The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Lee Deary's heart may be up north with the Flin Flon Bombers, but he'll always have a special connection with another junior hockey team a few hundred miles down south. The branch manager of the local RBC Financial Group is the creative mind behind the popular jerseys worn by the MJHL's Waywayseecappo Wolverines. "I think it's one of the best jerseys in the league, but of course I'm biased," says Deary, now the Bombers' marketing director, with a smile. While working at the RBC branch in Russell, Manitoba near the Waywayseecappo First Nation, the avid hockey fan joined the Wolverines board of directors. With the franchise's fan base dwindling amid on-ice struggles, Deary felt a fresh look would help spur renewed enthusiasm. Having taken a graphics course back in college, he set out to design a third jersey. His concept was similar to the jersey of the WHL's Brandon Wheat Kings. But instead of grains of wheat slinking down the players' arms, he would depict the menacing claws of a Wolverine shredding through the sleeves. After touching base with SP Apparel, Deary finalized the team's new look. It incorporated the existing "W" logo into a new black backdrop with a fading stripe of red along the lower half. The trademark claws adorned the sleeves, and the players' numbers took on a more barbed appearance. Right away, he knew he had a hit. The night the jersey was unveiled in 2004, he recalls the players and even their opponents, the OCN Blizzard, looking twice at the sleek sweaters. Deary's design was so popular the Wolverines eventually adopted it as their full-time road jersey. Before leaving Russell, he also came up with a new, similarly styled white third jersey. "Third jerseys have become such a part of the hockey culture," he says. "As a marketing tool, it's something different. With a third jersey, it's kind of your opportunity to step outside the box and come up with something different rather than the traditional look of a hockey club." As a hockey nut, Deary admits it's a good feeling to see players don his creation Ð even if his heart is now with the Flin Flon Bombers.
