Well, I am glad you asked!
The White Towel has been a tradition in Vancouver Hockey Arenas since the 1982 Stanley Cup Playoffs - Canucks vs the Chicago Blackhawks.
The tradition was a direct influence of a one-time Vancouver Canucks Coach - Roger Neilson.
For Neilson, hockey was his life. He was never married and really had no life outside of The Game. Even his "vacation time" was spent teaching hockey at various hockey camps nationally and internationally.
As a Graduate of McMaster's University and a former high school teacher he was big on education and stressed this importance to his young players.
He was very progressive in his training techniques and introduced aerobics on ice before it was generally accepted as practice.
A revolutionary training technique at the time, he spent late night hours - sometimes all night - running over and over videos of games played, analyzing them - earning him the nickname "Captain Video".
Besides studying plays, he also studied the rule book for loopholes and would challenge the rules by figuring out a way to circumvent them to his team's advantage. As a direct result, no less than three rules were changed or added to the rulebook. Perhaps more.
Neilson was assistant coach in Vancouver when the head coach was suspended for getting into a brawl with fans at a game in Quebec. The Canucks won 7 straight games under his direction and he was subsequently appointed Head Coach permanently - and for the first time, the Vancouver Canucks entered the Stanley Cup playoffs.
It was during one of these playoff games against Boston that Neilson became fed up with the referees' bogus calls. Exasperated, he wanted some way to show his displeasure - but in a subtle way. Some of the players suggested throwing sticks on the ice - but Neilson thought that trick was overdone.
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Several of his players followed suit.
The referees took offence and ejected him and the other participating players out of the arena for the rest of the game, the Chicago crowd booing as they departed. Canucks lost that game 4-1.
Everyone felt that the referees overreacted with the removal of the players and coach. Roger Neilsen became an instant hero in Vancouver.
When the next game of the series was a home game and in support of Neilson and their Team, all the Canucks' fans brought their own white towels and waved them en masse above their heads.
The team went on to win the next three games - and that portion of the series. Unfortunately, they stopped short of winning the Cup.
Although the towel was first used in 1975 by the Pittsburgh Steelers fans.....the Vancouver Canucks fans were the first to use it in the sport of Hockey - and with a much different significance.
Neilson was diagnosed with bone cancer in 1999, then skin cancer - malignant melanoma - in 2001.
While he took a leave for his cancer treatment in 2000, the team he coached for - the Philadelphia Flyers - unceremoniously dumped him.
He later worked as assistant coach for the Ottawa Senators, and was allowed to "head coach" for two more games to reach the 1000 game mark - one of nine coaches with that acheivement.
He died in 2003 with a winning record.
Before his passing, he established the Roger Neilsen Forever Hockey Fund to bring "hockey and children and fun together".
That same year, he was awarded the Order of Canada.
After his death, the Ottawa Senators funded a pediatric palliative care unit at the Children's Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario, opened in 2006.
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In the spirit of that year - 1982 - at the beginning of each playoff season, a brand-new white towel is placed on each seat throughout the entire Arena in Vancouver.
Last month, April 17, 2011 - a statue was unveiled outside the entrance to the Stadium in Vancouver where the Canucks play their games....in memory of his important contribution to the NHL - which includes his start of the notorious "Towel Power".
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