Raptors embracing Canadian roots to a ‘T’
TORONTO On one crazy night during last year’s NBA playoffs, the Toronto Raptors’ creative team pulled off a quick-change magic trick that would have made David Blaine proud.
The Toronto Rock were playing at the Air Canada Centre on Friday evening. The Raptors were tipping off against Indiana at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
In the hours between, staff furiously decorated the ACC bowl in playoff T-shirts, carefully laying a shirt over every one of the 19,800 seats. Fans arrived for the matinee basketball game to an arena virtually painted — as if by a giant paint brush — in a camouflage pattern of black, grey and white.
“We had to put a full company call-out to see who would come out that late at night (to lay out shirts),” said Shannon Hosford, the senior vice-president of marketing and fan experience for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. “We had one employee come out with her two kids, just for fun, to be part of the experience.”
While the Raptors lost Game 1 of this year’s opening-round series against Milwaukee on Saturday night, the MLSE staff, at least, came to play. The theme around these playoffs is buffalo plaid, and the ACC was dressed in swaths of red and black to create a jumbosized buffalo plaid pattern.
Hosford was sitting in her office of MLSE’s fifth-floor headquarters adjacent to the Air Canada Centre on a recent afternoon. The offices were buzzing with pre-playoff energy.
MLSE takes pride in pushing the creative envelope, and staying ahead of the league, while providing fans with that “We The North” feeling that is uniquely Canadian.
Other teams have tried to mimic it. The Pacers had their “We the Gold” campaign against the Raptors last season. Some Miami fans wore “We the South” T-shirts to the Heat’s second-round series against Toronto. “We’re fine with that,” Hosford said. “We take great pride when someone tries to do that. We own that.”
Last season’s arena designs also included a giant Maple Leaf, a red and white starburst, and the letters “6IX” (a nod to Toronto’s Drake inspired nickname) and “YYZ” spelled out in black and white.
This season’s opening-round games will stick to the plaid theme. The designs are first drawn up on a computer, then blocks of the design are tested on the arena seats.
There are enough T-shirts and designs for a full seven-game series.