I'd be curious to see a poll of the 90s and early 2000s jerseys broken down by age group.
As an '80 baby, I remember the Flames going from the Cup winning team in 89, to an exciting but consistently underperforming team in the early 90s, to a team whose stars had all deserted it by the late 90s. I remember them adopting the horse-head logo and the black-dominant uniforms during the Young Guns rebranding, which at the time was basically (to me at least) a desperate effort to maintain fan interest in a team whose stars were all gone, that had virtually nothing in the pipeline, that was going to struggle to compete given the absence of a salary cap, and that was in danger of being shuttered (relocated). When Fleury was traded, I was convinced we might never see another star in Calgary again (or, if the Flames developed one, they'd lose him for salary reasons after a few years). They were seriously dark times to be a Flames fan.
I associate the '04 run with the new black-C jerseys, not Blasty. By that point the horse had been (to my recollection) basically relegated to the shoulder-patch, where it works much better.
Still, the horse as a primary logo will always be associated with dark and desperate times for the Flames (to me, at least). I wonder if perhaps the group that likes it doesn't have these associations, by virtue of being born in the mid 80s or very early 90s instead.
|