Dinosaurs, ducks, and dunks: Chicago, Boston battle for statue supremacy

The deeper teams go into the NHL playoffs, the more that team's iconography tends to take over its city. By the time a club has reached the Stanley Cup Final, you can expect to see car flags and decals in abundance, storefronts done up with promotions in team colours and logos, and, my personal favourite, the town's statues wearing jerseys and other team apparel.

Now, Boston and Chicago already have hockey statues, as you can see above. Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull greet visitors to the United Center, and Bobby Orr soars at the entrance of the TD Garden.

But, as the Blackhawks and Bruins vie for Stanley Cup supremacy, other statues have been temporarily renovated to show their support.

Mikita and Hull aren't the only athletes with a statue on the east side of the United Center. Michael Jordan's out there too, mid-dunk, and until the Final is over, he'll be dunking in a jersey with sleeves:

Meanwhile, over at the Field Museum of Natural History, the brachiosaurus has been outfitted with a jersey as well.

That one took some doing. The jersey was built around the dinosaur in late April. You can see a gallery of the sweaterization in progress here.

And the Field isn't the only Chicago museum that's showing its colours. Over at the Art Institute of Chicago, Edward Kemeys' bronze lions have been redonned the helmets they wore in 2010.

Impressive that statues erected in 1893 would opt for a visor, let alone a helmet. You'd think they'd be more old-school.

But Boston has statues too, and no way are their fans about to be outdone in the creative statue renovation department without a fight.

Here's George Washington in a Bruins jersey.

Painter John Singleton Copley, one of America's greatest portrait artists, sports a Bruins jersey as well.

What I wouldn't give to see this guy do Brad Marchand in oil or pastels. Sadly, the only member of the Bruins' organization he ever did was Cam Neely.

And finally, my personal favourite from 2011, brought back for the 2013 run: here's Mrs. Mallard and her children, the stars of classic children's book Make Way for Ducklings that have been immortalized in a statue at the Boston Public Garden, bedecked in Boston garb.

No longer are they a family of eight ducks. Now they're a typically bungled Bruins line change, and considering the size discrepancy at play here, we can assume the first duck is Zdeno Chara.