When Jakob Chan was given Vancouver Canucks tickets for his birthday, he was excited to watch his very first game. The five-year-old and his mom were at Rogers Arena for Wednesday night’s matchup with Carolina. “We were excited for the food, to see Fin, to see the warmup, and just kind of take it all in,” said Jakob’s mom Carlee Chan. During a stoppage in play, there was a T-shirt toss. “I do as I usually do, stand up and holler trying to get a T-shirt,” said Chan. “I just missed one and I felt something hit my back and it lands on the floor, right in front of Jacob’s feet.” As the little boy reached down to pick it up, an adult fan in the row in front of Jakob turned around and snatched it. “Clearly, they really wanted one as well. So we said, ‘Oh that’s OK, maybe next time,’” said Chan. She made eye contact with a fan next to her, who was clearly annoyed that someone would snatch a T-shirt that landed at the feet of a little boy. “We just kind of went on with our evening, and then we had mini donuts arrive. And we thought, ‘We did not order these,’” said Chan. “And then the gifts kind of just kept coming.” It turns out, a Canucks in-game host had seen the T-shirt snatching. “He immediately flagged our fan experience teams, and then our fan team went away and quickly tracked down another T-shirt, and we added a few extra treats and brought it to the young fan,” said Wynn Moody, the Canucks’senior vice-president of fan experience. On top of the mini donuts, Jakob was thrilled to get a T-shirt, a warmup puck and a stuffed Fin. “I thought, ‘Wow, that is so awesome. We feel so seen and celebrated,’” said Chan. And the swag kept coming. The man sitting next to Jakob who was annoyed at the T-shirt snatching had posted to social media about the incident, tagging the Canucks and telling the team to “Make it Right!!!” That prompted the Canucks’ social media team to go even further for Jakob. In the third period, they brought him a souvenir stick signed by Elias Pettersson and a puck signed by Brock Boeser. “At that point, we were just blown away by their generosity,” said Chan. “Our role is to make sure that if something doesn’t go quite right, we step in right away to help, which in this case I think our teams did,” said Moody. The Canucks posted a photo of Jakob holding his new signed stick and puck to the team’s X account, and suddenly he was internet famous. “We have had friends and family message us saying, ‘No way,’” said Chan. “It’s crazy, and so great to see how good news can travel just as fast.” While the Canucks lost the game to Carolina, she added, “We left feeling like real big winners.” RELATED STORIES:
