VEES HISTORY (2006-09-21 21:52:04)
In the winter of 2003/2004 Grant "Kingpin" Lawrence formed the first version of The Vancouver Flying Vees Hockey Club. Lawrence gave birth to The Vees after gaining inspiration while covering a hockey tornament in Toronto, The Exclaim Cup, for his weekly CBC radio program. The Exclaim Cup is a fun filled hockey tournament for Canadian musicians and artists from across the country. Lawrence, lead singer and frontman for Canada’s infamous underground garage band The Smugglers, just happened to know many a musician back in his hometown Vancouver, and decided to organize a group of them to play in the tournament. The challenge would be to get together a group of musicians who had any history whatsoever with skates, sticks and pucks. What he finally assembled was a rag-tag group of musicians, wannabe musicians and former pee-wee hockey stars. Some of this original group of Vees, in fact, had never played a period of ice hockey in their lives. They had, however, played music. And if street hockey counted, then surely we had ourselves a well seasoned contender. The Vees were winless in Toronto that year, but winning ways were on the horizon.
During the same winter another Vee, Jay "Snakebite" Johnston, had been hosting a lil’ Friday night shinney at Karen Magnussen Arena in North Vancouver. This weekly event proved to be both a talent pool and training camp for the post-Exclaim version of the Vancouver Flying Vees. Gathering in North Vancouver on a weekly basis were most of the other half of players who would eventually make up the present day Vees. Brian "Ball-Deep" Latta was a regular attendee of Johnston’s weekly round-up as well as a member of the original Toronto squad. He was also finishing his first ever season of hockey, playing on a beer league team with other rookie Vees Nick "Lock-Eye" Thomas, Kristian "Oly" Olsen, Paul "Deker" Needham, and Jordan Kenna. With the newfound thrill of playing hockey in his blood "Ball-Deep" began asking the Friday regulars and original Vees if any were interested in playing on a regular season team in The North Shore’s Duffers League. The response was an overwhelming "Yes" and after clearing the use of The Vees name and logo with Lawrence the local team was born.
Credit and thanks for The Vees logo design must be given to our good friend Kyle "Foggy-Town" Fogden who has since moved on to New York City as an entertainment lawyer.
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