Quote:
Originally Posted by browna
Not for me, when you had these two absolute slugs, the epitome of that era, do a series of teaser ads in the days before the reveal of Blasty in June 1998.
Edit:
And yes, the 4 guys in the front page of the Herald as part of the reveal, again line up nicely with the wasteland that the Flames fans had to endure for another 5+ years before making the playoffs.
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Those clippings capture the era of those jerseys so well. Late nineties, the Flames seeing all their stars leave, pre-cap era fears about the financial viability of Canadian teams and relocation, the team trying so desperately to sell a product that just wasn't competitive, questions as to whether or not the team ever could be competitive given the dollar value and not having enough cash for salaries, seeing guys like Niewendyke win the cup elsewhere while the Flames carried former Oilers in the twilight of their careers, and the standard of success being so low that just barely squeaking into the playoffs would have been a huge achievement.
I cheered for the Flames throughout that era, and that was probably when I really became a Flames fan, but those were dark days. Blasty was like a symbol of a desperate organization flailing to ride a league trend in black jerseys and revamped logos in clinging to attention while the excitement in the hockey world was all moving down south. To me, blasty has persisted as an emblem of the most thirsty, desperate, pitiful era in Flames history. That era only really ended with Sutter, Kipper, the black C jerseys and the run to the finals in '04.
But, I guess it's cool they plan to reclaim those dark days. Hopefully it looks good and the current team associates it with winning.