monkeypower

From Eric Stephen's most recent Ducks mailbag on the Athletic,

Quote

Are the Ducks at least keeping the 30th-anniversary jersey as full-time next year? A white version would be nice. Not as good as the OGs but a start in the right direction. — Peter B.

 

Peter, I haven’t been told such. The current plum (it’s plum, and not eggplant as I’ve been told often) sweater that’s received strong reviews was always meant to be a one-off, but you imagine ownership has taken notice of how many fans love the retro feel. Here’s the thing: the Samuelis love the webbed-D logo and the color orange. It’s an imprint they have put on the franchise with the 2006 rebrand. But they’re very aware of how much the original colors and logo mean to people. I’m sure you’ve noticed the Ducks have incorporated that more and more into their marketing. It also feels like the webbed-D is being de-emphasized. The Ducks love big reveals — Carlsson debuting the jersey at the draft — and I wouldn’t put it past them making an eventual brand shift on the down low.

I'm pretty sure he gets asked about the jerseys every time he takes questions.

13 hours ago, Dilbert said:

The Coliseum has its own charm. I dont know any other venue that doesnt serve Coca Cola or Pepsi products (they serve products of Dr Pepper Keurig- RC Cola, Diet Rite, Sunkist, Big Red, Dr Pepper, 7 Up, Sun Drop), but its no old fashioned barn by any means.

The Honda Center just switched back to Coke last season after being RC Cola for a time, but I don't know how long and I can't remember what it was the last time I was there in 2014. Googling brought up the Penguins arena having RC Cola at one point as well.

1 hour ago, zubazpirate said:

It feels like the CHL - the OHL and WHL in particular - has more or less reached its limits in Canada. The cost of entering is so steep, you basically need a 1/3 scale NHL arena at 1/3 the cost of a NHL building, and not many small towns with big dreams can pull that off. You could bake sale your way into the kind of Centennial Arena barns that our grandfathers played in, but you can't build a 6,000 seat palace with luxury amenities that way.

 

I get the impression that the US has an exponentially higher number of people who can easily write seven or eight figure cheques to get the ball rolling on big arena projects. At least that's my impression from the local arenas I've been to in the US. So it's not shocking at all that the OHL and WHL are looking south of the border for growth.

I can't speak to the OHL, but I would agree the WHL has kind of hit its limit in Canada. There's just not many places left that are a) big enough, b) have an existing arena that's already good enough or means to build new/improve old and/or c) have an existing franchise and location with the capability or interest of moving up a level. There has been talk over the years about one more BC team being a possibility (Chilliwack coming back or Nanaimo moving up, usually)  but there's never been anything of actual substance. 

I don't know if the WHL has any true ambitions of expansion though. If somebody wants to cut a check, I'm sure they'll take a look at it, but I don't think the WHL is actively searching or soliciting in either country. The relocation of Winnipeg to Wenatchee was more about the WHL being done with Winnipeg's ownership group and the BCHL Wenatchee franchise fitting the a), b) and c) criteria I set up above.

1 hour ago, zubazpirate said:

Maybe this BCHL-style elevated junior A type of league is where the growth opportunities are for junior hockey in Canada.

I personally think it may be the case where there are already too many existing sub-major junior teams and I could see more folding than expansion in junior A upcoming. It's also getting to the point where there might not be many possible markets left for that level as well.

There is also a lot of dust to be settled within the coming years in junior hockey.

• The BCHL left Hockey Canada (to mixed results despite what their propaganda machine has been putting out and, despite what some people on social media have latched on to, their move didn't have anything to do with the various Hockey Canada scandals over recent years)
• Following that, BC Hockey promoted three existing Jr. B leagues to "Jr. A" for a trial period with the goal of creating a new Jr. A league of the most successful teams 
• The five biggest (richest) Alberta teams have just left mid-season for the BCHL, now leaving the AJ in a bit of a flux
• Some existing BCHL teams are discussing moving back to Hockey Canada and into one of the promoted Jr. B leagues
• Some, don't know how legitimate, discussion that the AJ, the Sask, and the Manitoba leagues will cull lesser teams and create a prairie spanning league of the remaining (don't know if travel costs would allow that though)
• There is more recent smoke that the NCAA will start allowing (or more like realize they won't be able to block it from happening if it goes to court) CHL players to play college hockey and there have been a couple insiders and forum posts saying it's seemingly becoming more "when" than "if". If that does happen, it could throttle Jr. A because those players who do want to go NCAA can now play at the higher level of junior hockey in the CHL, relegating Jr. A to even more of a lesser league

There's a lot of question marks right now in Jr. A hockey about what the landscape will look like and I personally don't think trying to start a junior hockey team is a good business decision right now. I know if I had the money, I wouldn't.

1 hour ago, The_Admiral said:

"Turner Broadcasting" as Atlanta institution barely exists in any meaningful way. It's basically just a branch office of Warner and has been for years. CNN is run out of Washington and New York, and the other channels are just reruns and sports.

Is the former home of The World of Sid and Marty Krofft not CNN anymore?

Both of the prior Atlanta relocations can be reasoned away if wanted.

The Flames moved in 1980. There's little comparison to be made between the Flames situation and a potential new team nearly 50 years later. The Thrashers were bought in a package deal by an ownership group who wanted nothing to do with them and handled them like they wanted nothing to do with them.

I personally don't think the Flames should be used a knock on the feasibility of the Atlanta market but I can see some questioning through the Thrashers.

17 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

Yeah, but they're all in southern Alberta, which is a hotbed. The WHL produces all sorts of Albertans named Jaxxsyn, Huntzmin, and Crambon, but for some odd reason they aren't Mormons. 

Anecdotally, I was born and raised in Calgary. The only Mormons I knew growing up were my neighbours across the street.

The LDS reports 200,000 Canadians with 83,572 Albertans (but the 2021 Canadian Census only reports 87,725 for all of Canada, FWTW). Cardston, where the famous temple is, isn't really known for hockey and (not that this is the be all end all because there are issues with birthplaces on the site) Elite Prospects only has 17 people listed as having Cardston birthplaces.

Fun fact for you Simpsons fans, Patty and Selma visited the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston at one point.

Derek Ryan himself is an adult convert through his wife and he's from Spokane.

22 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

Relative to the other leagues, Latter-day Saints are underrepresented in the NHL. Derek Ryan is the only active one, and the only other one I remember before that was Brent Peterson, the old Barry Trotz assistant. I think Mormons have early-morning religion classes that preempt the 4 a.m. ice time of legend, but more than that, hockey's youth culture of binge-drinking and sucking your friends' dicks to show that you're not gay doesn't jibe with Mormons' upright cultural mores. 

 

I know the demographics of Utah are shifting, so maybe there could be a situation where the Jazz are the team for Mormons and the, let's say Coyotes are the team for gentiles, but then you're splitting up a market that's already small and marginal to begin with.

Canada only has about 200,000 Mormons and the Mormon hotbeds in America aren't exactly hockey hotbeds so just by the numbers, it makes there wouldn't be many professional Mormon players.

13 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

That's not really the issue so much as the OHL's overexpansion into the GTA never making sense in the first place. Why should the team even be in a position to relocate down the street from Mississauga to Brampton?

12 hours ago, Dilbert said:

Seeing as the team is already established in the GTA and moving to another area of the GTA, I dont see this as an issue. Its not like the area is gaining another team or losing a team. The GTA only has 2 clubs in the OHL in Oshawa and with the Steelheads so while the market isnt crowded at an OHL standpoint it is for hockey overall if you add in the Leafs, Marlies and the PWHL club

All my junior hockey knowledge is Western, but from what I have heard and gathered, Mississauga has had attendance issues for pretty much their history. Here are their attendance numbers, click on the bars to go to the OHL totals for each year, and their personal highest average was fourth lowest in the league and their highest I could see was fifth lowest.

I just don't think there's much of a market for junior hockey in the GTA (probably for the same reasons the Argos have lower attendance) and from a Westerner's perspective, I don't know if there's much of a city pride atmosphere for any of the suburbs as opposed to viewing themselves as Toronto adjacent. I, unrelated, came across a relatively recent video from Kitchener's PxP person who talked about the Mississauga market and you can get some of the sentiment the OHL community has towards  Mississauga.

7 hours ago, dont care said:

You say that like anyone will be reading the NOB’s in any game other than close up shot

Not in this case because the ice is going to be so far away from the stands but I have seen first hand jerseys like this and they are hard to read from even a lower bowl perspective (or the equivalent in smaller arenas where it's just one level).

Also, people can definitely read NOBs from a lot of places, in person and on tv.

Why the outline inconsistency in the top of the S? It's the only part that's filled in completely.

2 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

There is plenty of contrast here…

Black on red is always a tough contrast. I could see the logos and numbers being okay because of the size but there's no way the names are going to be visible at a distance, especially football stadium hockey distance.

6 hours ago, Nordiks_19 said:

Fans have been calling for the Ducks to return to those colors for like 15 years now. There is only 3 explanations as to why it never happened :

1 : The Samuellis are too stubborn to consider it

2 : The marketing team are complete morons to acknowledge the money value in those jerseys

3 : The Samuellis don't give an F of what the fans want.

As a Ducks fan, it's a big no to all three of those things, especially because they have been permanently selling plenty of retro merchandize for at least the last decade. It also hasn't been 15 years either, it's a much more recent phenomenon.

The real answer is that the Mighty Ducks brand and colours are so tied into an ownership group in a way that has never been seen before in sports that made it very understandable the new owners would want to separate from said previous owners. Then after the switch was made, the team immediately won the Stanley Cup and shortly there after entered the best period in team history.  The Anaheim Ducks have way more success and years (18 to 13, lockout included) than the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.

22 hours ago, JohnnyCowboy5 said:

I could really do without the phantom yoke and I think the logo is too high up on the torso but as a fan, I'm a fan.

22 hours ago, Chromatic said:

The theory that gets promulgated all the time is that the Canucks changed to the Orca logo to “promote” Orca Bay. That’s not the case.

If you want to make the ‘synergism’ argument, which is still silly because it isn’t like Orca Bay is some separate entity from the Canucks, that’s fine, but then the Orca being a “corporate” logo makes no sense as a criticism either,

I never once said anything about promoting Orca Bay. I said the ownership based the logo after themselves, it's arguably braggadocious and self-important and is corporate synergy but none of those things have to equal promotion. It's like when the Saskatoon Blades switched to a bulldozer logo because the then-owner made his money in construction. He's not actively promoting his construction company, he just reflected himself in the logo.

It would be like if I owned a team and gave them a powerful monkey logo (because of a dumb name I accidentally made on this forum when I was 12)(why do I still have this name).

1 hour ago, Chromatic said:

The Orca Bay conspiracy theory is complete nonsense.  It does not hold up to basic scrutiny. I say this as someone who does not think the Orca is a great logo, but that's because I think it's poorly designed, not because its "corporate".

 

Orca Bay was the Canucks parent company. It's business was operating the Canucks (and Grizzlies). Changing the logo of the Canucks to an Orca has absolutely nothing to do with "promoting Orca Bay", because Orca Bay's mandate was promoting the Canucks. This is chopping down trees to make axe-handles. If the Canucks were purchased by say Starbucks and changed their logo to a mermaid, there might be an argument there. But the "corporate orca" conspiracy theory makes as much sense as complaining about the team being named 'Canucks' because Orca Bay changed its name to 'Canucks Sports and Enterainment' 

You're pretty off base here.

There's nothing to do with promoting the ownership group like your Starbucks example or with something like the Mighty Ducks. There's no financial/advertising conspiracy or corporate synergy here, Orca Bay wanted to change their logo and picked the creature the ownership group was named after. 

The orca logo is more akin to the Cleveland Browns being named the Browns or the Calgary Hitmen being named the Hitmen or the Winnipeg Jets having the compass notch in their logo pointing (true) north. The ownership wanted to reflect the ownership in the name or brand in some way.

20 minutes ago, CC97 said:

As far as I know, the team nor the ownership group ever went on the record saying that's why they used the orca in their logo, however, everyone naturally made that connection on their own (because, c'mon, it's obvious)

 

Canucks GM Pat Quinn said at the unveiling back in June '97, "The killer whale is one of the most intelligent creatures in the world and embodies many of the qualities [we] value in [our] hockey team" ... "We are a proud Canadian city [and] our logo will show the world where we're from." 

The ownership group took on the Orca Bay name in 1995 and as you said, the orca logo is from 1997.

Now, I'm normally not much for conspiracy theories but I have to believe this one.

I think some people forget or don't know the Orca was only the logo because it was the name of the then ownership group.

(I am correct in saying that, right?)

23 hours ago, riccirulesall said:

edit: or like this, great concept @Puckguy14

 

 

 I could see something like this being the case and the reasoning being a water effect or like the light on the water going from the shore to to the deep where sharks are abound.

7 hours ago, ORLMagic86 said:

Call me crazy, but I'd want to see them go back to their black and pink look full-time.

5 hours ago, zubazpirate said:

Completely agree. AFAIK they are the only high-profile North American hockey team that has a strong tie to pink elements in their identity. Why not lean into it?

They have leaned into the pink occasionally over the years during anniversaries and subsequent jerseys plus one outdoor game jersey.

The thing with the Hitmen is that they have been in their current colours for 26 seasons and only wore pink for 3, with the last of those being in 1998. So as much of a history they have with pink, it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things. 

18 hours ago, monkeypower said:

Couple thoughts:

• Always nice to see them in black and pink again
• This is reading as phantom yoke, which I kind of thought we were past as a society
• Based on the explosion/blast emoji in the tweet and the mask looking to be on the shoulder (that is the shoulder right?), I'm reading the return of the "Starburst" logo on the front.

I was right, though I was thinking they might be a recoloured Carolina black template but these are a unique template based off their original jerseys and their Bret Hart Night jerseys.

The phantom yoke is a dumb as usual and I think the logo could be moved down on the torso.

The photos on the online store also show the jerseys having the Bret Hart "the best there is" speech as a hanger effect.

Couple thoughts:

• Always nice to see them in black and pink again
• This is reading as phantom yoke, which I kind of thought we were past as a society
• Based on the explosion/blast emoji in the tweet and the mask looking to be on the shoulder (that is the shoulder right?), I'm reading the return of the "Starburst" logo on the front.

Could just be a graphic issue on the shop, but the Angels might have added the drop shadow outline to the front numbers, but not the back, and the NOB is stouter than previous.

I've long been in favour of the Angels making the wordmark and number outlines/dropshadows consistent (either adding to the numbers or removing from the wordmark) on the homes and aways because I always thought it looked weird and made the numbers stick out as plain, but just doing the front number doesn't help that.

2 hours ago, ruttep said:

I'd imagine that the Reebok Edge disasters soured everyone on that color scheme. How do you go from 

IIRC with those DALLAS jerseys, there was some level of an attempt from the Stars organization to pull from college hockey.

The Victoria Royals of the WHL unveiled these third jerseys last week. Minus the outline numbers and adjusting the shade of blue, what about something like this for the Lightning?