It’s another Wednesday, and another Hump Day Jersey Review ready to go into the books! This week it’s a two league entry into our records as we take a look at the life of the WHA New England Whalers and their NHL form, the Hartford Whalers. The franchise is now, of course, the Carolina Hurricanes, but for the sake of revisiting my childhood memories for the span of the article I’m choosing to ignore this here!
When we talk about the Whalers we’re looking at a 26 year history, 25 of which were with a team on the ice. That first year, 1971, saw a group of New England businessmen awarded the franchise for entry into the WHA. The name “Whalers” was chosen as the moniker of the team on the basis of two factors: 1) the whaling history of New England seaport towns; and 2) the name started with WHA, representing the league they would be playing in. The team began play in 1972-73, the inaugural WHA season, and won the first Avco World Trophy as league champions. They did so wearing this green and white coloured jersey:
Now although we’re used to referring to the team in terms of their Hartford home, the fact of the matter is that the majority of their first two years in existence were played out of
Boston, with much of this period having them based out of the Boston Gardens. Relocation was on the horizon, however, and on January 11, 1975, the New England Whalers played their first game in their new home, the Hartford Civic Center Coliseum, where they would remain for the next 22 years. Coinciding with the move came a jersey change, with a modified logo and colours (the addition of gold into the mix).
Alas, the WHA`s days were numbered, and when the league finally folded, the Whalers were one of a select few teams that were welcomed into the NHL fold. This of course came with one major condition set by Boston Bruins ownership: the “New England” had to go from the team name. The 79-80 season subsequently saw the team adopting the city of Hartford as their namesake.
The league switch also saw another logo change for the franchise. Out was the increasingly controversial harpoon-based logo, and in was a combination of a green W under a blue whale’s tail. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the logo is what many people have never noticed about it: the white space between the W and the whale's tail forms an H, representing their hometown of Hartford. Two things that did not change in the design, however, were the major colours, as well as the presence of Pucky the whale on the shoulder of the jersey, right where he had been since the Whalers first jersey was created.
The next 12 seasons saw relatively minor adjustments being made to the overall design of the jerseys (although the 82-83 season saw the team being one of only two teams to adopt the use of Cooperalls [the other team being the Flyers], a uniform modification the was quickly switched back to the regular hockey pants for the following season). For the 81-82 season, the team introduced a new patch while also making minor adjustments to the striping of the jersey:
The striping was again altered during the 85-86 season, while Pucky was finally “harpooned” as he had become little else but something for people to ridicule. And I mean, who can blame them? What team in their right mind would feature a cartoon animal so prominently on the uniforms? Yes, I’m looking at you Anaheim.....(I kid of course! For the record, I own an old school Ducks jersey and have a certain fondness for it...):
Four years later, in time for the 89-90 season, guess what? Yes, another change in the striping:
They remained this way for three seasons, until the 92-93 campaign, at which time perhaps the most significant modifications in over a decade were made via colour tweaks. Gone were the green-laden away jerseys, and in were sweaters where blue became a focal colour. As a whole, all of the jersey colours were darkened, the striping was again modified, while silver highlites were added to both the striping and sleeves. Minor changes were made to the logo in terms of subtle modifications to the whale’s tail, while the white space between the W and the whale tail was changed to the silver utilized in other areas of the jersey for the purpose of highlites. The jerseys also contained a 100th league anniversary patch on the upper right chest, but this was not unique to the Hartford uniforms as all teams wore these patches during th 92-93 season :
The final jersey change carried the team over the final four seasons of its life in Hartford. This final change was essentially isolated to the away jersey, whereby the blue was darkened to such a degree that many mistook them for black jerseys:
That was that for the Whalers. The 1997-98 season saw them playing....somewhere else (I told you, I will not mention “that team” in this article!), and left many a Hartford fan brokenhearted. Much like the good folks of Winnipeg, there remain a grass roots group of fans and business people who are rallying to bring a team back, and all I can say is good on them! I just hope that should they do so that the Whalers name would be resurrected, as listening to this music under any other NHL team name just wouldn’t sound right:
Do you like hockey? Do you like winning prizes? Do you like winning hockey prizes? If so, check out the National Hockey Card Day contests I am running in conjunction with the folks at Upper Deck. If you’d like to find out how to win some of the hockey card, and non-hockey card, prizes Upper Deck is going to give away to six lucky Hockeybuzz readers then click on the National Hockey Card Day link for details on how to enter.
The latest Monday Box Break contest is also open until Saturday, February 14th, so if you’d like to be a winner head over to my 08-09 UD Artifacts Video Box Break, watch the break and answer the contest question to be entered into the draw for one of three chances to win a card of your choice from the box!
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