Jerseys still number one seller for playoff merchandise

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Fans are ready to show the blue and green… and the black, red and gold… and the rainbow of other colours the Canucks have sported over the years.

News1130 has been has been checking out the “hot sellers” when it comes to playoff merchandise. There are the flags, the t-shirts and the big foam puckheads (careful how you say that!) but the top sellers come April are always the jerseys.

“Last year, we sold out and you couldn’t get them. So we were smart this year and we loaded up,” says Chris at Time Out Source for Sports in North Vancouver.

“Bieksa is pretty popular, the Sedins are both popular, Kesler is huge and Burrows and Edler. We are starting to get some people wanting Lapierre and I think you are going to see a few Higgins,” she muses.

And Canucks fans’ notorious fickleness for goalies extends to jersey sales.

“Luongo, you know what? His sales have dropped off. But I think he’ll do well and I think his jerseys will rise in popularity once again like they were a couple years ago,” says Chris.

What about the team’s rock solid back-up netminder?

“Schneider? Yeah, we’ve done a few, and so we should. But they don’t make them out of the factory. You have to actually crest them with his name. We’ve had a few,” she explains.

There are also customers who like to leave jerseys blank and wait to see which players perform well in the playoffs before getting them crested.

Mobile providers gear up for playoffs

Thanks to fans exchanging photos and video and commenting on the action through social media, Telus is expecting a lot of mobile traffic this time around. It also predicts twice as many people as last year livestreaming the games.

That kind of traffic demands upgrading existing infrastructure, especially downtown. Inside the arena, Rogers has spent $400,000 on upgrades, bringing its total infrastructure investment in the rink to nearly $1.7 million.

Rogers is also offering a new smartphone app that allows you to stream all the Hockey Night in Canada playoff broadcasts. It costs $5 a month and is available at iTunes, Google Play and BlackBerry App World.

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