The Vancouver Canucks are celebrating the Lunar New Year with another dazzling and limited-edition jersey honouring the Year of the Dragon.
“Lunar New Year provides us a unique opportunity to showcase the richness of the East Asian culture while celebrating the diversity of our community that makes Vancouver so welcoming and inclusive,” said Michael Doyle, business operations president of Canucks Sports and Entertainment.
“The tradition of welcoming spring and the good fortune of a new year allows us to connect with our fans and the community in a meaningful and impactful way.”
This year, the Canucks are celebrating with a merchandise collection — available online and in-store — co-designed by award-winning artist Trevor Lai.
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Global News spoke with Lai about this year’s jersey.
“I wanted to make sure that the dragon and the skate were really integrated. So the whole idea here is that the dragon is wrapping around the team, providing it with power, the majesty of the actual dragon itself,” he said.
“Then in the eyes, I wanted to make sure that we have the blue and the green, which are, of course, the home Canucks colours.”
The gold jerseys are the second iteration for this year; the first was a red jersey which sold out on the first day.
“The original one I designed was red and thanks to all the fans, we sold out in basically a day,” Lai said. “So the next version that (we came up with) was the gold on gold.
“(Since) ancient times, gold has been associated with royalty and the dragon was an animal that was associated with royalty as well.”
Being the Canucks’ designer for Lunar New Year uniforms has been a labour of love for Lai.
This year, he incorporated the Canucks into his day job as the creator of the successful Super BOOMi cartoon. He created a mini episode with robot hockey Canucks players.
The Canucks’ celebration will be Saturday as they play Columbus in Rogers Arena.
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