Christmas Comes Early to Uni Watch HQ

You know… when the CFL tried it’s little US expansion, those teams didn’t all put stars & stripes in their logos to signify to the Canadians that “hey, we’re US teams in YOUR league”. Why is it so damn important for Canadian teams to do it?

They are only bad logo elements in your opinion, Tim. To some, the maple leaf in the Blue Jays logo is classic, particularly to – I don’t know – Blue Jays fans.

I mean, that post was your opinion and you’re fully entitled to it, but I think it was stupid.

Tim, you’re now missing the point entirely.

Washington = America’s capital, and they use the eagle (America’s symbol) and a building representative of their nation.

Ottawa = Canada’s capital, and they use the maple leaf (Canada’s symbol) and a building representative of their nation.

If you argue against one, the other is just as “desperate and silly”. You can’t crap on one, and hold the other to a higher standard.

The Jets didn’t have to check with the Maple Leafs. You’re arguing nonsense here. They did have to conform to the RCAF’s demands on the use of the logo, and they decided to keep the maple leaf as part of the logo BECAUSE IT IS PART OF THE ROUNDEL. What part of “we are buying the usage of an established logo” aren’t you getting? If you want to use the Steelers logo, you abide by their rules of usage. See how that works?

As for the Blue Jays and Toronto FC, the CFL teams in the US did use stars and stripes in their logos. The most successful team, the Baltimore Stallions, certainly had link in their logo.

If only national teams can wear symbols of a nation, then the Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Phillies, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Capitals, Washington Nationals, Allen Americans, and Rochester Americans should immediately be renamed or folded. After all, they don’t represent the masses that live in the USofA.

Your argument for Chief Wahoo speaks of a racially-sensitive reason for retiring that logo, not a nationally-sensitive one. Huge difference there.

Tim, I don’t think you’re listening to anybody here. Teebz is providing a reason for them to use the maple leaf in their logo and you’re shutting it out, citing that the teams are lazy, using the leaf as a cop out. But tell me, a cop out of what? Out of designing an uniform? I disagree.

Ottawa is the capital of Canada. Like Washington DC is the capital of United States. So it makes sense to use stars and stripes, eagles, anything national. So Ottawa has a leaf, makes sense.

You covered Toronto Maple Leafs. The Jays are the only Canadian team so if they play a game in Texas, it makes sense to carry that pride all the way down there for a ballgame. Raptors are currently the only Canadian team in the NBA as well.

Winnipeg chose to honor its military. It has a leaf. So that’s in their uniform.

Flames, their logo sucks like Teebz says. Whatever else is an improvement.

Montreal and Vancouver have no reason to incorporate the leaf so they don’t. Same with Edmonton.

It’s fine if you don’t like that the maple leaf is everywhere but before you go on a quite angry rant (as evidenced by the volume of your swear words) again, just think about why they have the leaf. I don’t think they’re copping out of anything because really, what reason is there to?

“before you go on a quite angry rant (as evidenced by the volume of your swear words)”

While I wasn’t/am not angry, I just fucking swear all the goddamn time ’cause I can and don’t give a shit.

I’m smiling right now. Very happy.

And I didn’t swear once in the original “rant” (I don’t think)

Listen, I know Teebz can come up with rational reasons for the logos to be the way they are. I understand why the flag is there, I just feel in most cases, it’s stupid. The Senators and the Raptors probably agree with me and got rid of those logos.

I could come up with rational reasons why the Preds logo should have that yellow stripe link But it’s bad design. It’s stupid. And I wish they would get rid of it.

Winnipeg’s argument that the RCAF made them keep the leaf is silly for two reasons. The Jets didn’t have to really get approval, if Canadian Copyright and Tradmark laws are anything like the US’s, then that is a BS story. And that logo isn’t very good design, IMO. I think it looks cluttered and bad.

And the alt logo and the word mark are horrendous pieces of trash. Awful. Hell, the best part of the wordmark is probably the leaf since it distracts me from the awful script.

“Isn’t it a bit sad, though, that Canadian teams — apparently — feel the need to constantly define themselves in comparison to the US?”

Not as sad as Americans who feel the compulsion to condescend to foreigners and tell them what behaviour on their part is appropriate.

In the early days of Confederation, there was a pretty clear economic and cultural divide between the Conservatives and Liberals. Conservatives favoured protectionist trade policies and a focus on the British Empire. Liberals championed free trade and continentalism. The Conservative view tended to prevail until 1896, when Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals formed a government. Between the 1860s and 1890s, Ontario began its transition from the poor sister of Confederation, a rural backwater, to the industrial heartland and, ultimately, an economic engine that overshadowed Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Depending on how you look at trade policy, the Tories’ tariffs on manufactured goods were either to credit or to blame for that development, which was fed by American companies’ establishing branch plants. Nearly every important US-based multinational in the first half of the 20th century (Ford, General Motors, IBM, Standard Oil, to name a few) made Canada their first foreign outpost. As a result, the Canadian economy has long been described as a branch-plant economy.

In the 1960s, particularly as our centennial neared, a wave of nationalism began to swell up. There had been “patriotism” before, but it always seemed attached to the British Empire. This was different: English Canadians began both to celebrate and search for a distinct identity, while in French Canada, they began to question whether there was any future within Canada at all.

I note that Tim doesn’t have a problem with the Québec Nordiques’ use of the fleur-de-lys. Maybe he thinks it’s a second-tier symbol (provincial or state). It is, in fact, a national symbol for québécois, who view themselves as a distinct nation within Canada.

I would suggest that, in response to the trend in English Canada, the multinationals began to slap the maple leaf on their own logos. In another interesting case, after an ad campaign in the early 1970s announced that Esso stations would convert to the Exxon brand, the change never took place.

Meanwhile, Canadian corporations began to play up the link. Including the link the Canadian government launched in the 1970s.

The Canadian government got into the act. Where the link used to grace government buildings, letterhead, and signage, in its place a link and link began to appear.

Was this a reflection of a national inferiority complex, as Tim suggests, or of a growing self-confidence? I choose the latter view.

Taking a critical look at Tim’s blog post, I’m not even so sure the maple leaf is truly “ubiquitous.” The Montréal Expos used a fleur-de-lys in their script logo. The Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Montréal (wait for it) Canadiens do not feature a maple leaf on their uniforms. Okay, the Canadiens did link.

The Montréal Impact are about to join Major League Soccer – no leaf in their logo; rather, there’s a fleur-de-lys. Vancouver Whitecaps? No leaf. Not like the 1970s ‘Caps. And back in the NASL days, the Edmonton Drillers, Montréal Manic and Montréal Olympique went leafless. (The Olympique actually based their logo on a globe.)

Eight teams in the CFL, and not one of them features a maple leaf in their primary logo. Meanwhile, there’s that damn lone star on the helmets of not one, but two NFL teams.

The Ottawa Senators, I think, ought to be entitled to display a maple leaf as they represent the capital region. It would be more appropriate than a centurion representing “senators.”

I don’t think Canadian teams have a “maple leaf problem” any more than sports designers in general suffer a creativity problem (“Let’s put a hockey stick in a cartoon animal’s paws!” “A basketball team? Quick: draw me a basketball!”).

Or than American teams suffer from a stars-and-stripes problem (cough, cough, New England Patriots, New England Revolution, Philadelphia 76ers, Washington Capitals, Rochester Americans, the Yankees’ star-spangled top hat) or an eagle problem. Hell, D.C. United’s logo features an eagle and a star, just in case you missed one. I guess it would’ve been overstating the point to include the Capitol dome, too. Or maybe that didn’t work so well for the old baseball Senators. Then you’ve got the Phillies with the Liberty Bell.

It occurs to me that the United States simply has so darn many nationalistic/patriotic/jingoistic symbols that Tim can’t recognize their collective ubiquity. And that doesn’t even take into account the presence of the American flag on every helmet worn in the NFL? I’ve lost track: Is the NBA still putting the flag on the backboards? Meanwhile, link, he’s not American enough.

Yeesh.

I’m not a fan of the blue-and-orange color combo, but I’ve got to give credit to the Mets and the Knicks for using them: they’re the state colors, aren’t they? Orange for Holland and blue for England, right?

In the Mets’ case, their colors are Dodger blue and Giant orange. That they match up with the old Dutch colors is a coincidence.

The team name is the Texans.

Logically, they would evoke the state in some ways.

Note the Oilers didn’t.

Sorry, I’m getting torn to shreds, personally, by POed Canadians on my own site.

They’re a very touchy people, and I did not know that (this is a joke, please be nice to me, haha, I watch hockey. I even own a Toewser Canadian Hockey Jersey. Love me).

I would never insult delicious beer, I’m Irish.

It’s ‘Warshington’ right?

If I could just point you to scroll down to the section titled, “A Note to the Pissed/Offended,” located here – link – I think you’ll feel at least a bit differently.

If not, oh well. F*** it.

You guys need to try Green Tea Kit-Kat. It’s the goods.