Kendrick and SZA took their Grand National Tour international on Thursday and Friday, playing two sold out shows at Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON, the first stops on the tour outside of the United States.
It's not unusual for artists to wear a hockey jersey on stage that represents the city in which they're playing. Since Toronto is the only Canadian stop on the Grand National Tour, SZA appears to have taken that to the next step and worn a jersey that represents the entire country.
The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn snapped a photo at the show of SZA in a Team Canada jersey and posted it on Twitter, saying that, as far as he could tell, the name on the back was of Vancouver Canucks legend Trevor Linden.
spent the first 20 minutes of the grand national tour trying to figure out who was on the back of sza’s team canada jersey lol (i think it’s trevor linden)
— dom 馃搱 (@domluszczyszyn)
Sure enough, other photos of the jersey confirmed that the name on the back was Linden and featured his iconic number 16, which is retired in Vancouver.
Looks like linden
— SoapVox (@soapvox)
There's just one problem: Linden never wore the number 16 on that particular jersey.
Linden played for Team Canada on multiple occasions in his career. He first represented his country at the 1988 World Junior Championship, where he won gold, then played for Canada at the 1991 IIHF World Championship, where he played with several current and future Canucks teammates, including Cliff Ronning, Geoff Courtnall, Doug Lidster, and Murray Craven.
Linden played for Team Canada three more times in his career: at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, and the 1998 IIHF World Championship.
The jersey SZA is wearing, with the distinct diagonally-slicing red sleeves, . It's a Bauer jersey that SZA has cut off into a crop top, losing the swooping, wavy red stripe on the bottom.
In 1998, Team Canada that featured a red shoulder yoke on the white jersey. Canada wore that jersey from 1998 to 2001, including at the 1998 IIHF World Championship.
Why does that matter? Because Trevor Linden didn't wear the number 16 at the 1996 World Cup.
That number was instead claimed by Pat Verbeek, aka. The Little Ball of Hate. Verbeek wore the number 16 for the majority of his career, wearing it with the New Jersey Devils, Hartford Whalers, New York Rangers, and Dallas Stars.
At the 1996 World Cup, the 32-year-old Verbeek had seniority over the 26-year-old Linden, so he kept his usual number 16. As a result, for what appears to be the only time in his career.
Linden wore 16 at the 1998 Olympics and World Championship, but on a completely different Team Canada jersey.
So, sorry SZA, as cool as it was to see you wear a Trevor Linden Team Canada jersey, it is a jersey foul.
