Vancouver Whitecaps FC - Vancouver, Canada
Photographer: Beau Chevalier
Your love for the Whitecaps goes all the way back. How did you become a fan?
When I was five or six years old, I went to watch a Whitecaps game at Swangard Stadium before they were in MLS. They played in the NASL at the time, and I just remember going to the stadium and being taken aback by the crazy feeling of the energy and the crowd. I don't even remember what was going on on the field itself, but the buzz was unreal. And it was nice because it was an outdoor pitch, and now when I cover the Whitecaps, they play indoors. So I’ve hardly ever watched professional soccer in an outdoor venue, except for those few years when I was a kid. I like looking back at that time.
When did you start covering the Whitecaps?
My first game as a sports photographer was March 2nd, 2019, a 3-2 loss played against Minnesota. I don't think I got many good photos during the game, but that year was when I decided I wanted to pursue photography, not just as a hobby but as a career. So even though the Whitecaps lost that game and that season was terrible for the team, it was a pretty important year for me. It drove me to pursue photography in a more serious way.
What was it like to transition from being a life-long fan into actually shooting the team?
It was crazy, especially since I’d even seen them play at Swangard when I was a kid. I also saw their first year in MLS in 2011, and I remember going to the first-ever home game against Toronto FC, and we beat them. Since they've been in MLS, I’ve had half-season or season tickets right until I started covering the team. But I’ve covered and followed the team through a lot of difficult times when they were finding their footing in MLS, but I’ve also had the chance to be a fan and document some of their best moments. So I’ve seen the entirety of the Whitecaps MLS history since they joined the league, both as a fan and as a photographer, which is perfect.
Having followed and documented the Whitecaps for so long, what would you say is your favorite thing about the club?
It's a relatively new tradition we have, but since the team came back from being on the road so long and without fans, we started this tradition where at the end of games -- win, lose, or draw -- the entire stadium sings ‘Stand By Me’ with the players. It’s not the most hyped-up song, but you can really feel the energy throughout the stadium. When we qualified to the playoffs this year, almost 25,000 people at BC Place sang that song at the top of their longs. I’ve never experienced that sort of atmosphere at a Vancouver Whitecaps game before.
Beyond the Whitecaps, what would you say is your favorite thing about the soccer culture over in Vancouver?
It’s still fresh, that’s what I like. You obviously have your traditional pro teams, there's a couple of semipro teams in the province, and obviously, you have the CPL team now on the island, but there's also a lot of small niche football communities in Vancouver that don't necessarily play pro. I like the aspect of soccer being for the community -- it's not about business or making money. Tagwa from Darby Mag and I, with other guys as well, started Sunset Beach FC, for example, which was just a pickup soccer community that plays really close to where I shot this project. We’d just set up pickup games for anyone to play in on Monday nights over the summer. I think that is probably the pedigree of what our culture is in Vancouver because no matter who you are or where you come from, anyone can just pull up and play. You're welcome to take part.
What do you think sets you apart from other soccer cultures in North America?
I would say in Vancouver, the professional history of the team goes way back. And that’s not true for many places. Our pro team history goes back to the seventies, and it’s awesome that there’s a generation or two older than me that have witnessed the team in Vancouver win national championships. And then my generation and younger haven’t really seen the city win a lot of silverware. That dynamic is an interesting one. But the fact that there's such a long history of pro soccer in this province is part of what makes it stand out.
Did you try to tie in that history into your My Crest, My City project? Or what was the main inspiration behind it?
To be honest, the plan for the shoot didn’t have to do with the history of soccer in Vancouver, but more of what it is today. For example, the guy that's modeling the jacket, Alex Gangue-Ruzic, tweeted something about being able to represent like a dozen countries if he was ever good enough to play pro. So I chose him as my model because he has one of the most diverse backgrounds I know, and that speaks to the diversity in the fandom that’s grown over the past years.
What can you tell us about the location?
We shot at English Bay, near where we do the pickups with Sunset Beach FC. It’s one of the most popular spots to go to in Vancouver, and in English Bay, you have kind of a 180-degree view of the mountains in the north, the ocean out west, and this crazy backdrop of all these skyscrapers in the back. So that was kind of the idea behind the location. It shows the beauty of our city and three of the most distinctive aspects of it.
What are you hoping people outside of Vancouver will take from this project?
Mainly the fact that Vancouver is a diverse place that has so many people from so many different parts of the world that contribute to the football community. That’s the number one thing, and two, I just wanna show that Vancouver is a city that's on the rise right now for football. You obviously have these big soccer hubs in North America with incredible communities, but I think one of the strengths of Vancouver is that we produce talent. With the rise of Alphonso Davies, going to Bayern Munich, and people having seen him come through the Whitecaps, I think that Vancouver is definitely a city that in five or ten years will have produced some of the best players in the continent.
So we’ve talked about the soccer, the club, and we’ve talked about the city. What do you think of the crest?
I think it's one of my favorites in MLS because it's so simple. It’s literally just letters and some shapes. Some badges have animals or whatever on the badge. Vancouver is so recognizable by the mountains and the water, so our crest kind of fits perfectly. The three triangles on the top represent the mountain range we have in the north, and then the blue triangles on the bottom represent the water. It’s so simple, but it's so obviously Vancouver. It just works.
I hate those badges that look too busy or the badges that don't have any identities. For us, I don’t know a single other club with a badge that even has the same shape as ours. The fact that it's so different but still so simple is kind of perfect.