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At the introductory press conference that announced that Tom Anselmi would be succeeding Cyril Leeder as the Senators’ president and CEO, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk spoke to this organization’s need for someone who could do two things: 1) use their extensive land development experience to coordinate the Senators’ LeBreton Flats arena project; and 2) invigorate their brand.
Although the LeBreton Flats project could take years to come to fruition, it sounds like Tom Anselmi is already looking at relatively simple solutions to address the Ottawa Senators’ brand.
According to a Ken Warren Postmedia article, the organization is already looking at turfing their criminally uninspiring 3-D logo and extension, doing away with the set of home and away jerseys that they have used since 2007.
It’s pretty easy to understand why Anselmi is in tune to the wishes of Senators fans.
Essentially since the moment he spoke of the need to reinvigorate this fan base, his Twitter account has been flooded with responses speaking to this team’s need to change the logo and he has taken notice.
“The logo is just a visual representation of the brand,” Anselmi said. “Where we go next is a clear priority. Where we go from here is one of the first things we talked about (when he was hired). We’re aware of what the fans here are saying and we’re hearing a lot.”
(As an aside, if this is the power of public pressure, just imagine what could happen if we flooded Anselmi’s account with takes on how the Senators need to address their blue line.)
Spearheading the charge for the team to permanently adopt the white and black heritage sweaters is Jacob Barrette (@Le Collectif). Barrette, of course, is the Senators fan and graphic designer who played a crucial role in the creation and development of the black heritage jersey.
The pressure to make a switch not only lies in the fact that the Senators will want to put for their best branding efforts in the team’s 25th anniversary season, but no NHL teams will be permitted to use alternate jerseys during the 2017-18 season.
Thanks to Adidas taking over from Reebok as the league’s jersey rights-holder and designer, the justification to do away with alternate jerseys lies in making “the initial implementation of new sweaters easier” for Adidas.
In other words, the Senators could be faced with a situation where they are forced to wear their hideous set of home and away primaries in every game next season.
From what I’ve been told in the past, making a jersey or logo change is a more complicated and time-consuming process than one would otherwise believe, so whether there’s enough time to implement a change to Ottawa’s jerseys remains to be seen.
I have always been partial to the Senators bringing back their original 2-D sweaters, but it’s impossible to know what kind of timelines the league has or needs to bring these classics back into the fold.
Perhaps it bodes well that the Senators’ heritage alternate has been in circulation for years and should hopefully allow the Senators, Adidas and the NHL to transition it and the white heritage jersey from alternates to the team’s primary sweaters.
The heritages wouldn’t be my first choice, but in a mock-up, Barrette did away with the use of the heritage off-white for a pure-white and the results look pretty good.
Most importantly, they look exponentially better than what the Senators are presently using. I mean, ideally, I’d like to see the Senators transition back to the 2-D logo, but these heritage jerseys aren’t a bad alternative. If it means that the Senators use these before eventually introducing the 2-D jersey as an alternate, so be it. It’d be a marked improvement from what we have now.
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