Connecticut Whale logo unveiled

Howard Baldwin, the former owner of the Hartford Whalers and current head of Whalers Sports & Entertainment, recently took over the AHL's Hartford Wolf Pack, the minor league team affiliated with and owned by the NHL's New York Rangers.  Baldwin is going to run the business operations of the club.  His first move as head honcho was to rename and essentially rebrand the team as part of his ongoing efforts to bring NHL hockey (and specifically the Hartford Whalers) back to the Hartbeat.

The result, ladies and gentlemen, is that midway through the upcoming season, the Hartford Wolf Pack will become the Connecticut Whale.  And just yesterday at around 6:00 p.m. EST, the team unveiled the new logo and color scheme for the Whale:

Readers, I am interested in your thoughts about this new look.  Personally, I think it is terrible.  It looks like it was designed by a high school sophomore who was playing around with an outdated and illegally downloaded version of photoshop.  The "C" could not be more generic.  The logo also fails at transforming the peaceful whale into a fearsome hockey player (perhaps this is why the original Hartford Whalers logo featured only the tail rather than a full whale).  Speaking of the whale tail, it is the only homage to the original NHL logo, and it is tucked away in the bottom right-hand corner!  The entire image, in my eyes, is typical minor league garbage.  It is plain and boring.  Just look at the font used for the team name....I cannot detect even a whiff of style or flair.


Others seem to agree with me.  As of the present moment, a poll on the Hartford Courant website indicates that only 38% of those polled "like the logo" whereas 54% of people would have "rather seen something closer to the NHL logo."  Interestingly, the poll does not offer a choice of simply disliking the logo.  Hmmm.

Even Baldwin was slow to embrace this new look.  "I at first was resistant to this because I'm used to a more formal logo," Baldwin said. "But this really grew on me. It's family friendly."

I understand why Baldwin used the name "Connecticut" -- he wants to draw people from all over the state, not just the capital region.  And I understand his decision to use the "Whale" instead of the full "Whalers" -- he wants to preserve the Whalers brand for a future NHL franchise, and besides, lots of people (including this author) called the old team "The Whale" for short.

But at a crucial time when Baldwin is trying to generate support for the AHL, which in turn will hopefully generate enough support to attract the NHL, we needed a marketing home run.  This was a big spot, and in my humble opinion, Baldwin struck out.  But since the Wolf Pack won't actually change over to the Whale until midseason, perhaps there is still time for the team to get back to the drawing board.