The 1-0 win over Toronto FC at BC Place Stadium on March 2 was the silver lining for the Vancouver Whitecaps on an otherwise disappointing day.
The club announced a 21,000 “sellout” for the 11th time since entering Major League Soccer in 2011. Not 20,999 or 21,001. There were seats that remained empty in the loge and club seating areas, and I counted 22 level 3 suites that were vacant. Several thousand others on level 2 were under blue tarps. Level 4 is obscured by the so-called soccer curtain. The family, student, Southsiders and Curva Collective zones were packed.
Captain Jay Demerit and his fiancée, retired 2010 Olympic skicross gold medallist Ashleigh McIvor, were first to model the new jerseys at a February 27 reception in the Rocky Mountaineer station. Instead of the horizontal pinstripes of the first two seasons, they’re diagonal and might resemble rain falling from the sky or even leaks from the BC Place roof.
Demerit, however, ruptured his left Achilles tendon just eight minutes into the season opener. McIvor has many scars from operations on her knee ligaments. Demerit was the tattooed focal point of the Whitecaps’ stylish 2013 ad campaign. He was paid $350,000 in 2012 and may not be seen again at BC Place until 2014.
Demerit is the latest Vancouver athlete to learn the hard way about the jersey-modelling jinx.
When the National Basketball Association expansion Vancouver Grizzlies launched their jersey design, it wasn’t a basketball player who wore it first. It was professional volleyballer/supermodel Gabrielle Reece on May 18, 1995. Her husband Dean Cain was a Hollywood North star of Lois and Clark. Reece obviously never played a game for the Bad News Bears, who got FedExed to Memphis in 2000.
When the Canucks unveiled the jerseys for the full-time return to the blue, white and green colour scheme on August 29, 2007, Markus Naslund, Trevor Linden, Mattias Ohlund, Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa were the first to skate on then-GM Place ice in the new unis.
Linden and Naslund are both retired. So are their jersey numbers in the rafters of Rogers Arena. Ohlund and Mitchell joined the Tampa Bay Lightning and Los Angeles Kings, respectively, as free agents. Mitchell went south after a concussion ended his Canucks tenure and won the Stanley Cup in 2012 with the Kings. Only Bieksa remains a Canuck.
When the BC Lions unveiled their Reebok re-engineered (but not redesigned) jerseys in April 2012, they were modelled by Paul McCallum, Travis Lulay, Khalif Mitchell and Geroy Simon.
Simon’s last season in orange was also his worst in a decade, thanks to a hamstring injury that kept him out of five games. He is now a Saskatchewan Roughrider.
Furlong follow
The Whitecaps’ biggest signing of 2012 was executive chairman John Furlong. Two years removed from the 2010 Winter Olympics, the VANOC CEO helped the team achieve its $14.5 million of funding from the provincial government for the National Soccer Development Centre at the University of BC. Three weeks after that news conference, the Georgia Straight published an exposé on Furlong’s 1969 to 1972 period in Burns Lake and Prince George as a Catholic lay missionary. The RCMP confirmed it was investigating claims of abuse by former students.
Furlong sued for defamation in November, denying the accusations. The Georgia Straight and journalist Laura Robinson filed their defence statements a week apart in January, adding more alleged victims and even alleging spousal abuse. Furlong’s official court rebuttal is overdue.
Sources close to Furlong say he left Vancouver for Wexford, Ireland. Furlong and his primary defamation lawyer John Hunter did not respond to email queries. Lawyer Claire Hunter referred questions to Furlong’s agent, Andrea Shaw of the Twentyten Group.
Shaw confirmed to BIV that Furlong “was back in Ireland several weeks ago for a visit, and has now returned home to Vancouver. At this point in time John is reviewing the latest statements made in determining next steps.” •
