Much like their other special events this season, the Vancouver Canucks will be wearing unique warm-up jerseys for Friday's Pride Night celebration.
The jerseys were announced on Thursday via the Canucks' social media channels as modeled by winger Anthony Beauvillier. The logos are a bright and colourful celebration of Pride, which makes it a bit of a shame that they're slapped onto such a plain, white jersey.
The primary and alternate logos were designed by Vancouver artist Christina Hryc, who previously designed a logo for the Vancouver Whitecaps' Pride Match.
Like the logo for the Whitecaps, the Canucks' 2023 Pride Night logo prominently features a monarch butterfly.
"The monarch butterfly is a symbol of mental health awareness," says the release from the Canucks. "A reminder to be kind to one another."
The main orca logo has a flowing rainbow across the top, which is a standard symbol of Pride, but also incorporates the black, brown, blue, pink, and white colours from the Progress Pride Flag in the ice on the bottom. The black and brown symbolize people of colour, whose stories are often left out of the Pride narrative, while the blue, pink, and white represent trans people, who are particularly under attack in North America at this time.
March 31, the day of the Canucks' Pride Night, is also International Transgender Day of Visibility, a day dedicated to both celebrating trans people and raising awareness of the discrimination they face. Including the colours of the trans flag into the Canucks' Pride Night logo is a subtle but important act of solidarity with a marginalized group.
The secondary logo uses the Canucks' original stick-in-rink design and includes pansies along with the rainbow and butterflies.
"The Pansies are a nod to the first LGBTQ+ movement in the 1930's known as the Pansy Craze," reads the release.
This nod to the history of Pride is important, as it's not a recent movement as some like to argue. The 2SLGBTQIA+ community has been fighting for inclusion for decades.
On the back, the numbers feature a rainbow arch, while it appears that the namebar for all of the jerseys will say "You Can Play" instead of the name of each player. While this represents the team's partnership with the You Can Play Project, which works toward the safety and inclusion of 2SLGBTQIA+ people in sports, it also suggests a potential compromise if there were any players unsure about wearing the warm-up jersey.
Several players this season have opted out of wearing a Pride jersey, with most citing religious beliefs as the reason, while entire teams have scrapped Pride Night jerseys entirely. By not putting the names of the players on the back of the jersey, the Canucks might be making the statement to the players that this is a team initiative and not something that the players have to personally endorse.
To be clear, that is merely conjecture, but past Pride Night jerseys have included the names of each player on the back and this would be a change.
The Canucks are selling the Pride Night jersey online, though it doesn't come cheap at $750, which has been the standard price for the Canucks' special event jerseys. The logo is also available on hoodies, t-shirts, hats, pucks, and decals.
