The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Commentary by Jonathon Naylor Cheering one minute and ready to strangle someone the next, hockey fans are accustomed to love-hate relationships. So is anyone surprised by the giant wedge driven between them by the new Winnipeg Jets logo? The logo, with its circular design and Air Force inspirations, is a drastic departure from the more playful trademarks that adorned the first incarnation of the Jets. Thus we have traditionalists who are disenchanted, disappointed or downright fuming. They have slammed the the logo as "boring," "lifeless," and, my favourite, the ever-thoughtful "craptacular." But let's not let all of the negative nellies dominate this debate. Many of us are quite happy, thank you, with the modern stamp of big league hockey in Manitoba. What's most striking about the logo is that it completely reinvents the image of the team because it changes the type of Jets we are rooting for. The first two Jets logos depicted passenger jets, which, while technologically impressive, are not ideally comparable to hockey players. They may be fast, but they are also bulky, prone to delays and crashes, and hardly impervious to ice. The new Jets are fighter jets (hence the Air Force inspiration), slick vehicles known for their majestic finesse, stealth capabilities, and frightening accuracy. In this era of cartoony penguins and sharks, it is easy to forget that the original purpose of the hockey logo was to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. Symbolically at least, nothing does that quite like a weapon of war. The new logo is not flashy, but it has a certain class that promises to stand the test of time as other clubs Ð namely Buffalo and Vancouver Ð change their ill-thought symbols like underwear. As Don Cherry told the Winnipeg Sun: "It's got some style about it, I'll tell you that. It's a hell of a lot better than an awful lot (of the logos) in the National Hockey League that I wouldn't wear, for sure. I'd be proud to wear that, and proud to have that on a cap." * * * Another controversy surrounding the reborn Jets relates not so much to the present as it does to the past. Namely, should the new Jets own the player records held by the old Jets? The Winnipeg Free Press recently detailed the NHL's insistence that, no, the old Jets records Ð including Teemu Selanne's astonishing rookie year Ð still belong to the Phoenix Coyotes, who are really the original Jets, relocated. The new Jets are still considered to be the old Atlanta Thrashers, so their all-time greats are not Selanne, Dale Hawerchuk and Bobby Hull, but Ilya Kovalchuk, Dany Heatley and Marian Hossa. Strange, isn't it, how athletes who lack any connection whatsoever to Winnipeg are expected to be honoured by the city as the upper crust of their sport? What the NHL should do is acknowledge that Winnipeg is a unique case. How often does the league actually return to cities it previously left with a team that goes by the same moniker? The only other example that comes to mind is the Ottawa Senators. Upon rejoining the NHL as an expansion squad in 1992, the Sens essentially pronounced themselves a continuation of the old Ottawa Senators that had folded nearly 60 years earlier. The rebooted club retired the number 8 worn by original Senator Frank Finnigan. They adopted heritage jerseys with the original "O" logo. They even strung up Stanley Cup banners won by the old Senators, replacing the old logo with the modern one. Winnipeg, too, should be allowed to pay proper homage to the city's past NHL stars. And with all due respect to the "greats" who laced 'em up for the Thrashers and their lone playoff appearance, this should include the right to reclaim those old Jets records.
