Swedish artist creates Canucks Pride Night jerseys

Swedish artist Mio Linzie combined the natural beauty of Vancouver with the colors of the rainbow to create a unique and stunning jersey as the Canucks celebrated Pride Night on Friday.

The jerseys, which featured the artist's design inside the Canucks usual orca breaking out of ice "C" logo, burned up social media when the team wore them during warmups.

"I wanted to scream. It is so crazy... My mind is blown," Linzie told NHL.com. "As an artist and as a Queer artist, you want to share your work and you want as many people to see it as possible. That's what you dream of when you are a kid. It's so surreal."

The bottom elements of the work were ocean life with the middle a scenic landscape followed by a colorful sky near the top. It comes together in what even the most amateur art appreciator could see the beauty.
"I wanted to capture two elements. I wanted to capture the Queer element, celebrating pride and I wanted to capture the nature and beauty of Vancouver," Linzie said, speaking while standing on a frozen lake in Lulea, Sweden where she studies graphic design.
This was not her first gig for an NHL team.
She made a special pride design for the Dallas Stars last season
. Being Swedish, though, means something else when working for the Canucks.
Despite the fact that Linzie, 20, only recently became a hockey fan [she was just nine years old when legendary Swedish players Daniel and Henrik Sedin led the Canucks to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final] she says she is well-versed in hockey history.
But it was also special to see the Swedish-born Canucks, forwards Elias Pettersson and Nils Hoglander and defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson wear her design.

"In Sweden, hockey is everywhere," she said. "I got into hockey through my Queer friends in the past year-and-a-half or so, but I love reading about the history of hockey. I know all about the Sedins and what they mean to Sweden and what they mean to Vancouver."
The jerseys featuring her design are being auctioned off to benefit You Can Play, an organization dedicated to ensuring safety and inclusion for all who participate in sports, including LGBTQ+ athletes, coaches and fans.

"It's such an important cause," she said. "I got into hockey through my Queer friends, and it looks like a straight and male dominated sport, but through these efforts it's like, 'I can like this too. There is a place for me here.' I think we are winning over the culture. We've made so much progress, I can tell from the people around me."

Linzie, who has known she has wanted to be an artist since she was a pre-teen, hopes someday to work in hockey, creating her unique brand of art.
"Art is my life," she said. "It's why I love hockey. Hockey is art to me."