Oh Canada!

Hello Everyone! Happy Canada Day! If you are not a Canadian reading this blog, do tough it out. I will talk about some stuff which will interest Americans, like baseball.

Anyways, for us Canadians, hockey is something that really draws us together. However it is only once the snow and ice have melted that we take time to celebrate everything great about our country (officially at least!) Canada Day is here, and I can think of no better thing to do than post some hockey jerseys.

Ironically, the inspiration for these Canada Day themed Canucks sweaters come from the world of baseball. In the MLB every July 4th (and Memorial Day, also, I think...) every team rolls out a specialty uniform featuring the teams logo with some alterations made to make them more patriotic. This has usually been stars and stripes inlaid within the logo, unless you're the Blue Jays, they have a red and white maple leaf design.

My local baseball team the Vancouver Canadians are the single A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, and have joined in the tradition of wearing patriotic caps on Canada day as well. How could they not do this? Their name is the CANADIANS!   

Canuck is also a slang term for a Canadian, so it would make sense if the Canucks decided to produce a specialty uniform for use on Canada day. Unfortunately, the Canucks will probably never play a game on Canada day, so them wearing special Canada day uniforms will never happen. Nonetheless, I have made them up. Enjoy!

I have chose Roberto Luongo's name to go on these sweaters for two reasons. The first being, that Luongo has had the most success when playing in Vancouver, wearing a Canadian uniform. The second being that with Schneider being re-signed, and with it being July 1st and free agency opening up potential for signings and moves, it may be my last chance to put Luongo's name on the back of a jersey on this blog.

For this jersey I have tried to keep the striping simple and classic, so as to not take away from any of the  specialty elements on the jersey.

The logo is the Canucks' Stick in the Rink crest re-coloured to fit the Canadian flag, which shows up in the background of the "rink," just like it would on an MLB "Stars and Stripes" baseball cap. I also drew some more inspiration from baseball on this sweater. The numbers in the maple leaf patch was a feature on the Vancouver Canadians Canada day uniform last year.

I also made a white version to match the red jersey.

And since these uniforms were largely inspired by the Vancouver Canadians baseball sweaters, I thought it would be a neat idea to do one in their colour scheme, and include black on the jerseys. Admittedly this last one is my least favourite, they are definitely "black for black's sake," but I thought I should try to pay some homage to the team which was the inspiration for these sweaters.