are saying about success determining perception is right on.

[6salopyatt9]

-spike-, on Aug 29 2007, 07:43 PM, said:

Speaking as an editor for The Sun, I find your criticism of our finest columnist's work a bit under-thought.

Province articles are always better, I like reading newspapers, I don't like how you guys try to hard to incorporate funny jokes into it. It sucked, it was just 'meh'...

[JCiarniello]

The article says nothing

[-spike-]

TheGhostOfPetePeeters, on Aug 29 2007, 07:58 PM, said:

Way to save face.

I guess i have been over-witted.

Save face

Surely you mean to say that I have crushed you like a bug.

PS. As far as the news jerseys go, I would like to have seen one with the wordmark, but without the logo.

[J u g g e r n a u t]

Canucks92, on Aug 29 2007, 07:37 PM, said:

I didn't read all of it; but you can easily see Naslund, Linden, co. really don't like the jerseys. They just won't say anything because, well they play for the Canucks.

yah i noticed that too

[6salopyatt9]

JCiarniello, on Aug 29 2007, 08:02 PM, said:

The article says nothing

YES, exactly what I've been trying to say, it's just a bunch of words...no meaning you know??

hard to explain.

[-spike-]

6salopyatt9, on Aug 29 2007, 08:00 PM, said:

Province articles are always better, I like reading newspapers, I don't like how you guys try to hard to incorporate funny jokes into it. It sucked, it was just 'meh'...

Most days I agree with you about the moronic little jokes and witty allusions to the news pages. Somehow those things have become part of the sports-writing lexicon. Give me a quick gritty slap-your-face assessment of the team of its play any day.

But then I don't make those rules around here.

[Frank Caprice]

Canucks92, on Aug 29 2007, 06:37 PM, said:

I didn't read all of it; but you can easily see Naslund, Linden, co. really don't like the jerseys. They just won't say anything because, well they play for the Canucks.

Give me a break, "You can easily tell they don't like the jerseys". Right, thanks for coming out Kreskin. If you're so god-damned psychic, why haven't you won the lottery yet?

What a moronic statement.

[Des!Munda DrippinLik3Fanta]

JCiarniello, on Aug 30 2007, 03:02 AM, said:

The article says nothing

Responding for the sensible users of CDC, here is a news flash: Articles don't talk.