The Vancouver Canucks are dealing with an extremely unique challenge right now. They have three players who all share the same last name, Pettersson, creating a logistical nightmare.
When it comes to jerseys, the Canucks have found a good solution. The original wears just “Pettersson,” Marcus from Pittsburgh wears “M. Pettersson,” and the young Elias wears “E. Pettersson.”
While that helps identify them on the ice, it doesn’t make verbally identifying them any easier.
To make matters even more confusing, two of the Petterssons have the same first name, Elias, but they are pronounced differently. The original goes by Elias (uh-lee-us), while the new one goes by Elias (uh-lie-us). Still, it can be hard to tell apart during games, and it’s easy to see how confusion can happen.
Nicknames are the easy solution to the Canucks’ Pettersson dilemma. The problem with that approach is finding something that everyone likes.
The young Elias Pettersson, who is just 20 years old and three games into his NHL career, said after the last game he’d been given a new nickname. He refused to let the media in on that nickname as he said he wasn’t a fan and was still trying to change it.
Unfortunately for him, veteran Tyler Myers let it slip today when explaining the system the defence group has been using.
“Last game, we tried to come up with some different nicknames.”
“Marcus ended up being Petey. Footy tried to call D-Petey, or young Petey, Junior. It was a bit of a mess. We’ll see if it sticks.”
While those may work for the defence, the forward Elias Pettersson has always gone by “Petey” as well, meaning he and Marcus might need to duke it out to see who gets that nickname.
The system is still clearly a work in progress.
As the three players spend more time together, their teammates will devise new ways to tell them apart. For now, the nicknames are the best they’ve got and will have to do, even if it’s not a perfect system.