Potential Atlanta NHL Expansion Team Thread

[RoyalAir]

I loved the Thrashers color scheme. There are enough red/black teams in the NHL. Anything brighter or unique is better.

Once Atlanta owned that light blue as their own, it was very unique and a welcome addition to the nhl's palette. I was always partial to the Batman logo, and would have loved to see that with the Blueland-era colors.

 

[varsaku]

I know it would never happen but wish some teams went with a unique color scheme even just for alternates than the usual color schemes.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Honestly, I was never crazy about the name, which Ted Turner came up with himself to reference the brown thrasher, the official state bird of Georgia. It's also a bird that is very small and very susceptible to bullying from other bird species and predation from several different animals (see here Brown thrasher - Wikipedia). Those aspects don't exactly elicit much of a sense of respect, now, does it?

I agree that the uniforms were actually pretty good, though I liked the original blue sweater with the Batman-like crest even better than the power blues with ATLANTA on the sleeve. And the Thrasherville history wasn't the only thing that was neglected in terms of marketing. I'd heard numerous reports of several former Atlanta Flames and Knights who lived in the area when the franchise first started who were willing to help serve as ambassadors for the city's hockey history, but were pretty much ignored by the team management at the time.

This is now true with the Thrashers' name, etc. True North owned all of it upon the sale (which is why Thrash didn't become the Braves' mascot, a la Youppi in Montreal). In the years since the relo, all of those trademarks are owned by the NHL, so a new group could have those rights ASAP.

If Atlanta were to get another go, I don't particularly want the name, as it is associated with moribund teams. But a lot of locals really want it back. So...

Atlanta Colonials.

 

[KevFu]

How about combining UGA red, GT gold and Georgia State royal blue?

OMG, that's what they actually what they did? Because the Thrashers did have like six colors on their color palette...

I'm a die-hard college hoops junkie who follows conference realignment heavily. And I was surprised to discover GSU was Division I a lot longer than I had thought. I knew the Panthers were CAA before joining the Sun Belt; but I did not know they were D-I since the 1960s. I'd have guessed like 1997.

I remember the Panthers making the 2001 NCAA tournament (and probably assumed they pulled a Northern Kentucky and redshirted half of each class for five years and had a loaded team their first year of eligibility). And of course I remember the Ron Hunter era.

With GSU being mostly commuter until the 1996 Olympics (the Olympic village was built for the games and then became GSU's FIRST dorms on campus), you never actually SAW thousands of people in GSU gear together at the same time, on TV, until the Ron Hunter era.


If their palette was purposely "GSU Blue, GT Blue, GT Gold, Thrasher bird brown and (KSU?) yellow, and Georgia Red" that's the exact same kind of thinking I had. So it totally makes sense now!

However, it was "going in order of proximity from (then) Phillips Arena" or how far down UGA red was in their look that I totally missed it.

 

[KevFu]

I think you just answered your own question about why teams like to pick their own unique colours - so they can get their fans to buy more merchandise.

Eh, when you're hockey in Atlanta, I don't think that's the smart play to be totally different when you're trying to bring in existing sports fans of other sports and have them ADD hockey, too.

Color schemes pretty much match (a) their nickname first, and (b) the city identity second.

For example, Charlotte got an NFL team, and it's the color of a panther (Black) and Carolina Blue (from UNC).
The Minnesota Wild went with green (like a wild forest), and a dark red (like the University of Minnesota).

The Colorado Rockies (baseball) went with a Purple mountains Majesty color that fit their name. The Colorado Avalanche went with an icy/snow adaptation of that. Their colors are "different seasons" of the same image: Baseball in the spring, Hockey in the winter.

When the other sports are more popular than yours, you tend to "borrow" more. Like how the Pirates and Steelers were extremely successful in the 1970s, and the Penguins -- after starting with light blue, dark blue and white -- added a yellow triangle around their penguin logo in the early 70s and then completely abandoned blues in favor of Black & Gold by 1979.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I think you just answered your own question about why teams like to pick their own unique colours - so they can get their fans to buy more merchandise.

Pittsburgh laughs in black & gold unity. Even the junky Riverhounds eventually realized that.

I say that mostly in jest, I generally believe 'unique' color schemes are best, but it really is a case-by-case basis. My bigger thing here is that there's a real over-abundance of certain colors in this league while others are underused. This is a league that already has 4 red & black teams, a color scheme I find dreadfully boring largely because 90s test marketing decided that red was the most 'feared' color and we became inundated with red & black junk trying too hard.


Another Atlanta team certainly could utilize red if...but the other major Atlanta teams don't have uniformity beyond including red. Even United, with their Falcons & UG-inspired primary colors did the smart thing and brought the other local powerhouse college team into the mix by inserting Georgia Tech's gold into the mix). I think pairing red with something else would be a hypothetical Atlanta team's best option. Heck, use that shade of gold and you'd be fine...big enough difference in shades there to contrast with Calgary (especially if Atlanta uses a deeper red) if that mattered. Don't use as much black/gray to avoid looking like Vegas and voilá, you have a color scheme that plays locally without being overutilized. Same basic scheme as the Hawks, but with hues closer to maroon & vegas gold. Similar, but their own.

Just please use fewer colors than the Thrashers did.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

When the other sports are more popular than yours, you tend to "borrow" more. Like how the Pirates and Steelers were extremely successful in the 1970s, and the Penguins -- after starting with light blue, dark blue and white -- added a yellow triangle around their penguin logo in the early 70s and then completely abandoned blues in favor of Black & Gold by 1979.

To be fair here, the only reason the Penguins didn't have black & gold from the start was the Bruins throwing a hissy fit over somehow owning a color scheme (while the Habs & Rangers were already wearing the same colors, penguins are black & gold, our flag is black & gold, etc., etc). It took the Penguins citing precedent (the NHL Pittsburgh Pirates used that color scheme first, both in the NHL and in Pittsburgh) to finally win the right to wear those colors. The logo always included a black & white penguin skating in front of a golden triangle (a play off of Pittsburgh's nickname 'The Golden Triangle'). The timing of when the Penguins started wearing them, however, was absolutely accelerated by the success of the Steelers & Pirates at the time...but we're talking a matter of <10 months. They were originally meant to be debuted for the 1980-81 season and were already ready to go, so much so that they were wearing black & gold within 10 days of the Steelers winning Super Bowl XIII.

Pittsburgh is the only city where the color scheme comes first at this point. Thankfully for the Penguins that color scheme is also the most logical one for a team named the Penguins. The blue always feels weird and unnatural because that was a literal off the shelf choice because of not being able to use the obvious color scheme. One of the original executives had a connection with the St. Michael's Majors, so that became the color scheme.

I'm a Pittsburgher, so I'm biased in favor of the unity...but it is something I think more places should attempt to do. The problem here is that red is the only true unifying color for major professional Atlanta teams. Use that...just don't do what the Thrashers did and use all of the local colors.


FWIW the stupid drama behind the Penguins fight for their color scheme basically means Atlanta can be a fifth red & black team if they really want to be. No team 'owns' a color scheme...the fact precedent needed to be set for that to be accepted still baffles me. Teams can copyright specific colors, if they're unique, but not basic ones and not combinations.

 

[GreenHornet]

OMG, that's what they actually what they did? Because the Thrashers did have like six colors on their color palette...

I'm a die-hard college hoops junkie who follows conference realignment heavily. And I was surprised to discover GSU was Division I a lot longer than I had thought. I knew the Panthers were CAA before joining the Sun Belt; but I did not know they were D-I since the 1960s. I'd have guessed like 1997.

I remember the Panthers making the 2001 NCAA tournament (and probably assumed they pulled a Northern Kentucky and redshirted half of each class for five years and had a loaded team their first year of eligibility). And of course I remember the Ron Hunter era.

With GSU being mostly commuter until the 1996 Olympics (the Olympic village was built for the games and then became GSU's FIRST dorms on campus), you never actually SAW thousands of people in GSU gear together at the same time, on TV, until the Ron Hunter era.


If their palette was purposely "GSU Blue, GT Blue, GT Gold, Thrasher bird brown and (KSU?) yellow, and Georgia Red" that's the exact same kind of thinking I had. So it totally makes sense now!

However, it was "going in order of proximity from (then) Phillips Arena" or how far down UGA red was in their look that I totally missed it.

I was actually suggesting, not revisiting history. I'm nearly 100 percent positive the Thrashers didn't have the college teams in mind when they chose their color scheme back in the late 1990s. Even if they did, they dropped the ball on the shade of blue. They first used more of a navy blue (which is the primary color of Georgia Southern (feh!) and later went to the powder blue or "Carolina" blue, as the folks from the Tar Heel state would call it. GSU would be royal blue. Also, the yellow they used was more KSU, as you pointed out, than Tech. I was suggesting using the GT old gold, rather than yellow.

I don't disagree that using colors or some other associations with local college teams could be a good idea. OTOH, as a lifelong Tech fan and one-time student there (for a year) and a GSU graduate, I'd be OK with getting the red out completely. After all, in addition to U(sic) GA, red and black is the official color scheme of Satan and the Nazi flag.

 

[KevFu]

(Good intel)

Pittsburgh is the only city where the color scheme comes first at this point.

I'm a Pittsburgher, so I'm biased in favor of the unity...but it is something I think more places should attempt to do. The problem here is that red is the only true unifying color for major professional Atlanta teams. Use that...just don't do what the Thrashers did and use all of the local colors.

To an extent, half the New York teams.. The New York City flag is Blue, Orange and White... which you get from the Knicks, Mets and Islanders. (yes, of course, the Mets took their colors from Dodger Blue and Giants Orange; but THEY picked those based on the colors of New York).

I think that's a good concept. It's weird to me how the evolution of sports colors are just like, "we wore red socks one day and now we're the )Boston Red Sox / Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals)."


Honestly, Atlanta's getting close... and an NHL team using a similar theme as the MLS' Atlanta United... then only the baseball team -- who needs a rebrand anyway and should be the Hammers -- can complete it.

Although, there's something to be said of mixing in some Peach!

I was actually suggesting, not revisiting history. I'm nearly 100 percent positive the Thrashers didn't have the college teams in mind when they chose their color scheme back in the late 1990s.

I don't disagree that using colors or some other associations with local college teams could be a good idea. OTOH, as a lifelong Tech fan and one-time student there (for a year) and a GSU graduate, I'd be OK with getting the red out completely. After all, in addition to U(sic) GA, red and black is the official color scheme of Satan and the Nazi flag.

I didn't THINK they did, but once you said it, I was like "hey, it's also in order of proximity!" but you're right, the blues are wrong.

Also, the red/black/white is the color scheme of Coca Cola, which I know is an Atlanta staple.

 

[tucker3434]

I’d use the braves colors, navy, red and gold accent. Navy as the primary so they aren’t looking like the canes. Still very Atlanta without having to beat you over the head with the red. After all, plenty of us went to other sec schools.

 

[KevFu]

Navy and red are tired, especially in baseball and it's the MLB team that desperately needs a rebrand.

Go for something unique and bold. Black and Peach; maybe some green trim (or dual greens, one dark like a forest, one a modern, electric green).

The Hawks did a black/peach jersey once (good idea, poor execution).

 

[tucker3434]

Navy and red are tired, especially in baseball and it's the MLB team that desperately needs a rebrand.

Go for something unique and bold. Black and Peach; maybe some green trim (or dual greens, one dark like a forest, one a modern, electric green).

The Hawks did a black/peach jersey once (good idea, poor execution).

They've had that color scheme for over a hundred years and. the logo for 70. They may go the route of the Indians/Guardians and change the name but I wouldn't expect the overall look to change much any time soon.

Navy/red is an easy color scheme to make a timeless jersey from.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Although, there's something to be said of mixing in some Peach!

the first team that uses peach...hopefully everyone will have forgotten "A League of Their Own", because that's the first thing I thought, "Rockford!"

 

[KevFu]

They've had that color scheme for over a hundred years and. the logo for 70. They may go the route of the Indians/Guardians and change the name but I wouldn't expect the overall look to change much any time soon.

Navy/red is an easy color scheme to make a timeless jersey from.

It's "timeless" because every time someone is playing baseball, someone is wearing that same look. It's worn all the time.

ATL, MIN, CLE, BOS all had the same looks for decades.
The Twins just tweaked their look to be slightly different, but same colors; (and the Cardinals did a stretch with navy caps where they joined the party; and the Angels had a long stretch with same look, too; they dropped it... here's the Nationals.


This is yet another reason I hate the "play everyone in the league once" thing, because it's a lot more tolerable to have so many teams looking the same when you're only playing half of them.

 

[tarheelhockey]

edit: never mind, I thought you were talking about a different team.

Regarding the Braves, I cut my teeth on the 80s/90s Braves and for my money they had some of the best uniforms in sports. Crisp clean whites with red trim and the blue cap, then just make it gray on the road. Beautiful uniforms. IMO their pre-90s uniforms were passable for the era, but didn't hold a candle to the current look.

 

[KevFu]

edit: never mind, I thought you were talking about a different team.

Regarding the Braves, I cut my teeth on the 80s/90s Braves and for my money they had some of the best uniforms in sports. Crisp clean whites with red trim and the blue cap, then just make it gray on the road. Beautiful uniforms. IMO their pre-90s uniforms were passable for the era, but didn't hold a candle to the current look.

I don't necessarily disagree...

I kind of think that most jerseys are like that. You can take a team that you think of as a "boring uniform" and then walk through a team shop and see a pro sports jersey up close, and they just look awesome no matter who it is. One of the most mocked teams for their jerseys has been the Diamondbacks, and every time I go to a DBacks game, you see jerseys and color scheme in the ballpark and you're like "Damn, that pops!" (Not the gradient snake dots set, but all their others).

The Atlanta baseball unis are clean and crisp and good; just like Minnesota, Boston, Cleveland, Washington, and St. Louis. It's baseball, America's past time, so half the league had a red-white-blue color scheme pre-expansion. It peaked at 13 of 20.

None of the teams using it LOOK BAD. It's just nuts that there's so little diversity; and Atlanta is prime candidate #1 for a rebrand because they're using Native American imagery. They could change gradually: Same color scheme and visual look but with Hammers nickname and change the Tomahawk to a Hammer. After a while when people are used to it, emphasize the gold/yellow more and more over time and become unique instead of a carbon copy of the four other teams.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Economists have been saying this as well and cities like Calgary have been ignoring them. There's no way taxpayer funded arenas can recover the city's investment. Even if there's development around it the tax revenue simply doesn't add up - especially when developers start demanding their share of the tax breaks. I think the privately owned arena in Kansas City even said no to the NHL.

Wasn't it Boots Battagio (sp?) who was interested in bringing a team to KC, but when he went to jail, that was it?

 

[Mike Jones]

Wasn't it Boots Battagio (sp?) who was interested in bringing a team to KC, but when he went to jail, that was it.

I don't know about that one. I seem to recall a time when there was a rumour that the Penguins were looking at KC but that was more of a ploy to get a new arena built in Pittsburgh.

I think it is more of an intentional choice not to have an NHL franchise in the downtown arena. Who can blame them? The only way that arena would make money is if they didn't have an NHL franchise as a tenant.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

Wasn't it Boots Battagio (sp?) who was interested in bringing a team to KC, but when he went to jail, that was it?

Hehe, Boots Del Biaggio.

And I believe he's out of jail, now! So maybe he can buy in!

 

[Headshot77]

The league is in dire need of some PURPLE.

I miss the Kings' late 2000s look with the black and Forum Blue knits.

 

[hockey20000]

would georgia even be able to draw enough fans to sell it out? doesn't come across as much of a hockey state lol.

 

[nhlfan79]

would georgia even be able to draw enough fans to sell it out? doesn't come across as much of a hockey state lol.

Sigh, the eternal inner conflict between trying to educate vs. not feeding the trolls.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

would georgia even be able to draw enough fans to sell it out? doesn't come across as much of a hockey state lol.

In a MSA of 6.1 million people? Uhhh....yes.

 

[hockey20000]

In a MSA of 6.1 million people? Uhhh....yes.

fair enough may have a shot if build it then.. still think houston is nhls next priority though .

 

[ponder719]

Quick back of the napkin math:

18,500 seats * 41 games = 758,500 seats to sell.

Presuming (the facially ludicrous scenario where) you sell only one ticket per person, you end up with 758,500/6,100,000 = 12.44% of the population buying one ticket each sells out that stadium every year. Calculating season tickets, corporate/group sales, and multi-game attendants out of that, they probably hit a comfortable 88-92% capacity if they get about 3% of the MSA to become die-hard fans.