SNEAK PEEK: The Canucks

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Vancouver Canucks fans go crazy after their team scores against the Calgary Flames during the second period of Game 1

of the Western Conference's Pacific Division 2015 Stanley Cup playoff match up at Rogers Arena. Wednesday April 15, 2015. (photo by Ric Ernst / Province)

Ric Ernst’s photograph of jubilant Vancouver Canucks fans captures the excitement of Canada’s national sport. 

The image, one of many documenting the hockey team’s history in a show that's on view until Aug. 2 at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver, was taken during the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs. 

The Canucks: A Photo History of Vancouver’s Team spans the decades from the 1950s and ’60s, when the Canucks were part of the Western Hockey League, through to the team’s franchising with the National Hockey League from 1970 onward.

It offers glimpses of key personalities, such as Pat Quinn, who played for the Canucks in 1970 and later worked as the team’s coach, president and general manager. There’s also a of shot of Wayne Gretzky vying with Harold Snepsts in the 1982 season, and images of Roberto Luongo and Pavel Bure.

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Camera reveals the snowy aftermath of a goal against Dunc Wilson

in a shot take by Ralph Bower, the first photographer to mount a camera with a 20mm lens in the net. December 1971. (photo by Ralph Bower / Vancouver Sun)

Many of the images were taken by Ralph Bower, a Vancouver Sun photographer who documented the team longer than any other photographer. 

He pioneered new techniques in sports photography, including mounting a remote control camera inside the goalie’s net.

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Celebrating the first goal by the new NHL 1970 Vancouver Canucks team. The goal was scored by #4 Barry Wilkins

seen celebrating with #2 Gary Doak, #7 Andre Boudrias and #19 Dale Tallon. October 9, 1970. (photo by Ralph Bower / Vancouver Sun)

Bower started work at the Sun in 1955 and retired in 1996. In the early days, he shot the Canucks at the Forum. Back then, the rink was surrounded by wire mesh, not Plexiglas. To get a photo without the wire, photographers cut a little box in the wire near the net, which they pulled out when they wanted to take a photo.

“I got hit once. Gordie Howe hit me, right in the arm," Bower told the Sun earlier this year. "He shot the puck and it went right through the hole. He came right over, ‘Are you all right?’ I said ‘It’s not too bad.’ He said ‘Well it wasn’t one of my hard shots!’” ■ 

The Canucks: A Photo History of Vancouver’s Team is on view at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver from June 18 to Aug. 2, 2020.

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