john bollwitt blog

I’m not sure where I picked this up exactly, but it’s a really great read. There are so many, non-Canucks fans who look at the original logo for Vancouver and can’t figure it out. Just recently, in fact, Rebecca and I had a Flames fan ask us this question. Even I knew that it’s a “C” for “Canucks”, made from a hockey rink with a hockey stick set inside it, just like you see here(click on it for a larger image).

The story of it is really interesting though.

“For one thing,” Joe explains, “I was a hockey fan. But also I was on my own as a graphic artist and I figured if I ever got this thing [the logo], it would really be something because Vancouver is such a crazy town for hockey.

“I spent about a week doing it,” he recalls. “I took it to Greg Douglas who was then the Canuck’s public relations man. He said that Mr. [Tom] Scallen and Mr. [Lyman] Walters, who were the heads of Medicor, were coming to Vancouver and he’d make arrangements to have me meet them.

“So it was the next day or so that I went to the Hotel Vancouver to see them. They owned an agency in San Francisco that did advertising for their ice shows, and they also had submissions from other people around the States.

“They had a whole pile of designs scattered around the floor, but I really had no time to look at them closely.

“So I submitted mine and left it there after explaining about the blue and green for the water, mountains and trees. There was no price talked about.

“About two weeks later, Greg called me up and said, ‘Joe, they want to go with your design. [sportslogos]

I also love the part where Brian Burke coughed up the cash to use the logo for Orca Bay to use the logo on Vancouver’s third jersey. You wouldn’t think that an organization would be so nice to the creator of a logo like that, but this just goes to show the class that Burke had as a GM. At the same time, there is no arguing that Joe Borovich was the guy who created the logo.

If Orca Bay made the move to make the “stick in rink” logo, including the original colors, the main jersey for the Canucks, then I am all for it. It’s the only logo on any merchandise that I would buy, and Rebecca would probably tell you the same thing.

Update: Not so much to this post, but the Canucks played in Columbus tonight. Great game, taking it into overtime. 3-2 over the Blue Jackets.

I don’t like calling it soccer. I do it anyway, but there’s a big part of me that wants to call it football. When I say that, I see Nile Kinnick[wiki], black and gold, helmets, persistant pain in my hip during my sophomore year of high school, shoulder pads, getting the full-back’s knee in the head, the fifty-yard line, and a blur of other images associated with professional and college leagues of American football(Go Chiefs! and Go Hawks!). I’m not the biggest supporter of the pigskin, but the game does lure in my attention from time to time, much to Rebecca’s un-amusement.

With the World Cup in full swing, I’m digging it. So I’m trying to distinguish the two through my hispanic roots, but it’s not quite there yet. In spanish, it’s “futbol”. The football I grew up with is “futbol Americano”. I had Univision on my cable package back in Iowa, so every weekend they were showing a game with that word “futbol” plastered all over the graphics. Futbol on Univision! Play-by-play in spanish! You bet I’m up for watching, even though 90% of what is said kinda flies right by me.

I’m trying to condition myself to have that difference through simple stressing of syllables. Futbol is soccer. Football is American football. Canadian football[wiki] is a little out of the realm of my interests right now, but amusing none the less. It’s when Costa Rica scored a goal against Germany that I yelped and realized, “I’m kinda into this.”

And by the way, the U.S. is ranked #5 right now, so what happened today against the Czechs?  Maybe I have a lot to learn about this sport, but it pained me everytime we sent the ball back to the goalie, not to mention sending it back to midfield from the attacking zone, past players who were at a stand-still, watching the action around them.  Is it that they are playing their position, zone, or what?  It was like watching a hockey team pass the puck around twenty times, looking for that perfect play to open up for a goal when they should just be shooting at the goal every chance that they can.  It was not good.

I’m getting more and more excited for the World Cup[wiki]. I know next to nothing about anyone in the sport other than the fact that David Beckham[wiki] is married to Posh Spice. I also know that in America, we call it soccer, even though the sport has been around longer than American football.

This short from rathergood.com gets you even more in the mood, regardless of who you are pulling for. As to who I’m going for, I can’t really say. Like I said, I know very little. I do hear that the U.S. is an underdog favorite. There’s also that part of me that likes Mexico, and Brazil is always worth checking out.

Living in such an international city as Vancouver, it’ll be tough not paying attention to the festivities. I hear Commercial Drive is the place to be. I’ll have to check it out, maybe even bring some recording gear along with me.