What better way to pay tribute to a favourite athletes than to immortalize him with a bobblehead?
Goalie Joshua Ravensbergen, a Prince George Cougars fan favourite, now has his very own claim to fame.
The charming little collectible will soon make its debut and will be gifted to Cougars loyal Fifth Line at the Teddy Bear Toss weekend hockey games held recently at CN Centre, along with season ticket holders and those who have preordered the icon online.
“We’ve never done one before so we thought we would introduce it,” said Taylor Dakers, the Cougars' director of business operations and goaltending coach.
“We have a few players that are on people’s minds all the time.”
So why Ravensbergen?
“He’s just got a great face for a bobblehead,” Dakers said.
“It turned out pretty good. It looks just like him. I wish we could’ve got him smiling a bit more because he’s always got a big ol’ grin on his face but it’s pretty close so we’re pretty happy.”
It’s quite a process to get a bobblehead made, Dakers added.
“The merch manager had or found a contact in China so we were communicating directly with the company in China that does this,” Dakers said.
“I took it over and basically just emailed back and forth in the evenings with this person in China and sent a dozen photos of Josh’s face and his profile and the back and everything. Then they hand carve it out of clay and they sent a video and pictures and went through two or three revisions and then they hand-paint it and then any decals and stencils we want added we design them in Illustrator and send them over.”
After being manufactured, the 40 boxes of bobbleheads have made their way to Vancouver on a boat from China and are now awaiting transport to Prince George.
“Once they’re in Prince George we will take the list of season members, people that purchased tickets for both nights and people who have ordered online – we’ll work our way through that list to let everybody know they are here for pickup.”
People can pre-order the Ravensbergen bobblehead at the Cougars merch store right now.
And don’t worry. Ravensbergen will not be a one-and-done Cougars collectible. There is a special someone on the list to next be bobbleheaded. But Dakers is going to keep his identity a secret until the announcement, probably in February.
For more information and to check out the Ravensbergen collectible visit https://shop.pgcougars.com/products/ravensbergen-bobble-head.
