Brathwaite was awesome. A great story of guy stepping in out of nowhere to become an unlikely hero. He made some amazing saves that had no business being made by anyone.
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"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
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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.
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.
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I also remember being at Brathwaite's first game the season we lost so many goalies. A 1-0 shutout against Dallas I believe. I believe the Freddie chants started that first night! One of the all time fan favourites!
Last edited by the-rasta-masta; 11-19-2020 at 07:55 PM.
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This is how Freddie Brathwaite's National Hockey League career began in 1999:
It was midway through the 1998-99 season and the Calgary Flames were enduring an injury crisis, similar to what the St. Louis Blues are today. First, their goaltending starter, Ken Wregget, went down. Then his backup, Tyler Moss, was injured. Then the first call-up, J. S. Giguere, got hurt, as did the second call-up, Andrei Trefilov. A goaltender from the East Coast Hockey League, Tyrone Garner, came up, but struggled.
To find someone -- anyone -- who could dress as a backup one night, they brought in Igor Karpenko from their farm team in Saint John. And when he was stranded because of a snowstorm in Boston en route to a game in Pittsburgh, the team brought in a goaltender named Pavel Nestak, whom they needed to sign to a contract in order to have him play that night.
When they came home from that trip -- dispirited, shell-shocked and wary of what could possibly happen next -- the Flames looked across town and discovered Brathwaite, playing for Canada's national team. The Flames eventually signed Brathwaite as a free agent, thinking he could provide organizational depth in the minor leagues. He came to Calgary from Ottawa, where the national team was playing, only to pick up his equipment, but was quickly pressed into service. He then won his first game by shutting out the Dallas Stars, and by the time the rest of the goaltenders had recovered from their injuries, Brathwaite had essentially won the No. 1 job.
The man was a ray of light during an almost comically dark stretch. Not mentioned in the quote above, Freddie's win over the Stars ended an 8 game losing streak.
You had to take your heroes as they came back then.
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And this is why I own an authentic Brathwaite white pedestal jersey with e Captain's 'C' on it. He was a great story, I hated the day we traded him away.
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I also remember being at Brathwaite's first game the season we lost so many goalies. A 1-0 shutout against Dallas I believe.
Absolutely was a 1-0 shutout over Dallas. Going into that game they were 12-24-3 and almost dead last. Through the rest of the season they went 18-16-9, six points behind the Oilers for the last playoff spot. Might have made the playoffs had they not closed out the season 2-8-1 (with Ken Wregget in net most nights).
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This is how Freddie Brathwaite's National Hockey League career began in 1999:
It was midway through the 1998-99 season and the Calgary Flames were enduring an injury crisis, similar to what the St. Louis Blues are today. First, their goaltending starter, Ken Wregget, went down. Then his backup, Tyler Moss, was injured. Then the first call-up, J. S. Giguere, got hurt, as did the second call-up, Andrei Trefilov. A goaltender from the East Coast Hockey League, Tyrone Garner, came up, but struggled.
Correction: Pavel Nestak was the call-up from the ECHL. Tyrone Garner was an emergency call-up from Oshawa; he was still a JUNIOR! That's how deep the Flames had to go to find a guy to play goal that year.
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Correction: Pavel Nestak was the call-up from the ECHL. Tyrone Garner was an emergency call-up from Oshawa; he was still a JUNIOR! That's how deep the Flames had to go to find a guy to play goal that year.
Yeah, that article had a few inaccuracies. Garner was an emergency call-up from junior.
And Brathwaite's NHL career didn't start in 1999 when the Flames signed him. He had played NHL games in Edmonton before that.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
These last few pages really remind me of why I love CP. I remember loving hockey so much in the late 90’s and I definitely recall that “lame” feeling of being a Flames fan. It almost felt like you felt you cheered for a minor league team. I even adopted the Flyers as my “playoff team”. I distinctly remember watching that 1-0 shutout as an 11 year old and feeling like it was a hockey miracle. It’s so cool to hear about this from other diehards from that time. In conclusion, CP rules and I will not be buying a Blasty jersey.
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I grew up thinking the horse head was actually a nightmare or hell horse. Which made me love it even more and was fitting to a team that was a nightmare to play against. Also a nightmare is a lot cooler sounding than horse head or ol blasty.
I'm actually still pissed, and will always be pissed about that bull####.
#### the NHL Top 100 panel.
I mean, you don't have to worry about it. They put in Toews and Duncan Keith over Malkin and Cam Neely, in addition to guys like Iginla and St. Louis. It was a marketing exercise, nothing more.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I mean, you don't have to worry about it. They put in Toews and Duncan Keith over Malkin and Cam Neely, in addition to guys like Iginla and St. Louis. It was a marketing exercise, nothing more.
Who the #### is more marketable than Iggy?
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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.
I think you're way overanalyzing a mere jersey design. This team is a far cry from the young guns no matter what they're wearing. And its not like you'll be seeing it often.
Maybe the team can redeem the design with the on ice product now and bring a new meaning to it.
Lame.
