The Vancouver Canucks may be the biggest sports team in town, but they aren’t getting the same shoutout from the city’s transit authority that they once did.
According to a new report by the Daily Hive‘s Rob Williams, Vancouver’s TransLink service has discontinued the use of the “Go Canucks Go” message that used to adorn the LED screens above the windshields of buses around the city.
In a conversation with a TransLink official, Williams learned that TransLink made the decision “years ago” to replace the Canucks-themed message in favour of a more generic (or, as they put it, “inclusive”) slogan: “Go Team Go.” Some Canucks fans aren’t too enthused about the change.
“Driving around Vancouver today, I saw a bunch of buses with ‘GO TEAM GO’ on the display,” Canucks fan Walter Siu tweeted back in April. “We all know it’s the Canucks. Is there really a need for this to be generic?”
Vancouver, of course, has many sports teams: the Canucks, Lions, and Whitecaps, among others. But the Canucks are clearly the top dog — their playoff tickets are going for massive prices, not to mention their sold-out road game watch parties — and it wasn’t long ago that Vancouver city buses did read “Go Canucks Go” on the front.
Well, as TransLink explained to Williams, the current fleet of city buses can only be programmed with a limited number of pre-set messages. Evidently, “Go Canucks Go” didn’t make the cut.
The Canucks-themed message last appeared on TransLink buses during the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, back when LED screen technology was apparently more advanced. The messages did not reappear when the Canucks faced off against the Calgary Flames in the first round of the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
It remains to be seen whether Canucks fans will erupt in a chorus of “Go Team Go” chants if and when their team’s current Western Conference quarterfinal playoff series reverts back to Vancouver for Game 7 — or, of course, if the Canucks advance to face the Edmonton Oilers in the next round. Game 6 between the Canucks and Nashville Predators goes Friday at 4:00 p.m. PT.
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