As many hockey fans know over the summer GM Place was changed to Rogers Arena. This is because Rogers Communications essentially found every single way to put their name associated with the Canucks. Being a Telus user I have always been known to show favoritism to Telus so when I heard that GM Place would now be called Rogers Arena I was rather annoyed. If you know me I get over things pretty fast so after a week or two passed by I really didn’t care too much about the name change.
On Saturday, I went to a Canucks preseason game and my anger came back with regards to Rogers. Stepping into GM Place ( I refuse to call it Rogers Arena ) I was in shock how shameless Rogers is in trying to market any form of their products. Rogers stands are strategically placed around the arena trying to pitch their cell phone services and cable options. The rogers logo is on the boards of the rink five times! This is ridiculous as many companies struggle to get on the boards for a single game let alone have five permanent locations. To top that, Rogers did a horrible job at removing any signs or advertisements that said GM Place. In one case there just a big black strip of what looks like electrical tape over a GM logo on the
jumbo-tron . I feel that if a company just wants to throw money at something for marketing that they should at least do a tasteful job in doing so. Even the starting lineups and three stars were “powered by rogers” which is something I didn’t even think could get sponsored. Something needs to change fast or next thing you know many canucks fans will start getting rogers tattoos!