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The pandemic limited what the Arizona Coyotes had hoped to do with fan giveaways last season, but when given a full season to be creative, the Coyotes turned to creatives.
Tuesday night is the first of three hat giveaways, labeled the Local Artist Hat Trick Series, with two others schedueld for April 1 and April 23. The team will hand out caps designed by three artists with large followings, each a woman based locally. It’s a way to connect to non-traditional hockey communities and also to celebrate gender equality and women in hockey, the area’s Mexican, Indigenous and Chicano communities, and Black history in life and hockey.
Sage Aune’s trucker-style hat with its throwback look will go to the first 5,000 fans on Tuesday, Lucinda “La Morena” Hinojos designed a black hat with bright colors and a decorative bill for the April 1 promotion, and Stormy Nesbit’s tribute to the African American community and presence in hockey will be a big reason to attend the Coyotes’ game against St. Louis on April 23.
“We really wanted to find people that obviously had an amazing artistic craft, but also represented the Coyotes, Phoenix, Arizona, their style and the way that they approach life and their values and all of it aligned,” said Tania Moreno, senior vice president of marketing. “We got really lucky with three strong artists.”
Moreno said the idea came from art being a part of Arizona’s culture, and how the organization could merge that with sports and the team’s fan base. Each of the hats represents a cause important to the Coyotes.
“It was really fun to be able to help their craft by giving them free reign to take our brand and interpret it how they wanted to,” Moreno said. “There really was no limits on what they could do.”
Aune used to go to Coyotes games as a kid and was happy to see the team return to its Kachina design jersey roots. Her boyfriend is a huge hockey fan, so the Coyotes are part of their lives.
“It was surprising to be approached, but I also felt really excited because it was nostalgic for me,” Aune said. “Phoenix has a very fiercely local (art) scene, and I’ve been really lucky to connect with all of the businesses and people here.”
The Coyotes found her on Instagram. Her specialty is digital illustration on products such as stickers, shirts and posters for businesses.
“I was surprised when I was talking to the marketing team that I was also dealing with fellow females, and I really liked that,” Aune said. “I really like that they’ve diversified around the sport.
“It would bring me a lot of joy to see that many people standing together for equality, as well, and also just wearing my artwork and hopefully they dig it.”
‘It opens up doors’
On a recent weekday, there’s a bunny hiding under the coffee table, and in the kitchen, an unfinished painting of Phoenix hip-hop legend MC Magic inside the Avondale home and studio of ”La Morena.”
The night of April 1 will be a special one for Hinojos (pronounced “Ee-no-hos”) and her family, as the cap she designed will be handed out when the Coyotes host the Anaheim Ducks. She once took her kids to a game and never really thought about going back, but now knowing that the Coyotes have a larger Latino presence from ownership through the front office and staff appealed to her.
“People don’t really understand or know the value of what art does for business, for communities, for people, for themselves,” she said. “When you start to invite art into spaces, it changes a lot of things, like energy. It opens up doors, it’s inviting and it feels safe. Especially by working with artists of color and then allowing them to express their culture and their spirituality on something like a hat.”
Hinojos, known in the art community as La Morena, is widely recognized for her murals that depict the reality and culture of indigenous peoples, Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the state, painted on Phoenix walls throughout the city.
Her work is typically more politically-tinged and reflects her own ethnic backgrounds and experiences as a native of the Phoenix metro area. She draws strength and inspiration from her elders and deceased ancestors.
While murals are her calling card, La Morena’s talent couldn’t be overlooked when the Coyotes went looking for an artist to design a hat to commemorate the Chicano culture of Arizona on Los Yotes Night. It was her first time designing a hat, and the finished product features the vibrant colors she chose and her own brand marking, a hummingbird.
“It’s a big deal for me, for our native and Chicano community, because now, this is inviting them to this space, with this hat,” she said. “So when they find out that this hat, the people that I’ve talked to, they’ve never been to a hockey game. But they’re going to go because of the hat. It’s going to be a very interesting game night.”
Her hat, she feels, helps her cross over from being a muralist and painter into the fashion world.
“There’s just so many possibilities,” she said.
‘Uplift my community’
The game originally set for Nesbit’s hat was postponed, so the Coyotes moved it to a date that is closer to the NHL’s Black hockey history mobile museum tour, which rolls through Glendale on April 28-29.
Bottom line, Nesbit will get her day, and her hat is a statement.
“I’m just thankful that I was able to create something that was close to my heart and I think would relate to people of color and Coyotes fans,” Nesbit said.
The Minnesota native and graphic designer was a self-described sports junkie who grew up around hockey. And with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, art allows her to support it in a way that doesn’t show all of the trauma that the Black community has endured in terms of treatment from police in her home state and around the country.
“I took the opportunity to use my art to kind of uplift my community,” she said. “People were able to use my art at protests or when they’re creating their own social forms to communicate. How can we do better? How can we support each other? I think that is a great honor, but it’s bigger than just me. My why is bigger than just how does that fulfill me, it’s how does it fulfill my community?”
She’s designed apparel, but undertook her first hat with the Coyotes’ invitation. She used red, black and green, colors that strongly connect to African roots and heritage.
She added side patches, including a Black Lives Matter raised first.
“I wanted to represent the tri-colored (pan-African) flag on the hat and continue to tell that story,” Nesbit said. “For me, the flag represents a lot. It’s recognizable and it’s understandable. It was tying the two in.”
She also wanted a visually appealing finished product. Her vision was to design something that can be worn every day.
“I’m thankful for the opportunity. I was more known outside of Arizona, so whenever I get the opportunity to do stuff where I am living and residing, it’s better. … I’m excited to physically put the hat into my hands and hopefully give them out to some people.”
Get in touch with Jose Romero at Jose.Romero@gannett.com. Find him on Twitter at @RomeroJoseM.
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