That or a hockey puck through the front window!

Boston Pizza now Vancouver Pizza until the end of the playoffsBoston Pizza has changed its name in Canada for the remainder of the NHL playoffs in support of the Vancouver Canucks who face the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final beginning Wednesday.

Elizabeth Haggarty
May 30, 2011

Canucks fans can now direct their pucks away from the windows of Boston Pizza during the Stanley Cup finals — the eatery has rebranded itself “Vancouver Pizza” in a show of support for Canadian hockey.

“We are sending banners to every location in British Columbia as well as stickers to rebrand take - out packaging” Brad Bissonnette, Boston Pizza Director of Regional Marketing, told the Star.

The Pizza chain will also remove all offending references to Boston from their ads at the Rogers arena, where Wednesday’s first Stanley Cup finals game will be held.

Planning for a name change kicked off six weeks ago when it became apparent a Vancouver/Boston showdown was a growing possibility.

“We thought we would be ahead of the curve and as a proud Canadian company and as a fan of the game of hockey it was only natural,” said Bissonnette.

The seven games it took Boston to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning were a tense time for the Boston Pizza team. As soon as the semifinals game was won Friday, the changes in signage were on their way to all 62 B.C. Boston Pizza locations.

So is “Vancouver Pizza” now a restaurant B.C. fans can rally around, or at least disdain to watch the game in?

“People are pretty excited over the name change in general. It is cool to see” said Hollye Mackinnon the floor supervisor at Grandview Highway, the first Boston Pizza location to change their signage.

“Everyone is wearing their jerseys, it reminds me of the feeling around the Olympics,” said Mackinnon, adding that she would like the name change to last after the playoffs.

That won’t be that case, says Bissonnette. The restaurant will be reverting to its Boston roots as soon as the series is over.

For those heading to Vancouver, the chain is offering a Canucks combo special of chicken wings and a Molson Canadian to appeal to hungry hockey fans.

This is the second name change for Boston Pizza, who shed their American markings during the first round of this year’s playoffs when the Montreal Canadiens took on the Boston Bruins.

While Bissonnette was not able to provide exact sales numbers, the result of the name change on shifting wings and pizza coupled with a cold one was positive.

With files from Sarah Millar