Vancouver Canucks 2SLGBTQ+ Pride jersey sign of hope, says artist

The Vancouver Canucks will be donning a different jersey during warm up Friday night before they take on the Washington Capitals.

The white and rainbow jerseys are being worn for “Pride Night” to celebrate Vancouver’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.

Mio Linzie lives in Sweden and says she answered an online call for submissions from the Vancouver Canucks to design the jersey.

The 20-year-old says it reflects her own identity as a queer person, as well as her love of nature.

Mio Linzie is a Swedish illustrator who designed the Pride Vancouver Canucks jersey drawing from her own experiences as a queer artist as well as her love of nature. Courtesy: esmiora.com

“Nature was always a core of how I started my process because I knew it was important to show the local community around Vancouver and B.C.,” she said.

“In my experience, nature is a very powerful queer metaphor, because being queer means being alive,” Linzie added.

This is her first time creating a jersey but she has done other designs in the past for NHL teams like the Carolina Hurricanes and the Dallas Stars.

“I have worked with queer things in the hockey community before so I think I had a lot of that experience and knowledge of what it meant,” she said about her latest project.

However, she admits she didn’t initially think there was a place for her in the hockey world.

Linzie has worked with other hockey teams in the past to create designs, including a Pride design for merchandise for the Dallas Stars. Courtesy: esmiora.com

“I used to hate hockey,” she said. “But I fell in love with hockey when I realized people like me could love it.”

“I’m not the typical hockey fan. If I hadn’t met people like me I would have never fallen in love. Being in that community and you know, forwarding the message and showing, ‘hey, we are here, we are here to stay, hockey is for you. You can be a hockey fan, you can enjoy sports.’ That is really important to me, and to show that hockey is growing and the sport is growing,” she said.

She hopes other members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community see her jersey and feel a sense of hope.

“I hope [they] relate to the jersey and what I’m trying to say and realize that there’s a place for you in hockey, realize that steps are being taken. They might be slow, some are big, some are small, but it’s growing and it is going forward and I think that this is a sign of that,” she said

“I think stuff like this shows that we matter and that we can take our place,” she added.

Inspired by @flyerswitch‘s queer experience and the beautiful landscape of British Columbia, dive into the details of the #Canucks 2022 Pride jersey. pic.twitter.com/QIvAwfmFsB

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) March 8, 2022

Partial proceeds from the jerseys will go to the “You Can Play” organization, which works to ensure the safety and inclusion for all who participate in sports, including 2SLGBTQ+ athletes, coaches, and fans.

The Canucks are also selling merchandise with the design for fans to buy.

2SLGBTQ+ stands for Two-Spirit (an umbrella term used by some Indigenous people to describe their sexual, gender, and/or spiritual identity), lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and intersex.