Return of the Whale Imminent

[Morgan33]

2 hours ago, alecgoff said:

 

 

The logo treatment on the top left, and the majority of the t-shirts, is exactly what should have been on their green uniforms.  Not the all white logo with the pointless blue outline seen right.  They should go the fauxback route and put that on a green uniform similar to the 1991/92 set and bring out 4 times a year.  I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

[ColeJ]

i'm excited to see the canes warm up to their past finally... i don't dislike the hurricanes or their identity/logos, but i really would like to see them become the carolina whalers if that's even on the table. it seems dumb to abandon such an iconic identity. i think the titans never should have stopped being the oilers, either. i like the multi-city continuity... something about seeing peyton manning wearing the same colts identity as johnny unitas is special, for example. the whalers were too cool of a team to kill off just because they had to move to a new market. it probably has to do with my views on relocation to begin with... i myself have lived all over the country at different points in time. i can't promise i'll live in dallas 20 years from now, so i shouldn't expect the stars or mavericks to make that promise either. my football team moved to tennessee, and i stayed a fan... the red sox stayed in boston long after i left massachusetts, and they still welcome me as a fan. i think that kind of mindset is why i'm so okay with relocations. people move. teams move. don't pretend you aren't the nordiques just because you're in denver now, and if i end up moving to chicago, i won't start going by Kevin. i dunno, i'm rambling. (no pun intended)

[Kevin W.]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

It certainly doesn't augur well for Blooper, The Baseball-Tolerating Penis.

And I think that's going to go in my signature...

[VancouverFan69]

3 hours ago, Morgo said:

 

The logo treatment on the top left, and the majority of the t-shirts, is exactly what should have been on their green uniforms.  Not the all white logo with the pointless blue outline seen right.  They should go the fauxback route and put that on a green uniform similar to the 1991/92 set and bring out 4 times a year.  I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

 

Morgo, I don't mean to get off topic but I recall a couple of times that you don't like the Canucks' updated Stick In Rink being blue on a blue base and that you preferred an inverted version. 

 

Actually, the inverted W-Tail looks great inverted because of the actual shape of the crest. The blue border does stand out because it also touches the white. Some crests are meant to be inverted like the W-Tail, N-Star, Flaming C and the Maple Leaf. Others like the Stick In Rink(updated and the original), Sabres' classic, the Islanders' NY _/ on LI  and the Oilers' Oil Drop wordmark stand out better on dark as well as white without inverting them.

[Mac the Knife]

9 hours ago, the admiral said:

Plus a lot of the Hurricanes faithful hate the Whalers because of Hartford fans and outsiders both wanting the Whale and Brass Bonanza back every time the Canes can't put five figures in the seats, which these days again is near nightly. Seems like a move for marketing to everyone but your fans.

 

They do?

 

I've lived in Raleigh since before the team was relocated here.  I've never met or talked to a single fan who has had anything but respect, or at least sympathy over the relocation, for Hartford fans.

 

The team's attendance issues have never been the fault of the fans.  It's been the fault of the team.  They have perhaps the worst marketing in the entire NHL, and they're marketing a product that hasn't won in quite a while.  Good marketing helps resolve that, and winning hockey does resolve it.

[ChicagoOakland]

50 minutes ago, Mac the Knife said:

The team's attendance issues have never been the fault of the fans.  It's been the fault of the team.  They have perhaps the worst marketing in the entire NHL, and they're marketing a product that hasn't won in quite a while.  Good marketing helps resolve that, and winning hockey does resolve it.

 

That right there is the truth.

 

I moved to Raleigh last year and I noticed immediately how little effort Karmanos put into marketing the team. I've seen a billboard every now and then, but I don't think I've ever heard a radio or TV ad promoting the Canes. I honestly don't even know which TV station shows Canes games. Even North Carolina FC is better at marketing than they are.

 

Granted the Canes ultimately have to win to get a chunk of the Triangle fan base, but having an owner that cares and isn't a detestable person is a good place to start.

[skip88]

So the team was called  Whalers is in whalers that hunt and kill whales?

 

 

 

But they also had these logos

 

 

 

How did that work?

[The_Admiral]

The meaning of "Whalers" in the case of this team evolved from "whale hunters" to I guess more "whale enthusiasts." Confounding things more was that people called the team "The Whale" (of a kind with "The Isle" and "The Oil," idiosyncratic little NHL nicknaming convention there), so that helped to shed the overt whaling references too -- you can't be the hunter and your quarry at the same time.

 

Also worth noting is that part of the reason the team got the name in the first place was because they were a charter member of the WHA. Also, the team was established in Boston, so it made more sense there than in Hartford, which is inland. Just more stuff that made the Whalers such a weird brand.

[WSU151]

5 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Also, the team was established in Boston, so it made more sense there than in Hartford, which is inland.

 

Rhetorical - I wonder if Boston Whaler boats (est 1958) had a problem with a Boston Whalers name (causing it to be New England Whalers).

[The_Admiral]

Maybe. I always figured they were capitalizing on the then-new New England Patriots nomenclature, or aspired to play some home games outside the Boston Garden (they sure did, all right). In the '90s there was some talk about broadening their scope by renaming them the Connecticut Whalers, as if that would have done anything -- that still wouldn't have given them rights to Fairfield County, which was a hangup of theirs for obvious reasons.

[CreamSoda]

Hartford...? The Whale...? They only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

[BBTV]

18 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

Hartford...? The Whale...? They only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

 

Too late. 

[Morgan33]

12 hours ago, VancouverFan69 said:

 

Morgo, I don't mean to get off topic but I recall a couple of times that you don't like the Canucks' updated Stick In Rink being blue on a blue base and that you preferred an inverted version. 

 

Actually, the inverted W-Tail looks great inverted because of the actual shape of the crest. The blue border does stand out because it also touches the white. Some crests are meant to be inverted like the W-Tail, N-Star, Flaming C and the Maple Leaf. Others like the Stick In Rink(updated and the original), Sabres' classic, the Islanders' NY _/ on LI  and the Oilers' Oil Drop wordmark stand out better on dark as well as white without inverting them.

 

Could the updated Stick n' Rink look better inverted?  Maybe.  Do I have a problem with how it looks on the blue jersey now?  Not really.  That logo doesn't violate the number one rule of a blue, green and white scheme: the blue and green must never touch.  The old Whalers logo on the other hand does.  The blue outline bleeds into the green background to the point where it might as well not be there.  The version on the new merchandise is a huge improvement.

[Francis10]

Carolina is not messing around.  Whalers shirts on sale at PNC arena tonight.

https://twitter.com/NHLCanes/status/959182907486167040

[Mac the Knife]

The "New England" moniker came from the team not really having a consistent home arena for its first few years.  They played in both Boston and Springfield in their first year, so using "New England" rather than "Boston" likely just seemed logical.  Ironically, when they officially became the "Hartford" Whalers, the team was playing all its games in Springfield, Massachusetts, as the roof on their arena had collapsed.

[Mac the Knife]

5 minutes ago, Francis10 said:

Carolina is not messing around.  Whalers shirts on sale at PNC arena tonight.

https://twitter.com/NHLCanes/status/959182907486167040

 

This guy Dundon?  He's not goofin' around.  I like him already.

[The_Admiral]

I don't, he made his money on subprime lending.

[WSU151]

47 minutes ago, the admiral said:

I don't, he made his money on subprime lending.

 

OT - I don't like dudes who offer predatory loans either, but that piece's narrative is driven more by the writer than the story.

 

Anyway, I too, am amazed that they'e running with Whalers stuff in Carolina.

[Mac the Knife]

36 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

 

OT - I don't like dudes who offer predatory loans either, but that piece's narrative is driven more by the writer than the story.

 

Anyway, I too, am amazed that they'e running with Whalers stuff in Carolina.

 

He's got to cover the half billion dollar nut he's paying for the franchise somehow.  There are an unbelievable number of things that the Hurricanes have erred on - not taking actions that alienate fans or potential fans, but simple benign neglect coupled with failure to capitalize on things that virtually every other professional sports franchise does.  Karmanos was a lousy owner in Hartford; he was a downright :censored:ty one here, essentially giving up on the whole operation when the team won the Stanley Cup and he didn't generate the profit he expected.

 

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

I don't, he made his money on subprime lending.

 

I'll grant you that.  But this is a franchise that's in such a state that its fans will forgive something like that.  If the team were to start winning on the ice and doing what it should be doing off it?  People here won't care if the guy made his money pimpin'.

[The_Admiral]

If the Whalers had been able to stick it out until the sports media era really began in earnest, they would have been just fine. Cashing out of SportsChannel New England before the sports TV bubble starting blowing up may quietly be one of Karmanos's stupidest business moves in a long sequence of them.

 

The Connecticut government's desire to chase the Patriots at the expense of the Whalers certainly didn't help, of course, and then after all that the Patriots stayed in Foxborough anyway. Man, screw the Patriots.