spartacat_12

15 hours ago, TBGKon said:

Dont connect too much to this logo, remember Seattle started their generic imagery with red.

 

 

I mean the Kraken did end up going with red as one of their accent colours. 

20 hours ago, BBTV said:

But... he technically remains an owner - so what, does he attend owners' meetings?  Does the lineage die in 5 years?  Questions.  I have questions.

Bettman said that construction of a new rink has to be at least 50% complete within the 5 year window in order for the franchise to be reactivated. If that doesn't happen, Phoenix will just get the same consideration as any other potential expansion market after that point.

5 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

It ended already, when the Senators tried to pretend they were connected to the Silver Seven. Speaking of which, I still wish the =O= set was promoted to primary status.

The current iteration of the Sens has never pretended they're the same franchise as the original Senators. Yes, they brought back the name & have banners in the arena honouring the old Stanley Cup wins, but that's no different than the Jets 2.0 having Avco Cup banners & the old Jets retired numbers in their rink.

We are in agreement on the =O= set though.

A possible hint to one of the colours with the powder blue outline on the script? 

22 minutes ago, Foxxtrot44 said:

With today's trademarks, we have a pretty clear vision of the bracket

Yetis
Outlaws
Fury
Venom
HC
Blizzard
Ice
Mammoth

Talking to people it seems like this is a horse race between Yetis, Outlaws, and "Why isn't Raptors an option?"
Odd that of all the fossil choices available in Utah, they would go with Mammoth. I mean, we have a lot of them, but they aren't the iconic Woolly Mammoth.

I tend to think we have enough "yee-haw" imagery and history to pull from to make Outlaws really stand out. But also I don't care that we're all a bunch of squares.

I don't think "Hockey Club" will actually be one of the options on the bracket. That seems like more of a plan B in case they can't come up with something in time for next season.

32 Thoughts put out an interview with Smith today. It included some interesting comments about the potential brand:

• He was asked how much overlap he expects the NHL brand to have with the Jazz. He doesn’t necessarily want a Pittsburgh situation with identical colours, but mentions that he’d like there to be a bit of symmetry between the two 
• He talks about the popularity of purple, mountain imagery, and mentions blue skies, so it sounds like they’re leaning to a cooler colour scheme
• He says the nickname bracket will be 6 or 8 options. The names Blizzard, Yetis, Venom, Outlaws, Black Diamonds, and Golden Eagles are all mentioned, with Smith saying it’s more than a 50% chance it ends up being one of those names. He has a favourite, but wants the fans to decide

14 minutes ago, ruttep said:

 

Not disagreeing with you, but what Carolina does is just being obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious. You have a great team with all the pieces to push for the Cup. You don't need to act like a 13 year old on Xbox to beg people for attention on top of that.

Well when you pull a pendulum in one direction for so long, you can't be surprised when it swings far in the other direction. Letting an anonymous social media administrator dictate how you feel about a professional sports franchise seems like a miserable existence.

19 minutes ago, ruttep said:

Agreed. The Hurricanes' whole persona is built on taking "traditional" hockey ideals and shoving them in the face of everyone else. I think it stems from them leaning into the "Bunch of Jerks" label in 2019. If old hockey just shut their mouths that year I don't think Carolina's social media presence ever becomes this insufferable.

It's almost as if a lot of "traditional" hockey ideals are antiquated and have often held back the growth of the sport outside of the Northeast, Midwest, and Canada. 

18 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

Yeah, it’d be like a new NBA team being the Huskies, Blue Devils, or Tar Heels.

College teams don't carry the same importance in hockey as they do in basketball. If you did a poll of NHL fans asking them if they know what the University of Denver teams are called I think most of them would draw a blank.

12 hours ago, chcarlson23 said:

I feel like a huge part of the issue is the accessibility online. If it was legal, but say, only at casinos, then you'd have to physically go to one to place a bet, and that would make it harder for people to get lost in a gambling addiction. Especially since many casinos here in the US are pretty far out from major urban centers. (minus Vegas, but that's still an actual trip most people make, and not an everyday thing)

 

But the fact that it's too easy to download an app, or access a website to gamble, makes it so much harder to avoid, especially if already have that addiction. I'm not opposed to sports betting, and leagues seem to be managing it well, even cracking down hard to avoid fraud on their end, but having it too easily accessible is a bad thing and going to cause a lot more issues here very soon. 

 

You wanna drive to a casino and place bets on all sorts of crazy things, that's on you. You can always physically leave and stay away if needed. But it's a totally different thing when an app on your phone, constantly reminding you that "there's money to be made". How do you get away from that when things start to become unhealthy?

I think you're underestimating how easy it is for people to access illegal gambling websites on their phones. I have plenty of friends who were doing a ton of sports betting on the black market before it was legalized. Data estimates that in the US alone $2.6 billion is gambled on offshore websites every year, with none of that money going back into the American economy and no obligation for consumer protection.

With pretty much any vice, history has shown us that prohibition is not an effective solution. The most important thing is educating people (especially young people) and giving them the opportunity to make informed decisions. Every legal betting app gives players the option to lock themselves out of their account for a set period of time, but they can definitely improve how much they promote this tool.

On 4/20/2024 at 3:15 PM, MJWalker45 said:

What does that have to do with purple? Pretty much everyone expected them to keep the current colors regardless of name changes.

Because people hate how many blue & red teams there are, especially in baseball. Any time one of them is getting ready for a redesign people expect them to throw away their established colour scheme just for the sake of having something new.

On 4/21/2024 at 2:22 PM, adsarebad said:

Oh really.......

-

"We’re killing the youth of America’: calls grow for crackdown on US gambling"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/01/sports-betting-regulation-gambling-addiction

 

 

Treatment clinics are grappling with an influx of patients in their teens and early 20s and helplines are reporting record levels of calls.

I mean when gambling was illegal people would be less likely to know about helplines or treatment options that are available to them, so it seems like common sense to be seeing record levels of calls. The toothpaste is out of the tube, so the best thing to do is take this influx of tax revenue and invest in robust youth education programs, while continuing to evaluate how you regulate the industry.

Thank god it's plural at least.

On 4/14/2024 at 12:22 PM, The_Admiral said:

This is the same bare utilitarianism behind marijuana legalization and I would argue that both have made life a little more sad, crass, and gross. Picture a subway tunnel plastered in DraftKings billboards reeking of stale pot smoke. Is this progress?

Is is any worse than a subway plastered with ads for alcohol, or fast food, or pop reeking of cigarette smoke? All these things are legal and do plenty of damage to society. There's some irony in people going to watch a baseball game with their kids at COORS FIELD and clutching their pearls over all the gambling ads.

14 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

Or they'll be the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NHL and be stuck with whatever they pick for the next 20 years. 

That had crossed my mind, but no one has forced the Thunder to keep that terrible logo for this long. Colorado & Carolina both came up with their logos quickly after a relocation, and those turned out fine. It's still better than essentially wearing this for your entire first season.

24 minutes ago, BottomlessPitt said:

I seriously doubt they'll wait until year 2 to have a name and logo. 

The Thrashers relocation got announced almost a month later than this one, and the Jets still managed to have their logo & jerseys ready in the summer. I understand wanting to get the brand right, but being a generic NHL team for a year feels like a terrible way to make a good first impression on a new market, especially when they're already going to be playing in an arena that wasn't designed for hockey. 

6 minutes ago, Carolingian Steamroller said:

The white jersey has blue numbers with blue dominant stripes while the blue jersey has white numbers with silver dominant stripes.

No don't like the look of that.

I mean that was the case with the Barry Sanders-era jerseys too.

13 hours ago, SenatorJake said:

Ugh... again with this "ackshually, we should name the team HC" pretentious nonsense.

 

WHY DO THEY DO THIS? WHO HURT YOU?!?!

I wonder if that could just be a placeholder in case they can't finalize a brand in time for next season. Considering how badly the last Jazz rebrand went, I'd assume Smith wants to make sure he gets this right.

1 hour ago, Froob said:

Stay Coyotes and do a Utah theme re color of the current unis with some more Utah style landscape theme.

It's been said multiple times that Coyotes isn't an option. Preserving the brand for Arizona is one of the ways they got them to agree to sell the team without suing. But maybe in 20 years if Phoenix still doesn't have a team they can pull a Carolina and do some Yotes throwback nights.

Cambridge definitely doesn't make sense, but I think if they ever do put a 2nd team in Toronto it would be best to put them in one of the suburbs (Vaughan, Markham, Mississauga), rather than have them share Scotiabank Arena with the Leafs. It would make sense to have an Islanders-type situation for the 905ers who would rather drive than figure out getting downtown, especially when you consider how many people no longer commute for work. 

15 hours ago, Haz_Matt said:

Chicago is definitely going to veto anything involving Hawks. Before Kansas City went with Scouts they had considered Mohawks as the name, but the Blackhawks put a stop to that.

On 4/15/2024 at 1:13 AM, BeerGuyJordan said:

Jim Balsillie came close to relocating the Predators to Hamilton back in like the early 2010's. He wasn't as close as he believed, and started operating as if it were a done deal. That passed off the league and killed the deal.

 

I'm not certain he would have gotten it done even if he hadn't shot himself in the foot, but given the fact that the Isles debacle seemed to teach the League almost nothing, who knows?

On 4/15/2024 at 1:58 AM, who do you think said:

Yeah, Jim Balsillie. He loved to run his mouth and go off half-cocked and do things like hold a season ticket drive for a Hamilton team that he didn't actually own yet, then he tried to buy the Coyotes out of bankruptcy with the goal of loopholing them up to Hamilton somehow. I should read The Instigator again.

22 hours ago, mcj882000 said:

Yes, in fact they even made a movie about him last year. Vine star-turned-voice actor ProZD is in it for a bit. The Hamilton NHL mess even factors into the film a little, and one of the guys from This Hour Has 22 Minutes plays Gary Bettman!

Who knows how accurate this scene was, but Howerton as Balsillie was a great piece of casting. He fumbled all his attempts to land an NHL team, but essentially provided the template for what not to do in order to become an NHL owner. 

It sounds like Ryan Smith did the exact opposite, which is part of why the league is interested in doing business with him. He never explicitly stated he wanted to own the Coyotes, he just said, "I would like to own a team, I have enough money to do so, and I have a building that is ready to host games right away." He probably would've preferred an expansion team that would be playing their inaugural season in a brand new arena, but given the Yotes salary cap situation & stockpile of draft picks/prospects he's inheriting a pretty solid starting point. There's talk that he's going to be very aggressive this summer to bring in some big pieces too.

9 hours ago, Foxxtrot44 said:

What are people feeling for colors?

Green and yellow like the Eagles? Will this annoy the Minnesotans??

Something purple to tie it to the Jazz? Seems we'd be the only purple squad.

I've always felt green and orange was an underused "Utah" color scheme, but I understand how it could be more polarizing.

Since the Kings don't seem interested in wearing purple aside from the occasional throwback/reverse retro night, I'd say Utah should take the opportunity to own it. Maybe pair a dark purple with powder blue or a lighter purple like the new Jazz city jerseys.

That or a Red Rocks-style burgundy, burnt orange, yellow combo. Would depend on the name and whether a cool or warm colour scheme makes more sense.

39 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

I'd love to see what this incredible, ahead-of-its-time WHL logo would look like if turned into a "U" for the Utah Stingers. Not saying it would be good,  but I love this old logo so much that I'm curious to see if it could be brought back to life in some form.

 

I don't mind the Stingers name, but the last thing the NHL needs is another black & yellow team

1 hour ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

Salt Lake (even Salt Lake City) is a much better way to go than Utah. Much harder to attach nicknames to 'Utah' IMO. And Salt Lake sounds much more 'hockey-y' if that makes sense.

Everything Smith has put out publicly about wanting an NHL team has specifically referenced bringing a team to "Utah". I think he sees it as a team for the whole state, so it makes sense from a branding perspective to not just go with Salt Lake.

Regardless of what the team ends up being called, we should inevitably be getting one of the more scenic outdoor games in league history.

On today's 32 Thoughts podcast Elliotte Friedman said that the team would use Utah as the name, not Salt Lake.

48 minutes ago, McCall said:

This is not the same as other relocations as it genuinely seems like the Phoenix market doesn't care one way or the other if the Coyotes leave town.

There is still a group of fans that will be heartbroken by the move, even if it isn't as sizeable as other markets, plus hundreds of regular people who will be losing their jobs or forced to uproot their lives if they want to stay employed. Obviously it's a business decision, but there are still human impacts to any relocation.

1 hour ago, Sodboy13 said:

And I recall the story after the move being that Winnipeg ownership was intending to bring the Moose moniker up to the NHL, to the point where they had commissioned prototype uniforms, but they realized "the Jets are coming back" was too strong a tide to fight and too much free money to turn down.

 

Oddly, the Coyotes removing the location name from their shoulder patches when they revived the Kachina would make it easier to just bring the same home and road looks to Utah.

Coyotes is a fairly generic name, but the Kachina design is too Arizona-specific to work anywhere else. I'd also think that the Utah group is looking for a clean break from all the negative baggage associated with the Yotes.

Based on the reporting, it seems like the league is trying to come up with a deal that allows them to move the team without risking being sued by Moruelo. Part of that deal likely involves preserving the branding for the imaginary future franchise (which will most likely never see the ice).