From Gainer to the Raptor: 6 classic Canadian mascots
No matter how bad or good our teams were, these mascots were there to support them (and their fans)
When the team is winning, they cheer right along with the fans. And when the team is losing, well, they give the fans something to get excited about.
Here are six Canadian mascots, from one building, four sports and four cities, who have been captured by CBC over the past 40 years.
Youppi: the Montreal mascot who switched sports
Youppi's name is the French word for, roughly, a shout of joy — hooray!
And that's exactly how the shaggy orange creature was greeted in Montreal by Expos fans and players alike after joining the team for the 1979 baseball season.
"There's been times when we've been behind in games, and Youppi comes and gets the fans enthused and does his head-first slides," said catcher Gary Carter in a surprisingly in-depth profile of Youppi in July 1979. "He's a big inspiration."
Kids attending Expos games liked Youppi, too.
"I think he's going to be a bigger asset to the team," said a boy. "He does all this acrobatic things and he makes the crowd all electrified."
In 2004, the Expos played their last game in Montreal before the franchise, which had been sold, moved to Washington, D.C.
But Youppi wasn't left without a team.
In an elaborate ceremony at Montreal's Bell Centre in October 2005, the Montreal Canadiens paid tribute to the departed Expos and welcomed Youppi out of retirement to become the Habs' mascot.
In June 2014, Youppi honoured a bet with American TV talk show host Jimmy Fallon by wearing a New York Rangers jersey around the streets of Montreal.
The 1st NHL team mascot
Credited by the NHL website as the first mascot in the league was the Calgary Flames' Harvey the Hound, a fuzzy dog of indeterminate breed who debuted in 1984, according to The Hockey News.
Harvey, unmistakable for having a long, red tongue that was perpetually hanging out, was the creation of Grant Kelba.
- CBC NEWS | Happy 35th birthday, Harvey the Hound
He wore the suit at Flames games for 15 years and eventually sold the rights to Harvey for an amount he had told the publication was "10 times more than he would have settled for."
A 1987 CBC video, seen above, captured Harvey at work helping Calgary's then-mayor, Ralph Klein, try to score at a charity event also attended by wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen.
The mascot costume was light brown then, rather than the grey colour seen today, but the hound's yellow belt and red shorts have remained consistent.
One of Harvey's most notorious encounters came in January 2003.
Edmonton Oilers coach Craig MacTavish, tired of his team's bench being dogged a little too long by the hound, ripped out the mascot's tongue.
"When I got Harvey's tongue ... that seemed to turn things around," MacTavish told CBC News.
They called him Domer
Once called the SkyDome, the Blue Jays' downtown Toronto stadium with a retractable roof is now known as Rogers Centre.
But it went by the former name when the Jays first moved in there in 1989.
Back then, the stadium had its own mascot — a blue-shelled turtle named Domer who wore a T-shirt with the SkyDome logo on it.
Russ Horner, the man inside the cuddly turtle's shell, summed up Domer's appeal to children in a story he told the Toronto Star in 2006.
"A child took my hand. She was skipping and jumping," Horner told the paper. "She said, 'Come on, you gotta meet my parents.'"
Domer would eventually fade from public view, but the mascot made a guest appearance when the Blue Jays celebrated the team's 25th anniversary at the stadium.
A dino-mite mascot
From the day we first got a glimpse at him 24 years ago, the Raptor has always been flashy.
Since then, he's shown us his swagger on a nightly basis, showing off with trampoline-driven slam dunks, smooth dance moves and runway-worthy costumes.
Like the players he promotes, the Raptor gives it his all every game — as evidenced by the torn Achilles tendon he suffered when performing six years ago. (His "cousin" Stripes filled in for him for a while.)
Fortunately, for Raptors fans, however, he made a comeback. As he made his entrance to the court, he brought his own homemade sign that read: I missed you!
The Raptor continues to excite the Toronto fanbase today, including through the team's current playoff run.
The original Blue Jays mascot
When a sports team needs a mascot, it's not always obvious what form that mascot should take.
But that wasn't the case of the Toronto Blue Jays' original ambassador, a life-sized jay named BJ Birdy.
The creation of high school teacher Kevin Shanahan, the bird was the only mascot in Major League Baseball that spoke.
But in 1999, BJ Birdy had to fly.
"We were the only team in professional sports that didn't own our mascot," said Terry Zuk, vice president of marketing with the Blue Jays. "Therefore you couldn't do all the trademarking things you wanted to do, the extensions into retail ... we just weren't allowed to do that."
The Blue Jays organization gave Shanahan two games' notice that his services were no longer required.
Shanahan, who had been animating BJ Birdy for almost 20 years, was replaced for the 2000 season by two new mascots who were also blue jays: Ace, who remains as of 2020, and Diamond, who was retired after the 2003 season.
'A gentle gopher who doesn't even wear pants'
Gophers, a common sight on the prairies, are regarded as pests by many people for their habit of digging holes in sometimes inconvenient places.
But in Saskatchewan, one gopher has been beloved by football fans since 1977.
According to the Saskatchewan Roughriders website, a fan who bought a ticket and attended a game in a gopher costume was hired on the spot as the team's mascot.
In 2006, Gainer — an anagram for "Regina" that became the mascot's name — found itself unwelcome in one particular place.
The Calgary Stampeders, perhaps concerned the horse that made up their logo would step in a gopher hole, banned Gainer from the sidelines at a CFL playoff game.
"I think it's a pity that they don't let him go there," said Roughriders fan Joe Schmidt. "But that's Calgary for you."
Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert was staunchly on Gainer's side after his Albertan colleague dissed the rodent.
"The premier of Alberta is so afraid of a gentle gopher who doesn't even wear pants," he said.
The Stampeders said they had their own brand-new mascot, Ralph the Dog, and didn't want Gainer stealing the pup's thunder.
Gainer stayed home for the game, which the Roughriders won even without the mascot there.
