spartacat_12

I'm fully aware of the situation, but I will never understand some hockey fans' obsession with relishing the failures of certain franchises/markets.

Why exactly?

The Coyotes still reference their history as the Jets 1.0. They have guys like Bobby Hull & Dale Hawerchuk in their ring of honour, despite them never having played in Arizona, and the franchise scoring records include guys who only played in Winnipeg. Similarly, the Jets 2.0 include the Thrashers in their history. Ilya Kovalchuk is still the all time leader in goals for the franchise. I have seen the Jets differentiate between "franchise history", which is the Thrashers/modern Jets, and "Winnipeg hockey history", which combines the 2 Jets era & ignores anything that happened in Phoenix/Atlanta. That seems to be the best practice for situations like this.

Guess I wasn't quick enough

Wasn't the Colorado Crush AFL team meant to be a reference to the Broncos' Orange Crush? I know arena football isn't the best source for an example, but I don't see the issue with going with a name your fans already have an attachment to. When you take the Native American elements out of the WFT brand the only tangible elements you have left are the city name, the colours, and the fans dressed as hogs in the stands. And nothing says fun sports entertainment like numbers.

Tell that to the other number nickname team playing in a nation's capital.

The connection between the diamonds & the map of DC makes me thing that they're going to use them in a similar way to Seattle's feather pattern. We already see them incorporated into the numbers & sleeve stripe, and I wouldn't be surprised if the alternate helmet features them.

I think it's more likely that they know whatever name is picked will be hated by a group of people, so they're pushing Washington to the forefront of the branding to cushion the blow. The Indians Guardians did the same thing when they unveiled their name.

I'm still hoping they go with Hogs/Red Hogs, but there wasn't much in the video that points to that other than one fan in a hog helmet.

I'm sure the '04 red jerseys would sell well, but I feel like it would just put pressure on them to go back to being a black & red team. We'd end up in an endless loop of them switching between the pre-Edge set & the '80s throwbacks. I'd rather see them mix it up and try a yellow jersey.

So if the name is problematic, why is it ok for New York to keep it? They were literally nicknamed Tex's Rangers because of their first owner. It's the same as the NHL Panthers going by Florida when the Lightning already existed. They named them after the species called the "Florida panther" just like the Dallas-Ft. Worth MLB team being named after the "Texas Rangers" law enforcement agency. The Angels going with California might have just been to avoid calling themselves "The Angels Angels".

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn't mind if most of the teams who currently have pant stripes ditched them altogether. Too many of them use a pant stripe that doesn't match any other striping in their uniforms (Calgary, Nashville, NYI, Pittsburgh, Vancouver), or use a stripe that only matches one of their uniforms (Chicago, Edmonton). Detroit, Tampa, and Toronto are the only teams where I think the pant stripe enhances both uniforms.

Apparently they wanted to go with 4 jerseys, a black & white robo-pen, and a black & white diagonal wordmark set. The league nixed the idea, so they decided to take on jersey from each pair instead of going with a cohesive set.

I mean I'm sure they want to at least stand out from the other Dallas-Ft Worth area teams. One of the Rangers or Mavericks should own the cowboy hat look at least.

The tough thing is that, aside from the Rockets, every pro team in Texas leans into a Western motif for their brands. You've got the Cowboys, Texans, Mavericks, Spurs, Stars, Astros (who briefly tried to emphasize the space imagery before going back to a basic star), and Rangers. There's only so many ways to use the Texas flag/state outline/cowboy hats/boots before you start looking like one of the other teams.

To be fair, the Penguins do have historical precedent with the diagonal letters also. I don't have a problem with other teams using diagonal wordmarks as an alternate look, but the Pens' primary logo is too good to be left off the front of the jersey. The Rangers name is essentially based on a pun, so they don't have a ton of imagery to work with. Rather, my issue with the Pittsburgh set is that the wordmark doesn't match the number font at all. Either switch the numbers to double-outlines + dropshadow, or change the wordmark to a single outline.

One of the problems I had with their expansion draft strategy was that they didn't take many guys going into the last year of their deals, so they aren't going to be working with many big trade chips going into the deadline. Vegas clearly went into their first season with plans to flip guys like Neal & Perron for picks at the deadline, but had to adjust their strategy once they started winning. Giordano is probably their best asset, but who knows how they feel about the optics of trading their inaugural captain before the end of their first season. Beyond that Jarnkrok, Johansson, and Sheahan are the only pending UFAs. The fact that they basically punted away their Columbus selection instead of taking Domi is even more baffling. He easily could've been flipped for a 1st rounder.

I can't see any teams topping the Leafs as far as popularity goes, but you're crazy if you don't think the market could support more than one team. People say "they'd be another Clippers" like it's a bad thing. The Clippers are the 6th most valuable NBA franchise. Realistically, Southern Ontario could support 2 more teams. Put a team in one of the main GTA suburbs (Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham), price them a little below the Leafs, and you'd get plenty of 905ers who would gladly skip the commute downtown. Then you could throw another team in a city like Hamilton or Kitchener. Obviously the Leafs would never let this happen, but the demand is definitely there. There were plans for the NHL to put a team there in the '90s (Hampton Roads Rhinos), but those got vetoed once the Whalers moved to Raleigh.

I mean if you look at the league's attendance rankings every year, the teams with suburban arenas are almost consistently at the bottom of the list. That isn't a coincidence. Yes, most downtown venues aren't the easiest to get to, but people who live outside the city are used to travelling downtown because that's how cities are designed. If you buy a house in the suburbs you expect that if you want to go to a concert, sporting event, or most jobs (pre-pandemic) then you'll be commuting. People living in a city centre don't want to travel to a suburb to go to an event.

Since when do both jerseys use the stealth version? The road jersey still uses the regular white circle logo. I personally think the navy works better on the orange jersey than royal did, but they still should have just kept the throwbacks around.

That's the case with these as well, and people don't seem to have a big problem with them coming back as a throwback: I think those plans got kyboshed before this season. Seems like the plan is to keep orange as the primary until royal blue is brought back. And if it did get promoted, the primary logo wouldn't change. The Flames & Leafs both use recoloured versions of their primary logos on their home jerseys.

For all the talk of success the Jets have had off the ice, they are still the 26th most valuable franchise in the league, below teams like Nashville, Anaheim, & Dallas, and barely above Carolina. Yes, Quebec City likely wouldn't have to worry too much about selling out the building, but the ceiling really isn't that high. The league prefers to gamble on lower floor/higher ceiling markets, and that has worked out for them more often than it hasn't.

I'm curious as to why you think this is? I'm not challenging your opinion, but the general consensus seems to be that the majority of the fanbase lives in the East Valley. You say that people are willing to drive to Glendale for Cardinals games but not Coyotes, so don't you think more people would show up to an arena that's closer to their backyard?

The primary logo was fine. It's only problem was that it replaced a treasured logo that represented a dynasty. When they replaced it with the classic logo it didn't improve the jersey at all. If you updated the colours on the lighthouse shoulder patch it would be great on the current uniforms. It obviously wasn't a great jersey, but at least the designers took a chance and came up with something original. They didn't just take a bland design, slap together some marketing-speak bs, and attach a beloved former player to it to try and buy some good will.

Yeah, I would say a fitted hat is on the same level as straight leg jeans. It's a safe choice that may not be the height of fashion, but will never look dated. Snapbacks made a comeback, and dad hats are popular now, but those are trends that most likely will cycle out of fashion soon.