Quote:
Originally Posted by flylock shox
I think this hits the nail on the head.
I can tell you that as an ardent Flames fan when the Blasty jersey was released - and throughout the logo's entire tenure until 2003 - it was painful to be a Flames fan. I don't know what it's like now, but back in the latter 90s, wearing Flames gear to junior high or high school would brand you as super lame. Super, super, lame.
Beyond the association of that uniform with the worst period in Flames history is the fact that it was - itself - a product of desperation: an effort to repackage an awful product using a black uniform playbook that was relied upon heavily by other teams in the 90s. It's actually amazing they didn't call the logo "The Extreme C Stallion" and didn't partner with Doritos to market it.
Younger fans have the freedom to look at the uniforms and the logo itself in a somewhat more objective manner, as they don't have these associations. For those of us who suffered through 1998 to 2003 as mature fans of the team simply aren't so lucky.
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Hear, hear!
Prior to the bandwagoneers of the spring of 2004 I didn't know anyone else who was a Flames fan. The only ones I knew were the 12,000 or so who actually showed up at the Saddledome.
The black jersey was a transparent attempt at cashing in on the bandwagon. The logo was the soulless product of a focus group. It's true that, as someone who very clearly remembers the dark (no pun intended) years of 1996-2003, it is difficult for me to separate the black jerseys and horse head logo (and the pedestal jerseys) from how atrocious it was to be a Flames fan then. Still, objectively the design was derivative. I don't think that's in any way a biased assessment.
If the Flames had truly made a "reverse" version of the horse head jerseys I could have accepted fully embracing the ridiculousness of the thing, as the Ducks are doing with the execrable "Wild Wing" jerseys and the Coyotes are doing with their old third jerseys. At least they have the guts to laugh about it. The Flames couldn't even muster more than a half-assed effort to make a "reverse retro" jersey! "Let's change the red shoulder patches to white and change the red cuffs and hem to black!"
Lame.