Demise of traditional Raiders logo tough for P.A. faithful

A hat with the Prince Albert Raiders traditional logo on it.

It was a day the faithful of the Prince Albert Raiders franchise hoped would never come, but its arrival maybe did seem inevitable.

About a week ago on Friday, October 1, the Raiders unveiled new regular home and away jerseys along with a new alternate uniform. The alternate was styled after the regular jerseys the Raiders wore from 1982 to 1996 that included the team’s traditional Arab on skates logo.

One day later at 9:29 p.m. Saskatchewan time, the WHL issued a statement saying the league and the Raiders had agreed to discontinue the jersey and the brand immediately.

“On Friday night the Prince Albert Raiders unveiled an alternate third jersey, which was inspired by a highly successful era in club history,” said WHL commissioner Ron Robson in the statement. “We recognized the dated design is insensitive and offensive.

“After consultation with the Prince Albert Raiders, this uniform and brand will be discontinued effective immediately. On behalf of the WHL and the Prince Albert Raiders, we regret this uniform design was approved and sincerely apologize for any harm it may have caused.”

The release said there would be no further comment from the WHL or the Raiders.

All items that contained the traditional Raiders logo were removed from the team’s online store this past Monday.

It is safe to say in Prince Albert that statement was met with dismay. In Prince Albert, that Raiders logo was revered and loved. Originally designed during the 1973-74 campaign when the Raiders were still playing in the junior A ranks in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, the sight of that logo flooded back memories of some of the franchise’s greatest days to the people in Prince Albert.

A Raiders pennant from the 1980s.

While the logo wasn’t on team’s jerseys at first, it was in use by the squad for four Centennial Cup championships for junior A national supremacy in 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1982. During those junior A years, the front of the Raiders jersey had the team named spelled out on it often accompanied by the number the player wore.

The traditional Raiders logo became the front crest on the team’s jersey, when the Raiders moved up to the major junior ranks and began playing in the WHL in 1982-83.

The Raiders won the Memorial Cup as CHL champions in 1985 wearing that jersey, and the team usually sat in the top five in the overall WHL standings wearing that jersey.

That jersey was worn by Mike Modano and Dave Manson, who are the club’s two more famous NHL grads. The Raiders have retired both of their numbers.

Various team stars like Dan Hodgson, Dave Pasin, Emanuel Viveiros, Pat Elynuik, Dean McAmmond, Jeff Nelson and Chris Phillips all wore that jersey.

That logo and jersey were used pretty much for the whole duration when Terry Simpson was with the Raiders as head coach or held the dual role of head coach and general manager from 1972 to 1986 and in 1989-90. Simpson will forever be a legend in P.A.

The Raiders wore that logo developing their image as being both a skilled and tough team. They could play the run and gun style, get down in the trenches or take part in a flat out brawl, if the opponent wanted things to go that way.

The back of a Raiders jacket circa late 1980s early 1990s.

They developed the romantic image of being the franchise “where honour still matters.”

At the other end of the spectrum, there are circles outside of Prince Albert that greet the Arab on skates logo with dismay. In those circles, the Raiders traditional logo was seen to be depicting a violent Muslim man or that all people from the Middle East are violent terrorists.

When the WHL posted a link to the statement nixing the traditional Raiders logo on Twitter, there were lots of people who piled on voicing displeasure or being offended by the logo.

For people in Prince Albert, it felt like those who voiced their displeasure were from outside the northern Saskatchewan centre, which caused the nixing of the logo to be that much tougher to take.

On Oct. 2, it seemed the displeasure with the traditional Raiders logo first popped up on a blog-type site called the Queens Citizen. The WHL issued its statement discontinuing the Raiders alternate jersey and traditional logo brand about six hours later.

It is common that voiced opposition to something does get rolling from a blog-type site, where questions start to quickly come from mainstream media outlets and sponsors.

While this may sound strange to people in Prince Albert, a lot of people outside of Prince Albert have never seen the Raiders traditional logo and don’t associate that logo with the team, because it has been 25 years since the hockey club used the Arab on skates logo as its main emblem. That factor also helps fuel outrage with regards to the Raiders traditional logo.

It is likely this is what happened with regards to the Raiders alternate jersey and their traditional logo brand, and the WHL and the Raiders took a temperature read. From that temperature read, a decision was made to get ahead of the story, which saw the WHL issue the release that it did.

The Raiders 1985 Memorial Cup championship team.

Looking back over the last seven days, the move worked. Outside of the initial outrage on social media, the story over what was the cancellation of the Raiders alternate jersey and traditional logo quickly went away.

During these social media times, it does feel like people in general have shorter attention spans, and the social media outrage mob quickly moves on to the next thing to get outraged over.

The Raiders faithful and the people in Prince Albert were left to digest what happened and work through how they felt about what happened once the mob moved on.

With that noted, the Raiders did get into hot water over their traditional logo before. In late 2014, the Raiders unveiled a new mascot named “Boston Raider” which was patterned heavily after the old logo.

Due to a national uproar, the mascot was mothballed shortly after being unveiled.

That had to foreshadow that the day may indeed come where the Raiders traditional logo would be nixed for good.

Back in 2014, CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes arrived in Prince Albert when the “Boston Raider” mascot episode occurred. It is safe to say the CBC comedy show wasn’t going to put Prince Albert in a very good light.

Due to the fact the WHL and Raiders got ahead of the story, no TV programs like This Hour Has 22 Minutes ventured to Prince Albert to make the city look bad, and uproar had to be judged to be a lot less than it was in 2014.

Brayden Pachal wears a throwback Raiders uniform on Feb. 15, 2019.

It was smart for the WHL and the Raiders to not say anything further, because it was impossible to win no matter what you said. All that could be accomplished was an unsatisfying tie or going out and digging a deeper hole.

In the years since 2014, the Raiders quietly brought back the traditional logo on merchandise in the team’s gift store inside the club’s home rink, the Art Hauser Centre. Those items were always big sellers, because of the good memories it brought back for locals in Prince Albert.

The staff in the Raiders business office saw the logo made locals happy, so they kept bringing it back. The Raiders even wore jerseys that mirrored those worn from 1982 to 1996 for two games in their 2018-19 WHL Championship season.

Despite the fallout over the traditional logo, the Raiders have one of the best business offices in the league with Michael Scissons as business manager and Cliff Mapes as executive director of business operations leading the way.

The Raiders have one of the best hockey operations staffs in the WHL led by Curtis Hunt as general manager and Marc Habscheid as head coach.

Over the longer stretch of time, the Raiders have the people in place to keep the franchise in a good spot.

The fact that the traditional logo has gotten nixed doesn’t negate all the great things the Raiders franchise has done. 

The Raiders wear throwback uniforms on Feb. 15, 2019.

As time moves on, this episode might be a blessing in disguise helping the Raiders franchise move forward.

When it comes to the core of everything, the Prince Albert Raiders are still the franchise “where honour still matters,” and the faithful that follow the team are still good people. Those are things that are always good to remember.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Blades need to continue community efforts

Chase Wouters, right, signs autographs at a post-game skate with the Blades.

    The Saskatoon Blades can’t get complacent when it comes to being involved in the community.

    In a fickle market like Saskatoon that is becoming more and more saturated with sports teams, you have to keep doing the school visits, appearances at community functions and having game themes that involve the community to keep your team’s brand in the minds of the people.

    The Blades ended the 2018-19 campaign on a high note. They returned to the WHL playoffs for the first time since 2013 posting a WHL’s fourth best regular season record at 45-15-8.

    Their roster was filled with numerous likable players like captain Chase Wouters, Kirby Dach, Nolan Maier, Max Gerlach, Riley McKay, Dawson Davidson, Brandon Schuldhaus, Gary Haden, Ryan Hughes, Kyle Crnkovic, Randen Schmidt and Dorrin Luding.

Riley McKay, right, has fun with a young fan at a skate with the Blades.

    Saskatoon won its first WHL playoff series since 2011 sweeping the Moose Jaw Warriors 4-0 in a best-of-seven first round series.

    That set up a showdown with their archrivals the Prince Albert Raiders, who finished first overall in the regular season standings with a 54-10-2-2 mark.

    The Blade fell in an intense six-game series. The Raiders advanced on to win the Ed Chynoweth Cup as WHL champions.

    Saskatoon’s season ended with a 6-3 loss to Prince Albert in Game 6 of that second round clash. That contest was played at the SaskTel Centre and drew 10,521 spectators.

    While the Raiders had a large contingent of fans following their team down from “Hockey Town North,” it would be safe to say 70 per cent of the people in that crowd were out to support the Blades. Over five playoff home games, the Blades drew an average of 7,428 spectators per contest.

The Blades are active with school visits like this one in January of 2018.

    Saskatoon averaged 3,911 spectators per game over 34 regular season home dates in 2018-19, which was an increase from the 3,851 spectators per game the club drew in 2017-18 for 36 home dates.

    A surge at the gates late in the regular season in 2018-19 helped the Blades show a small improvement in average attendance. The most uplifting sight was the fact the Blades drew attendance figures of 4,270, 4,555, 4,454 and 9,188 in each of their respective final four home regular season games.

    The positive momentum the Blades had built by the end of the campaign can potentially create a false sense of security or the perception that the good times are about to roll.

Some of the performers that are seen at the Blades’ First Nations night.

    In Saskatoon’s sports scene, it seems like a team can fall of the cliff and lose all its positive momentum about 10 times faster than it took to build it up.

    Going into the 2019-20 campaign, the Blades need to continue their community ground game they have had since Edmonton product Mike Priestner became the owner of the team before the start of the 2013-14 campaign.

    Steve Hogle was the brains behind a lot of the community and game day initiatives the Blades put forward, when he became the team’s president before the 2013-14 campaign.

People take their citizenship oath at the Blades’ “welcome the world” game.

    Two of the most memorable are the when the Blades hold their First Nations night game and their “welcome the world” game. The latter sees about 45 newcomers to Canada become Canadian citizens.

    While both of those nights usually involve a tonne of moving parts, they create a feeling of inclusion, which helps attract new fans.

    Hogle stepped down from the president’s role after the Blades were eliminated from the 2019 WHL playoffs but will continue to be an alternate governor with the Saskatoon franchise. Hogle’s new role will allow him to live back in Edmonton, where he and his wife, Cathy, will be closer to family.

Steve Hogle was behind lots of the Blades community and game day events.

    Cliff Mapes, who is a veteran WHL executive, stepped down as the Blades vice-president of business operations after the team was eliminated from the playoffs. He has since joined the staff of the rival Raiders as their executive director of business operations.

    With Hogle residing more in Edmonton and Mapes departing to Prince Albert, the youngsters are left to execute the community and game day initiatives for the team.

    Blades general manager Colin Priestner has taken on the president’s role. Tyler Wawryk was promoted from being the team’s manager of communication to director of business operations.

    The club’s business operations staff is filled with young faces like Kim Varty, Maclean Nelson, Eric Anderson, Allie Lindal, Caitlyn Gray and Mat Lukash.

The Blades community involvement helps bring out the fans.

    Ryan Lafontaine, who is the Blades director of finance and administration, is a long time office veteran, but he is still on the younger side of the age spectrum.

    Overall, I think the youngsters are ready to run and continue what Hogle and Mapes did.

    Going into the 2019-20 season, the Blades will return popular players like Wouters, Maier and Crnkovic. Dach could end up playing in the NHL for the Chicago Blackhawks, who selected him third overall in June’s NHL Entry Draft and have signed him to a three-year NHL entry-level contract.

    If Dach returns, he becomes another good person the Blades can have in the community.

Blades right-winger Ryan Hughes sends a stick to the fans last season.

    Actually, head coach Mitch Love has the potential to be another person that can become enduring in the community. He has always become popular in his previous WHL stops most notably as a player and coach with the Everett Silvertips, but also as a player with the Moose Jaw Warriors and Swift Current Broncos.

    Blades have always been strong when it comes to community and game day initiatives since Mike Priestner became the team’s owner.

    For the Saskatoon club, this is a “do not fix what isn’t broken” spot and something that needs to continue in the future.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.