Vancouver Canucks

From Frikipedia

A team with a rich and storied tradition of having the worst uniforms/logos in professional sports.

Contents 1 First design 2 The Flying V? 3 The Skate 4 Please DON'T Save the Whales 5 And now...

First design

Upon entering the NHL in 1970, the Vancouver Canucks invented the most lackluster, nonsensical logo design in history: A hockey stick inside of a blue rectangle. As a WHL junior franchise, the logo had been Johnny Canuck, but they did not carry this logo into the professional leagues. In combination with their blue uniforms with a drab green stripe, it was used as a strategy to try and bore the other team into submission. It was unsuccessful as a strategy, as the Canucks teams of the 70's were largely complete bubbish.

As a demonstration of how bad the subsequent uniforms adopted by the Canucks were, this design was brought back for "retro nights" in the 2005-06 season and was loved by the fans so much that it became the jersey of choice for their playoff run the following season.

The Flying V?

The decidingly boring sweaters of the 70's gained the Canucks very little notoriety, and induced many yawns, so for the 1978 to 1982 period they chose a logo that would make the opposition throw up in disgust. They then adopted new team colors, black, orange and yellow, in the shape of a "V". Presumably the V stood for vomit.

The strategy earned them one decidedly lucky Stanley Cupfinals berth in '82, but they were out-vomited quite decidedly in four straight games, by the equally nauseating New York Islanders

Friki Editors Note: The New York Islanders are a team which has been subsequently deemed "dead to Friki", making the Vancouver Canucks the retroactive Stanley Cup champions of 1982, but for the purpose of this article, Friki is going to ignore this indisputable fact.

The Skate

Realizing that having a North American sports team with no team logo was a cardinal sin, and "just not done" (unless you're the NFL'sCleveland Browns), the Canucks had to develop an actual logo that could be used to shamelessly sell merchandise such as T-shirts and Panini stickers.

The creative geniuses drew on their previous brainstorming sessions, and moved from using a hockey stick to using the equally obvious skate. The logo was first featured on the sleeve of the "flying V" jersey, and then appeared in its own right, as the crest on the front of the uniform.

The Canucks made one further Cup finals appearance in 1994, and lost to New York, but this time it was the Rangers and not the Islanders, meaning this one actually counts to Friki. This Finals loss was extremely satisfying for Friki as well, because the Canucks had beaten the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Semis, a fact that it still rues to this very day, thirteen years later.

Please DON'T Save the Whales

One would assume that a decade was long enough for hockey fans to endure the dreadful "skate" logo. So when the team was sold to new ownership, they announced at some point in the late 90's (Friki can't be arsed to look up what year it actually was) that they would be completely re-designed.

It is no surprise that the corporate entity that bought the team is called "Orca Bay Sports", but that is completely inconsequential to the development of the logo, Friki is sure. Friki must admit, that the black, red and blue color scheme on the uniform itself wasn't that bad, but the absolute mish-mash of a logo, trying to incorporate a "C" and a whale was a powerfully weak effort - especially when two other Canadian NHL teams in Calgary and Montreal already sported stylized "C" logos.

And now...

When the Canucks announced (yet again) that they were to change the team sweater design before the 2007-08 season, there was a huge amount of excitement amongst the Vancouver faithful. The team involved fans in the decision through contests, and dropped several hints as to what their new jerseys would look like during the summer off-season. The main hint was that the uniform would owe a lot to the blue and green retro 1970's jerseys (see first logo) that proved so popular with fans through the last two seasons.

With great fanfare, the team introduced the "new" look just before the season began, and it featured the same, fan-hated "Whale C", and the mostly-lame old green and blue color scheme, in a hybrid version of two previously bubbish designs. In case any of the players forgot what city they were living in or what team they played for (easy to do, as a Canuck), the word "Vancouver" was spelled out, just so that there was no confusion.

Fans and the NHL community reacted to the "new and original" design with dispassionate yawns, much like when the team entered the NHL 37 long years ago.

The Vancouver Canucks' level of bubbish has increased tenfold as of December 2008 with the news that the team has signed unrestricted free agent, villain, and Benedict Arnold Mats Sundin for the remainder of the season.