Celebrating the Canucks 40th Year Anniversary, Acquiring the Vancouver Millionaires Trademark and Other Musings

With the Vancouver Canucks celebrating their 40th year anniversary has come a whole host of pretty cool things they’re doing to make this year special. Some of the things in the works are pretty neat, others are pretty silly, but overall, this season only looks to get better and better.

For starters, you may have noticed the aesthetic changes to Rogers Arena this season. After Rogers acquired the arena naming rights, they’ve redone the logo at center ice, the sign outside the arena and the colour of the stairs in the lower bowl. And of course, this year they’re introducing the Ring of Honor, which will be located atop the 500 level suites.

Photo credit: canucks.nhl.com

The other day, the Canucks acquired the brand, marketing and merchandising rights to the Vancouver Millionaires trademark and logo. Does this mean we can finally say we’ve won the Stanley Cup? In all seriousness this is just well, cool. I bought a Millionaires jersey as soon as I found out the Vancouver Giants were doing a throwback night where they wore the Millionaires maroon and donned the white hockey pants. White hockey pants, seriously one of the coolest things you’ll see in a game when you’re used to black pants. Going to games I’ve noticed that Millionaires jerseys are showing up more and more and have always wanted the Canucks to play a game in Millionaires jerseys. Now that they own the rights to the trademarks and logos I guess – or at least I hope – that I’ll finally get to see that. It may not happen this season as I’m not sure if the Canucks have registered this request with the league, but it’s certainly something I look forward to in the future. Even Don Taylor things they are one of the best retro jerseys ever. Again though, white hockey pants, awesome.

The other thing I’ve noticed the Canucks have come up with recently is a really cool project taking some of the Canucks most iconic moments to the street. Done by VisionMedia, this project showcases some of the Canucks fondest memories in the form of a streetwash. It’s different, it takes the Canucks out onto the streets and the fan in me loves it.

Photo credit: Vancity Buzz

One of the things I’m not a huge fan of though is the announcement of another Canucks Day taking place today, October 4th. Now I don’t know about you, but the last Canucks day happened after the team’s first round victory against the LA Kings in last year’s playoffs; shortly after that followed another second round exit to the Chicago Blackhawks. Frankly, we may be celebrating the Canucks 40th season, but I don’t see a reason for a “Canucks Day”, especially because the previous one occurred only less than six months after the first. April 27th shouldn’t have been Canucks day and neither should October 4th. To me, this seems like just another publicity stunt. I’ll be perfectly happy when they announce Canucks Day as the day after we win our first Stanley Cup.

Regardless, I think it’s great that the Canucks are going all out on their 40th birthday. Let’s hope for a good 110-game(-ish) party culminating in our first real Canucks Day sometime in mid-June.