Edmonton Oil Kings/Flin Flon Bombers

Holy crap, it's hockey season again? The Western Hockey League kicked off it's season with the return of the historic Edmonton Oil Kings franchise. In front of a Rexall Place crowd of 6,782, the Oil Kings did opening night up right posting a 4-3 victory over the franchise that last abandoned Edmonton, the Kootenay Ice.

Put the Oil Kings logo down as my favorite new/old logo released this year. Of course, I'm not sure that there were any other new/old logos released, but that's neither here nor there. The Edmonton Oilers owned Junior-A franchise did a little bit of work to update the classic Oil King logo, notably replacing the St. Georges Cross with an oil drop and the reworking of the colors. The results are exceptionally simple and...

Wait! We interrupt this review because The Sports Logo Pundit found something that blew his mind. While researching the Oil Kings I came across a jersey that automatically jumps up to the top of my all-time favorites...


That's Bobby Clarke and his jersey from when he was a member of the Western Hockey League's Flin Flon Bombers. The Bombers name and famous exploding "B" logo have been used by this strange sounding Manitoba city since 1936 without too many changes.

And would you believe it, the Flin Flon Bombers still exist as a part of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. Unfortunately, this jersey isn't part of their current uniform, but even without it, they still look pretty darn good.


Team: Edmonton Oil Kings
League: Western Hockey League
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Arena: Rexall Place

Team: Flin Flon Bombers
League: Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League
Location: Flin Flon, Manitoba - named after the character Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin. Seriously.
Arena: Whitney Forum
Merchandise: Great game worn jerseys

Calgary Vipers

This season the Northern League is expanding to Calgary and Edmonton, two cities abandoned by affiliated baseball a few years ago. Buoyed by the amazing success of their only other Canadian team, the Winnipeg Goldeyes, the NL thinks they will be able to create success where both the Cannons and Trappers were unable.

Both teams will be facing an uphill battle in trying to capture their cities interest. Both cities hosted Triple-A baseball for many years and the fans are used to high quality play and major league prospects. When residents think of their city as being a Triple-A city, it's hard to persuade them to come out and see an inferior product.

Although Northern League players are less talented than Triple-A players (although everybody knows the best talent is really in Double-A) their games are typically much more entertaining because team owners understand that fans are not necessarily there for baseball and baseball only. Fun is the name of the game in the Northern League.

So how do you convince fans of this? To me it all starts with the name and the logo. A team stepping into this situation has to be able to differentiate itself from the team that left so that no comparisons can possibly be made. I think that both Calgary and Edmonton (who are called the Cracker Cats, more on them in the future) have done a great job in doing just that.

In Calgary's case it will be hard for fans to think of the Cannons when looking at these two Vipers logos. They are just so different from what they are used to in their baseball teams.

The name is tough enough for adults and the logo is cartoony for kids but not in a cutesy-wutesy way that would turn off their parents. Adults shouldn't have any problem wearing this logo on a t-shirt around town. It helps that the colors are nice and understated and should look great on uniforms, t-shirts and caps.

And most importantly, it's fun. Or at least more fun that any Cannon's logo ever was. That may be enough on it's own to give the Vipers a chance. For a Northern League team the most important thing is to get people into the ballpark once and then put on an amazing show and try to hook them with the fun factor. Hopefully then people will return with two more people who then return with two more people and so on and so on.

I think the Vipers have laid the groundwork for getting that first person into the ballpark. Now the pressure is on to put on a great show and convince them that they have no need for Triple-A baseball since the Vipers and the Northern League are in town.