Benny, Mick E., and Icy?

Virtually every team on the planet has a mascot. They usually have the role of being an ambassador for the team while entertaining fans, but mascots are usually in a one-to-one relationship with a team. Rarely do we see mascots moving between teams, but there have been a handful who have made the transition from one team to another like Youppi! in Montreal and Sparky the Dragon on Long Island. There is one mascot in hockey, however, who has worked for a number of teams in his career, and one of those teams was the Winnipeg Jets despite him not being listed as an official mascot in the team's history nor being credited for his work!

The mascot pictured above is Icy D. Eagle who appears at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum for every Fort Wayne Komets game. What's cool about Icy is that he didn't start out as the Komets' mascot, but moved to join the Komets after the Salt Lake Golden Eagles moved following the 1993-94 season to become the Detroit Vipers. It's reported that Icy made the trip to Fort Wayne for the 1994 IHL All-Star Game and fell in love with the Komets and the fans, but he officially became the Komets' mascot in the 1994-95 season!

I'll tip my cap to Friend of the Blog Fiona Quinn who is doing exemplary work in compiling the full history of the Fort Wayne Komets. Fiona's been working at this project for a few years now, and she reached out to me with an interesting question. It reads,

"Hi Teebz!!! I have a question. In 1994-95, Icy was in Winnipeg for a game and we were wondering if there was any way you could find a picture of him up in Winnipeg?"

At first, this question had me confused because the 1994-95 season would still be when the Winnipeg Jets were playing here before their move to Arizona. As we know, the Jets had a mascot in Benny, so having a second mascot in the arena who wasn't affiliated with the team didn't make much sense. However, I trust Fiona's research skills, so this sounded like something that needed a little investigating.

According to what she could find, she believed the games where Icy appeared in Winnipeg happened on March 10 and 11, 1995. After a quick check online, the Jets did indeed have back-to-back games that weekend against the Dallas Stars and the Los Angeles Kings, so the possibility of Icy being in Winnipeg became a little more real.

The next place I went to check for evidence of Icy's visit and appearance in Winnipeg was the newspaper archive. 1995 was long before the internet became what it is today, so the newspaper archive likely held the answer. As you can see to the right, Tim Campbell had documented Icy's visit to Winnipeg at the two games on Thursday, March 9, 1995, so we got one step closer to seeing some sort of visual evidence that Icy was at the Winnipeg Arena. 1995 was a tough era for images being online, so this is where I hit a wall.

Despite me looking for any and all newspapers who would have covered the Jets, Stars, and Kings, none of them seemingly had photographers who captured the work done by Icy in Winnipeg. I get that an opposing team's mascot wouldn't likely appeal to Stars fans or Kings fans, so I can understand why they wouldn't have made a big deal out of Icy being in Winnipeg. However, you'd think the Winnipeg newspapers would make some mention or grab a pciture of Icy being there outside of the small blurb above, right? Apparently not.

Not all hope was lost of finding an image of Icy, though, as I hit YouTube to see if the full games were posted to their site. The March 11 game against Los Angeles came up first, and it was produced by Prime Sports which covered the Los Angeles Kings. I had my doubts that a Kings-backed broadcast would show anything other than Kings content, and those doubts were confirmed as there was no mention nor video evidence of Icy on the Kings' broadcast that day.

My last hope was the January 10 game against the Dallas Stars, and this one gave me more hope as Winnipeg-based CKND produced this broadcast! I scrolled through the action as I watched for any sort of crowd shot that may include Icy, and my faith in local broadcasting was restored at the 19:06 mark as John Garrett was speaking!
We now have visual evidence that Icy D. Eagle was in Winnipeg for the Jets-Stars game on March 10, 1995 while wearing a Winnipeg Jets jersey with #0 on it and working as a Jets mascot! Fiona is correct!

Honestly, I didn't even know this happened. Benny was the only mascot I ever associated with the Jets, and Mick E. Moose only came about thanks to the Manitoba Moose who played in the IHL and AHL. At no point was I aware that Icy D. Eagle had a two-game stint as a Winnipeg Jets mascot if it wasn't for Fiona's dedication to the Fort Wayne Komets' history. I'm not sure if the Jets are even aware about Icy's appearance as I can't find any information that links Icy and Winnipeg outside of that Winnipeg Free Press blurb posted above.

Major stick-tap to Fiona Quinn and her outstanding work as the Fort Wayne Komets' team historian for sending me down this path. Not only would I have not looked for this piece of hockey history had it not been for Fiona's prompt, but I wouldn't even have associated Icy with the Winnipeg Jets. Her effort in researching this led me to Icy being a Winnipeg Jets mascot which has blown my mind because I had no idea this even happened! Was Icy the only mascot who got this opportunity? Where was Benny in all of this? How many other mascots got this kind of opportunity with the Jets? These questions may go unanswered thanks to time, but we can officially say, thanks to Fiona's relentless research on all things Komets, that Icy D. Eagle was a Jets mascot for at least one game!

Don't be fooled by other ornithological mascots like Gulliver in San Diego or Swoop in Philadelphia when it comes to which bird mascot is the best. Icy D. Eagle holds that title, and is a regular in the nominations for the annual ECHL Mascot of the Year award. He's beloved for his antics at Komets games, he's an outstanding ambassador for the Komets' brand, and he's clearly good enough for an NHL team as the Winnipeg Jets wanted him for two games in 1995!

Because she is entirely responsible for me doing a deep dive into Icy's time in Winnipeg, please check out the Komets all-time record book edited by Fiona and Komets' radio play-by-play broadcaster Shane Albahrani. And when I say edited, I really mean "did all the research and compiled all the information". These two are vitally important cogs in the Komets organization considering all they do for the team and Komets fans, and I'm forever grateful to call Fiona a friend!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 698

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, has the Olympic banner up as we are three games into the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Games already! Our hosts are back in the UMFM studios tonight where they'll be talking about the big tournament over in Italy among the discussion tonight as the latest version of the games becomes the first Winter Olympiad to be co-hosted by two cities! The women's hockey event is under, there were some U SPORTS people who made an impact, and more hockey chatter tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Obviously, the opening cermonies still have to come but, tonight on the program, Teebz and Jason will talk about the 2026 Winter Olympics and the results from the games today along with all the U SPORTS people involved in the women's hockey event. Beyond that, they also discuss Gavin McKenna's legal troubles from one dumb move, the reason for delaying the Canada-Finland game today and how that's affecting the men's team, a forgotten name signing a contract in the ECHL, the dissolution of the Washington Post's sports department, and the two stoat mascots above in Tina and Milo! There's lots to go over tonight as the biggest tournaments in men's and women's hockey get underway in Italy so be ready to roll tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat big games, first wins, costly punches, food poisoning, alternate lodging, past goalies, voices lost, mascots found, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: February 5, 2026: Episode 698

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Ralph Gets The Aurora

If you haven't been keeping up with the Federal Prospects Hockey League, that's probably because you live nowhere near one of their member teams. There was a completely moronic signing that happened today by the Baton Rouge Zydeco that involved a player who should never play professional hockey again, but we're going to focus on a better story from the FPHL that doesn't involve convicted criminals. Instead, the image to the left is likely what you'll see on the shoulders of the jerseys for the FPHL's newest expansion team that I noted was playing in the other Ralph Engelstad Arena located in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. That team officially now has a name!

This announcement was made last Friday on January 16, so it kind of falls into line with how late I posted the information about the FPHL expanding into Thief River Falls. My tardiness in keeping up with both stories aside, this new team will officially be called the Minnesota Northern Lights! As you can see to the right, the team will wear "vibrant purple and sharp green" while the main logo will be "a scrappy moose in hockey uniform surrounded by the northern lights". According to the release linked above, "[o]ver 1,000 votes came in" when it came to naming the team with votes coming in from "as far as Florida and Indiana"! I can assure everyone I did not vote.

For those that are unaware, the science of the "Northern Lights lies in Earth's magnetosphere, shielding against solar wind's charged particles. Interaction at the poles creates the colorful display, as electrons from the solar wind excite oxygen and nitrogen atoms, releasing vibrant photons. Colors vary with altitude, forming pink, purple, and white lights. Most visible during solar storms, the Northern Lights are overshadowed by sunlight during the day." For the record, Minnesota is one of the best states in the continental US to see the aurora borealis phenomenon throughout the winter!

The team confirmed there will be a moose mascot at home games, but that mascot is unnamed at the time of publishing. I can assure you that Mick E. Moose likely won't be used thanks to the mascot for the AHL's Manitoba Moose, but there are likely all sorts of names that can be used. The team will run a contest for name suggestions, and the mascot will be ready for the inaugural puck drop in October 2026! if the team is going with white and black backgrounds for their jerseys, that purple and green could pop nicely like the northern lights do against the night sky. I'll reserve judgment on the colours until we see the jersey design, but the Minnesota Northern Lights seem like they'll be fairly well-dressed when they take the ice!

In hunting for ticket prices to see the Northern Lights play, their Facebook page indicated that there are four levels of ticketing that they'll offer with season tickets coming in at $406, $464, $522, and $604 for their 56-game scheduled. That means a 28-game hockey schedule would see tickets priced at $14.50 for the $406 package while the best seats will set fans back $21.57 per game for the 28 games. According to the team, single-game tickets will be priced at $14, $16, $18, and $20 which means that season tickets actually cost more per game than single-game tickets do. Somehow, that doesn't seem right unless there's an increase in the total number of games.

Economics aside, it looks like the Minnesota FPHL expansion team has a distinct identity. They have yet to sign a player when it comes to generating excitement on the ice, but Thief River Falls is officially on the FPHL map! Here's hoping the jersey unveiling is just as good!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Is This A Birthday Suit?

When the SPHL's Huntsville Havoc announced that they were changing their logos for this season, I wasn't sure what to expect. After all, how does one design "Havoc" as a logo? While they had a somewhat tame logo for the last few seasons, I never expected them to go back to a cartoonish logo like the one to the left, but that's what they unveiled before the start of this season. Maybe it's more appealing to kids and families, but we're not here to talk about this logo because the Huntsville Havoc may have just set a new standard in jersey design with their birthday jersey for their mascot, Chaos. It's a beauty!

As you know, I'm all for minor-league hockey teams having some fun with their jerseys when appropriate. I was a big fan of the effort given by the Hershey Bears when they came up with the "Screaming Bear" jerseys that they wore on Sunday for the first time, winning in overtime by a 2-1 score over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. I didn't think any jerseys would come close to the wink-and-nod that the Bears were giving to their NHL affiliate in the Washington Capitals, but the Huntsville Havoc may have done them one better.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Chaos' birthday jersey for his birthday party, taking place on January 30, 2026 against the Peoria Rivermen.

Holy moly, is that an awesome take on the Wild Wing jerseys worn by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks! The Ducks brought the Wild Wing back for their Reverse Retro jersey in 2021, but it never quite felt like it had the same punch as the original Wild Wing jerseys that were worn in 1995-96. However, seeing the cartoonish face of Chaos and the alterations for his wolf features on this Havoc recreation of the Wild Wing jersey might just be the best jersey seen across all leagues!

"But Teebz," I hear you saying, "these are still awful jerseys," and you'd be right, but they're awful for an NHL team because of how cartoonish they are. For a minor-league hockey team, these are fantastic beause they look so minor-league in their design. Having the Havoc adopt this jersey design is an awesome idea, and whoever came up with this idea deserves some sort of bonus or promotion!

Perhaps the best part of this jersey is that you can get one of your own! The Havoc are taking pre-sale purchases for Chaos birthday jerseys through November 24, so you can't wait long if you want one of these for your closet. I'd be all over this if they were selling on-ice jerseys, but I dislike replica jerseys of any kind, even if they are awesome like these ones. I guess I'll miss out on this one.

There is a game-style jersey available on the Dash auctions site, but I'm not in a financial position to spend more than $800 USD on a jersey of any kind. Heck, I wouldn't spend $800 on a trip to the state of New Jersey, let alone spending it on a a polyester sweater. As stated, I'm missing out on what could be the best jersey this year.

Feel free to leave your comments about this jersey below because I'm interested in your view on this iteration of the Wild Wing jersey. I've seen teams celebrate their mascots' birthdays before, but I don't think I've ever seen a team come up with an idea like the Havoc did for Chaos' birthday. It makes me wonder what they may have in store for their other mascot, Ruckus, when his birthday hits the calendar!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 682

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns to the airwaves tonight with a pile of hockey news to discuss and dissect. The Jets are in Philadelphia, the Moose are on their way to Grand Rapids, the Wheat Kings are in Regina, and our hosts are in the UMFM studios for tonight's show. None of that is on the agenda for tonight, though, as there are stories of futility, poor naming choices, and a national broadcast debut for one of our hosts! All of that and more will be discussed tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

On the docket for discussion tonight, Teebz and Jason will look at the new home scoreless drought for the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden and why their stats may be somewhat misleading, there are two mascots who were introduced to the world this week and both got names that are somewhat disappointing, the Savannah Ghost Pirates are doing a questionable theme night all year long, there's another NCAA school starting hockey programs, the NHL wants to expand its efforts to grow the game outside North America despite it doing well, and one of our two hosts will be calling a hockey broadcast on CBC this weekend! There's a ton of stuff to go over in the hour we have, so make sure you're ready to roll tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason talk scoring slumps, bad names, theme nights, new programs, growing the game, network broadcasts, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: October 16, 2025: Episode 682

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 617

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is one week closer to potentially returning to the studio as renovations continue, but the hockey chatter doesn't stop! There were a few stories from the hockey world that hit our radars this past week, but one that really caught the attention of the hosts due to the incredible work done by one journalist who deserves some recognition for pulling the curtain back on a con job. Settle in for that story that seems to get crazier with every new layer added to it, and stick around for more discussion about the major hockey news from the past week tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Teebz and Jason spent a chunk of time on Wednesday texting back and forth about Brad Elliott Schlossman and the incredible story he filed about Major League Hockey in the Grand Forks Herald which will be the only time we ever talk about this "league" on the show. I highly recommend reading Schlossman's excellent journalism on this by clicking that link as Teebz and Jason spend the first half of the show discussing the reporting done by Schlossman. After they dismiss that league, they move on to Zawyer Sports and Entertainment buying the Charlotte Checkers, their disappointment in the Tahoe Lake Monsters, a U SPORTS coach and a Manitoban attending an NHL development camp, they touch on a little justice being handed out to players that deserve it, and there's a show preview for next week as our two hosts will explore something from the past! It's another busy show tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat confidence men, made-up league, new owners, new affiliations, new opportunities, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: July 18, 2024: Episode 617

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Pretty Underwhelming Monsters

Tonight, there was a major announcement as one professional hockey franchise got themselves into the game in a big way. As you may know, the ECHL approved the Tahoe Knight Monsters to join the league for the 2024-25 season, and the Knight Monsters have been working diligently to get themselves ready. They have a coach, they've signed a few players, and they have a logo, but there were still some key pieces missing that would help them be successful in their inaugural season. Tonight, they crossed a few of those missing pieces off the list with an event at Bally's Lake Tahoe.

One of those big pieces was their affiliation announcement, and the Knight Monsters surprised no one as they announced that they will be ECHL affiliate of the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights and the AHL's Henderson Silver Knights. This should have surprised absolutely no one after the Savannah Ghost Pirates changed their affiliation from Vegas-Henderson to Florida-Charlotte earlier this month, so the dots were pretty easy to connect. Nevertheless, the Vegas prospects will be less than 500 miles away at both the AHL and ECHL levels now, so the Golden Knights are setup pretty well in the southwest USA.

The second announcement at tonight's event was the unveiling of the mascot for the Knight Monsters. As seen to the right, "Tessie" is the cartoon monster wearing the knight helmet, and Tessie will be roaming the stands in Lake Tahoe next season. If you know my thoughts on mascots, I believe they should be somewhat cartoonish because mascots are for the kids and should be easily identifiable, and Tessie hits the mark on both of those mascot criteria. Overall, I don't have a problem with how Tessie looks and, excuse my choice of pronouns since it wasn't clear, he should help market the team in the region. Chalk this one up as a win!

It's when we get to what they're wearing that things fall short. The Knight Monsters are a team built on fantasy and the whimsical since there's never been a "knight monster" in the history of the world, so you'd hope they'd take a little creative control of their look by having a little fun with the knight and monster imagery.

Instead, here's what they produced for their inaugural season.

This might be one of the more boring colour schemes and designs I've seen from an ECHL team, and it makes me wonder if Zawyer Sports and Entertainment opted for safe over creative in order to fall in line with their affiliates. That seems like a rather crazy statement to make until you realize that the Savannah Ghost Pirates was the Vegas-Henderson ECHL affilate for the last few seasons, and they looked rather similar to the Knight Monsters in their jersey designs.

If the ECHL is just opting to use a white jersey, a black jersey, and a solid colour alternate jersey, things are going to get real boring in that league. The requirements for a Zawyer-owned team seems to be that one jersey seems to require a chest stripe, they all need to have variations of logos as shoulder patches, and there can't be any fun like scales or ghost ships added to the jerseys. Minor-league hockey is supposed to be fun, but these don't feel fun at all.

As far as the jerseys go, they check all the boxes for what a hockey jersey needs: good striping, solid contrasts in colours to make logos pop, and one of the logos tells you who is playing. The black jersey's logo is a little tougher to decipher without a few clues, and I've already seen a few people mistake the knight monster for a dragon on the gold jersey and think it's some sort of Flames logo. I'm a fan of keeping things simple, but casual hockey fans likely aren't thinking "Knight Monsters" when they see the logo.

Are they perfect? No, but they are serviceable. I would have liked a little more creativity to go into the jerseys, but I understand there are timeframes where things have to be completed if they're going to be seen on the ice in 2024-25. Maybe we'll see the Knight Monsters get a little more creative with their promotional jerseys, but tonight's jersey unveiling was pretty underwhelming.

And that's not really the reaction any monster wants, is it?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 616

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is still working away from the studio with the abatement happening in and around the radio station. It hasn't deterred our hosts as they continue to keep their finger on the hockey world's pulse to find all the news stories that people should be following, and they'll bring you another round of news notes tonight! With the temperature rising in the city, hockey might be the last thing on everyone's mind right now, but the news doesn't stop. Make sure you're ready to for some hockey chatter tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

The image to the left will become very apparent as to why it's on this show preview once you hear the first few minutes of the show, but Teebz and Jason will dive into the hockey news and chat about Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff throwing shade at Rutger McGroarty and why McGroarty's camp might be giving him bad advice based on some other breaking news. They'll also discuss the Dallas Stars leaving TV, CapFriendly going dark, Patrik Laine's status, head coach Derek Laxdal landing in Palm Springs, the UNB Reds women's team getting a new associate coach, Hockey Canada and BFL honouring women in coaching roles, an update on the ECHL's newest expansion franchise, and some news and notes about former guests who have been on the show. It's a jam-packed show with all the hockey news one can handle in an hour as Teebz and Jason bring you their thoughts tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about bad advice, better TV options, the loss of a valuable resource, updates on players and coaches, finding new coaches, honouring coaches, a new team getting ready for play, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: July 11, 2024: Episode 616

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Desktop Cleanup

Being that spring cleaning happens in the spring as the phrase suggests, we're going to call this cleanup a "Summer Purge" as my desktop needs to be decluttered somewhat on my computer. I assure you that the image to the left is NOT my desktop. That would give me all sorts of murderous rage and OCD to start deleting stuff without prejudice, so, if your computer's desktop looks like, don't let me see it. There's order in knowing where things are, and that image of a desktop with a hundred icons is anything but orderly. In saying that, I have a pile of stuff saved that I should either use or purge, so I'm gonna do both.

We'll start with this image of goaltender Naomi Leasck who played in the ACHA with the McKendree University Bearcats. Naomi was a senior, as shown in the image, in 2022, but she played for the Bearcats in 2022-23 where she 1-2-0 in four games with a 2.18 GAA and a .937 save percentage. Yes, it's a small sample size, but it should be noted that she never had a GAA above 2.86 and never had a save percentage lower than .919, so it's pretty clear that she could play. In 2021, she was named to the First Team All-Conference squad in the Women's Midwest College Hockey Conference and, in 2022, she was named as an ACHA D1 First Team All-American, so she's clearly got game. Congratulations, Naomi, on those honours!

What I noticed about Naomi's image, though was the alternate captain's mark on her jersey that is shown in contrast to the gray jersey thanks to the circular purple background, and the numbers being significantly lower than they should be for TV numbers as they appear between the sleeve stripes rather than above them. Sleeve numbers aside, though, that captaincy mark needs some examination because McKendree might be the only school who did this.

Obviously, the alternate captain's mark is unique as far as anything I've seen in hockey, but the gray jerseys appear to be one of McKendree's 2022 main uniforms. Quinn Atchison, as team captain, wore the captain's "C" in a similar purple circle on the gray uniforms in 2022, and, as shown, they also had the large purple circle around the captaincy on their purple jerseys. Has there been any other team that wore a contrasting circle around the captain's mark? And more to that, has there ever been a team to wear the contrasting circle on one jersey only to wear the same circle on a jersey where the colours are the same?

I fully understand that ACHA schools aren't flush with all sorts of money to spend, but I like this aspect of McKendree's jerseys because they are very unique with this captaincy mark. In a world where there are a bazillion university teams of all sorts, making one's school unique because of the uniform is a good way to get noticed!

What's In A Name?

Ever wonder how some teams get their names? Well, according to a July 1996 edition of The Hockey News, the Wheeling Nailers were once called the Wheeling Thunderbirds. As stated, they opted to change the team name due to trademark and copyright conflicts with other franchises. I'm not certain how many teams were named "Thunderbirds" in 1996, but the UBC Thunderbirds and the Seattle Thunderbirds are the two seem most prominent. There were the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds that existed from 1989-92 that were some 400 miles away, so maybe that was the confusion?

As the clipping above notes, the Wheeling ECHL franchise chose the name "Nailers" in honour of the region's cut nail maunfacturing, and it's entirely true! The Wheeling-La Belle Nail Company called the area home until the plant was demolished in 2010, but the legacy of the region's largest export at one point in the city's history lives on.

According to Archiving Wheeling, "In 1875, the La Belle Iron Works was incorporated, and between the Jefferson works and the La Belle works employed approximately 900 workers and had a total of 167 cut nail machines in operation. It was during this time period that Wheeling began to be known as the 'Nail City,' due to its dominance of the cut nail market. Wheeling's nail production from 1871-1873 (three million kegs) comprised nearly a quarter of the national nail production (12 million kegs)."

If you're asking what a cut nail is, the linked article describes it as "[f]lat metal strips are fed into a machine, while the first lever cuts a triangular strip of metal, the second lever holds the nail in place while the third lever forms the head of the nail. The strip of metal is then turned through 180 degrees to cut the next equal and opposite nail shape off the strip, hence the phrase 'cut nails.'"

And that's how the Wheeling Nailers came to be!

Mascot Abuse

We all likely remember the moment where Craig MacTavish, as the head coach of the Oilers, turned around and yanked Calgary Flames mascot Harvey the Hound's tongue right out of his mouth. For MacTavish, that moment likely wouldn't be in his career highlights, but there are moments when a coach, occupied with what's happening on the ice, has little patience for what's happening off of it, specifically when it comes to the antics of an opposing team's mascot. For Don Jackson, pictured above on the right, he took things to an even lower place when he decided to confront one of the Atlanta Knights mascots.

During the 1994-95 season, the Cincinnati Cyclones were visiting the Atlanta Knights in a normal IHL regular season game. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary on February 4 until the Atlanta Knights started filling the net behind Frederic Chabot. That lead to Sir Slap Shot - one of two knight-themed, inflatable mascots employed by the Knights - to start banging on the glass behind the Cyclones bench. From experience, I can tell you that no one really appreciates that, and apparently one of the routines that Sir Slap Shot was performing caused him to slam into the glass that sent Cyclones' head coach Don Jackson sprawling.

Before we go any further, there's some history that one should know. I'm not a doctor and I don't claim to be one, but Jackson was in a major car accident that left him in wheelchair to start the season as shown to the right. According to the website hockeydraftcentral.com, Jackson was involved in a vehicle collision that "killed one of the other drivers" and left Jackson "hospitalized with several leg fractures, including multiple fractures in the lower left leg and right heel. He required three surgeries and had to resume coaching in a wheelchair for the first three months of the 1994-95 season". Might he have been suffering from PTSD on February 4, 1995?

Whatever the case was, as stated in the news clipping above, Jackson decided enough was enough on that night as he went over the glass between the bench and the crowd and laid a severe beating on Sir Slap Shot before fans got between Jackson and Sir Slap Shot. What makes this matter worse is that 26 year-old Mike Centanni was filling in that night for the normal person inside the mascot suit, and he took the full brunt of Jackson's violent outburst.

According to an Associated Press recap, Jackson "threw at least two punches at the 26-year-old Centanni, who was filling in for the regular mascot, portraying Sir Slapshot in an inflatable uniform," causing Centanni to have a cut lip. Centanni filled "out a police report and authorities discussed the incident with Jackson after the game". As mentioned above, Centanni was on spot duty for the mascots as he normally worked for the Knights' ECHL affiliate in Nashville.

You might be wondering what something like this would look like, and it probably doesn't help that Jackson's outburst landed this siuation on ESPN2's NHL2Night with a nod to SportSouth, the Atlanta-based sports cable channel that aired Atlanta Knights games. Jackson was fined $1000 and suspended ten games for his attack on Sir Slap Shot while the Atlanta Knights were also fined $1000 for the mascot's involvement. At the end of the day, the Knights won 7-2 over the Cyclones, but the lesson here is keep your hands to yourself!

There are a few smaller stories that I had sitting in a folder on my desktop. I felt that I couldn't do full blog pieces on them simply because they were so brief, but a little desktop cleanup allowed me to post them here today. And for the record, I deleted a pile of other stuff I had hanging around on my desktop as well, so we're back to a clean space which I can clutter once more!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

***Stick-tap to reader BeigeLoki973066 for the Atlanta Knights info he posted in the comments below!***

The Hockey Show - Episode 524

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back tonight on the UMFM airwaves to talk all things hockey, but we're going to focus on one story yet again because it seems that one organization is hellbent on destroying both its reputation and any chance of saving face in the light of the ongoing scandals it's currently facing. Of course, I speak of Hockey Canada who sat before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Tuesday and continued to maintain its ridiculous stance that everyone not named "Hockey Canada" is to blame for Hockey Canada's problems. Settle in, folks, because we have a lot to discuss from that meeting and the fallout we're seeing right up to show time!

Much like Bart Simpson, it seems that Hockey Canada insists on harming itself more than it should in trying to win public favour. Tonight, Teebz and Jason will discuss the contentious meeting that current Board Chair Andrea Skinner and former Board Chair Michael Brind'Amour had with the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage with respect to the willful ignorance that both people seemed to show. Beyond that, our hosts will discuss the repercussions from that meeting and what may happen next, the Canadiens handing a three-year deal to a convicted criminal, a former Dino finding a new place to play, a couple of former Griffins making the cut, a current Huskies forward doing a great thing, the Calgary-based Cougars getting a chunk of money, a legend potentially hanging up the skates, a new mascot in the NHL, and a pile of other stuff if we can squeeze it into our hour! Join Teebz and Jason tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player is pretty awesome if you want to listen online. If you're using an Apple device, the player doesn't seem to like Safari yet, so if you want to stream the show I'd recommend Radio Garden to do that as it works nicely with Safari. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. If you do use the TuneIn app, you won't be disappointed. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason will dissect the baffling testimony given by Hockey Canada, the results of that testimony, new places to play, a life-saving effort, an alumna's gift, the end of a legend, a new legend, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: October 6, 2022: Episode 524

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Hoo-Buoy

For those that aren't aware, Hollywood movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer is part of the majority co-owners of the NHL's Seattle Kraken. Bruckheimer made his fortunes making Hollywood blockbusters and TV shows such as the CSI franchise, the US version of The Amazing Race, Top Gun, Bad Boys, Beverly Hills Cop, and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise where one can spot the legendary kraken in the second film of the franchise Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. If you notice, the list of movies above didn't contain the Dreamworks-produced Trolls animated movie because, simply, Jerry Bruckheimer had nothing to do with it. Today, however, the Kraken and one specific troll were smashed together in a way that not even the most ridiculous movie plot can explain or rationalize.

If you think of all the maritime imagery you've ever seen in your life, I would bet "troll" doesn't even make the cut. Whether it be pirates, fishermen, mermaids, fish, whales, starfish, octopi, Davy Jones himself, boats, seagulls, puffins, sharks, or any other creature tied to the sea, never have I imagined a troll being part of that set of images whether real or imagined.

In thinking about all those images, the Seattle Kraken introduced their first-ever mascot today, and it's... something.

That is Buoy, the new troll mascot for the Seattle Kraken, and, assuming you're like me, you're probably asking, "How on earth does the Kraken have a troll as a mascot?" Let's find out.

First, to the video they use to try and explain this troll.

One might need a little history lesson on this troll sculpture that the kids were sitting on at the end of the video. Known as the "Fremont Troll", "The Troll, or the "Troll Under the Bridge", it's an actual sculpture found at North 36th Street at Troll Avenue North, under the north end of the George Washington Memorial Bridge sculpted by Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead from Norwegian folklore. The troll holds a Volkswagen Beetle in its left hand as if it had just swiped it from the roadway above. It was sculpted as way to rehabilitate the area following Freemont's problem of homelessness, garbage dumping, and drug use in the area.

In short, it wasn't made for kids, it certainly doesn't get people excited, and it doesn't dance and skate. It is, however, a Seattle landmark as the mayor stated, so one out of four requirements for this new mascot was met. The sasquatch will remain with the Sonics.

According to Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times, "The Kraken's mascot has been 18 months in planning and nearly launched after last Christmas. But the NHL schedule had been paused due to a COVID-19 resurgence, prompting the team to hold off."

If I'm doing the math, the Kraken have been planning a sea-troll as a mascot for 18 months, and they didn't bother to do any market testing or surveys about what the fans thought the mascot should be? How does one land on "troll" to represent the Kraken?

"There was a long list of names that we looked at," Lamont Buford, the Kraken's vice president of live entertainment and game presentation, told Baker. "We looked at the Seattle area, we looked at the water, we looked at our brand. And just like a buoy floating out on the water, it just happened to pop up and we stumbled on it."

That might be one of the worst rationalizations I've ever heard for a mascot, but, again, Buford touched on "the Seattle area" as one of the factors that led them to the troll. As Baker wrote, "[t]he team liked the way the name sounds when chanted, the troll links to Seattle pop culture and the mascot's approachable look."

I will admit that "Boo-Wee" as a chant might work well, but I don't know how often a crowd at a hockey game chants the mascot's name outside of Philadelphia where Gritty has taken on a life of his own outside of the team. I also can't deny that the troll itself feels more like it belongs on the live-action version of Trolls the movie than a hockey team, but that means that kids will likely gravitate towards it rather than fear it. That's the hallmark of a good mascot.

The random facts for Buoy include that he's a "sea-troll who lives in the caverns of Climate Pledge Arena", his "favorite meal is Shark with Maple Leaf seasoning", he "once jammed with Mudhoney at The Crocodile", and he "pays tribute to the deep sea creature with unique touch of magic in his hockey hair flow". If you're asking what that is, check his right ear where there's a tentacle growing from behind his ear. Buoy will wear jersey #0, and is also said to be a nephew of the Fremont Troll, but I honestly can't see any resemblance between the two trolls.

"I think fans want a mascot," Kraken chief marketing officer Katie Townsend said to Baker. "It's also great for us to have a brand ambassador who... can be a representative for our brand at hospitals, community visits, with our corporate partners."

The New York Rangers go back to being the lone NHL team without a mascot after the introduction of Buoy tonight. While I still question why a troll is the mascot for the Kraken, the Kraken have made it clear that Buoy has strong ties to the Seattle area. The next thing we should be prepared for is finding out who the person is that won right to have the best troll job in the NHL.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Adjectives Are Not Nouns

If there's one thing that's fairly consistent among major sports organizations, it's that the team name, no matter what league and what sport, generally are nouns. It's easy to see why this would be as most sports organizations want physical things as their representatives when it comes to logos, mascots, and branding. For a university as rich in broadcasting history as Toronto Metropolitan University - formerly Ryerson University - you'd think they'd grasp this concept when rebranding their sports teams, but they decided to rebrand in an incomprehensible way. You may even say this rebrand was "bold".

The very first sentence in the release TMU put out on Monday states succinctly, "The Ryerson Rams are now the TMU Bold."

As you're processing that astounding rebrand by TMU, let's run down the reasons why "Bold" is perhaps the worst name in all of sports teams history, let alone university sports in Canada. The only noun form that "bold" takes is when referring to typeface in terms of WORDS BEING HIGHLIGHTED IN BOLD. Even then, the usage of the word only makes sense when describing the typeface, so it's an attibutive noun - a noun which modifies another noun.

This isn't some team name like "Jets", "Bulls", "Lightning", or "Orioles". All of those things conjure an image in your mind of what the team's main identity is. "Bold" gives you no sense of any sort of branding or mascot in any way, shape, or form, yet TMU is going to play under this name for the foreseeable future. It makes you wonder who came up with this idea and who approved it.

What makes this harder to fathom is that there was a committee who reportedly engaged the TMU community to come up with this name. In the release, they write,

In an extensive two-phased process, TMU received 4,800 contributions via surveys. In May, the university received 2,100 responses to an initial survey and open call for suggestions. In July, a shortlist was published, which resulted in an additional 2,700 survey submissions and email responses.

These surveys followed some rather basic guidelines that included being appropriate for all sports teams regardless of gender or sport, being representative of the TMU experience and/or history, and being representative of positive qualities, ideals, or associations that align with TMU. All of these goals seem pretty easy to hit with respect to new branding, so I'm still puzzled how "Bold" was even in the shortlist.

According to reports, the shortlist in June included Bold, Meteors, and Towers - all things I immediately never think of when thinking about Toronto and TMU. I get "Towers" for the CN Tower, but that's a rather terrible name. I have no idea how "Meteors" even related to TMU or Toronto in general, so I cannot explain how that got to the shortlist. And "Bold" is awful because I don't think of TMU or Toronto as bold in any way, shape or form, and the word is an adjective, not a noun.

“Boldness is a core value of our university. It is shared by our students, reflected in our approach to learning and research, and demonstrated on the court, the field, and the rink by our athletes,” president and vice-chancellor Mohamed Lachemi stated in the press release. If you notice, the word "boldness" - a noun! - shows up in his statement, and not once is the adjective "bold" written. We'll hear about how bold the TMU teams are until the cows come home, I'm sure, but being bold is far different from being THE Bold.

What makes this name even harder to explain is that Egerton the Ram, which had been the university mascot since 1961, was retired in this rebranding, forcing the school to reconsider how they will be recognized by fans. Picture "Bold" in your mind - do you see a falcon? That's the new animal form for the Bold in this rebrand, and it was one that was suggested a number of times by the TMU community during the committee's survey period, leading me to ask why wasn't "Falcons" chosen as the new name?

"It was clear from the feedback that our community wanted the TMU mascot to be an animal with local significance, with a level of sophistication and something that would connect to the team name," Jen McMillen, vice-provost for students, stated. "Falcons are as bold as they come. They are fast and fierce, they are good critical thinkers, they are strong. These are all qualities that align with boldness, and represent many qualities of TMU student-athletes."

Hold on a second here. If Falcons checks all the boxes - local to Toronto, represents both the athletes and students who attend TMU, and appropriate for all sports teams regardless of sport or gender - why are we even discussing "Bold"? The TMU Falcons literally makes too much sense from a sports fan's point of view, so how the heck did we land on "Bold"?

McMillen likened the name "Bold" to the NHL's Minnesota Wild in an interview with Sportsnet, but I want to make one thing clear: I can sit out in the wild and be immersed in all sorts of imagery from trees to animals to creeks and rivers to the sky. I can't sit in the bold because that doesn't exist. And, coincidentally, all of those things make up the Wild's logo, so you're really making a false equivalency here, Miss McMillen. Your comparison fails on that level alone, so let's not liken an adjective to a noun in how they're used.

Honestly, if I was searching for "TMU Bold" online, I'd expect to get search results for a font that I needed, not a university athletics department. I know that TMU will want people to start using the new name, but this blog will not. It's ridiculously bad, and Falcons just makes more sense to me. If and when there are stories about the Bold, you'll only see TMU used here because it's not a team name. It's an adjective.

Just because it sounds cool doesn't mean it is cool. Jeff Goldblum's argument in Jurassic Park stands as the test for this name, and, quite frankly, Ian Malcolm's logic wins again.

Best of luck with your "Bold" decision, TMU.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 517

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back tonight with our normal hosts as Jason makes his triumphant return from the wilderness after spending time at a camp! We'll get the update from him on how his week went in the middle of the Manitoba landscape before we dive into a number of hockey stories from across the globe! As we've done since it started, though, there will be no chatter about the international U20 men's tournament happening in Edmonton right now. If you're coming for that, you're not going to find it on The Hockey Show.

There's a pile of news to go over as Jason gets settled back into the hockey scene, so it will be busy and fast-paced tonight. Among the many topics tonight, Teebz and Jason will discuss the new leadership at Hockey Canada, the CBC report that found out that Hockey Canada's lawyers were manning the misconduct hotline, Team Canada's Women's World Championship roster and the upcoming tournament schedule, Team Canada's Para Women's World Challenge roster and schedule, the AHL's Coachella Valley Firebirds will be without a home for a while, the new U-Prairie Challenge and why that's good for university sports, the ECHL's Savannah Ghost Pirates have a player and a mascot, there are new coaches for Team Hungary and the Pembina Valley Hawks U18 program, the Jets are retiring two numbers despite one being not a number the player really wanted, $400 hockey sticks(!?!), and a hockey network is turning off the lights on September 1 much to the delight of our hosts. We're back to being a busy show as Jason returns to the co-pilot seat, so make sure you're listening to The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player is pretty awesome if you want to listen online. If you're using an Apple device, the player doesn't seem to like Safari yet, so if you want to stream the show I'd recommend Radio Garden to do that as it works nicely with Safari. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. If you do use the TuneIn app, you won't be disappointed. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason talk new leadership, old problems, new rosters, dumb schedules, good ideas, weird names, new coaches, local retirements, dark spaces, expensive lumber, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: August 18, 2022: Episode 517

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

A Tangled Web

Spiders could be one of the world's creepiest animals to most people. It's hard to imagine warming up to a hockey team named for the arachnids, but there have been other insects and arachnids who have made homes in hockey such as the Fayetteville Fireantz, the New Mexico Scorpions, and the Rio Grande Killer Bees. ThunderBug, the mascot for the Lightning, and Stinger, the mascot for the Blue Jackets, are the two fuzzy insects that fans love, but spiders are a different breed altogether for a lot of people. When the IHL welcomed a new team to their league in 1994 in the Bay Area, I'm not sure anyone would have expected the Spiders to call the area home.

November 22, 1994 saw the IHL follow through on its expansion as it announced expansion in the west by awarding Dave Pasant, the former president and chief executive officer of the Jackson National Life Insurance Company, an IHL franchise for the cool sum of $6 million. The new IHL franchise would be the 18th team in the International Hockey League, and the new Bay Area team would join the South Division that included the Las Vegas Thunder, the Utah Grizzlies, the Phoenix Roadrunners, and the Los Angeles Ice Dogs.

The team moved quickly as they needed a name to begin selling the hockey idea to Bay Area residents. In December, the team had chosen to go with "Spiders" as its name, dismissing other suggestions such as "Seals", "Quakes", "Fog" and "Rush". According to Bruce Gate of The Examiner, this choice of name was due to one man - David Pasant.

"I've had a strange fascination with spiders since I was a little kid," said David Pasant, the 44-year-old owner of the Spiders. "They're scary."

Pasant also saw the tie-in for merchandising with the name, stating, "There's no question that a major revenue source is merchandising of your logo and all the spinoff products. Clearly, the Spiders look to merchandising the same way the Sharks did. It's also great because when people are wearing your jerseys or your hats, they're walking billboards."

With the team having a name, Pasant went to work in building the hockey side of the equation as he hired former Montreal Canadiens head coach and former Quebec Nordiques head coach Jean Perron as the Spiders' new general manager and head coach on January 11, 1995. Perron's experiences in winning the Stanley Cup with Montreal in 1986 seemed to point to him being an ideal candidate for the jobs despite having being an TV analyst for the game for five years before San Francisco came calling.

Perron began to put pieces in place by hiring Bruce Boudreau to be his assistant general manager and an assistant coach while pulling former Canadiens defenceman and 39 year-old Rod Langway out of retirement to be a player player-coach with the team. Langway had retired in 1993 after knee and shoulder injuries slowed the two-time Norris Trophy winner, but Langway accepted the position as his transition to retired life simply wasn't his cup of tea.

"It's really difficult being a player, getting out of the game and becoming a normal citizen," Langway admitted to Gate.

The team began selling tickets on June 21, 1995 as they secured the Cow Palace in San Jose as their home rink. The ticket prices ranged from $10 or less at the lowest price to $25 at the upper end of the costs. The Spiders announced that half of the 11,000 available tickets for each game would be in that $10-or-lower range, making Spiders hockey an affordable venture for families! Would the low prices pay off once the season started?

With Perron, Boudreau, and Langway in place, the Spiders appeared ready to assemble a team, but they needed an identity as well. In a rather upscale event for the IHL just two weeks before their first-ever game, Planet Hollywood was the site of the jersey unveiling as Langway and Hollywood actor Danny Glover donned the home and away jerseys, respectively, to show off the Spiders' logo and uniforms. Glover, it should be noted, wore the white jersey with red and black trim while Langway wore the black with red and white trim. I have to admit that there's something catchy about the way the uniforms look at first glance, but the jerseys lose some of their nuances when seeing them from afar. In any case, the team had official colours and jerseys, so all the Spiders had to do was introduce the fans to the new faces in town and win a few games.

When training camp opened on September 8, 1995, Perron had recruited 11 players from the Montreal Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques including Langway and defenceman Normand Rochefort to join the four players the team announced on June 7 as their first players - Dave Maley, Dave Pasin, Alain Cote, and Mario Doyon. He also found himself with a pile of San Jose Sharks on his roster as players like Robin Bawa, Dale Craigwell, and Ed Courtenay all suited up for the Spiders. He also found himself a bit of a puck-stopping gem in goaltender Stephane Beauregard.

In working to get fans to the rink to see the new team, the Spiders announced that their September 23, 1995 preseason game against the Las Vegas Thunder would be free to the public! The Spiders were allowing anyone to come down to the rink to see the game for free and park their vehicles for free in an effort to show fans that the Spiders knew what a good time was at the rink. What I'm very sure about in this whole thing is how Spinner, the Spiders' mascot, seems far too scary for most little kids to appreciate. Pictured to the left, you can see that Spinner had four additional arms sewn onto the costume, but his incredibly angry expression makes it hard to warm up to him. I never saw Spinner perform, but let's hope that he was far more welcoming than the first impression he made.

"The Spiders want to bring affordable professional sports back to the fans. We are inviting the public to come to our preseason game for free and see first hand what a great product we are putting together," team president Richard Rogers told SFGate. I get that low ticket prices discusssed above might be a good incentive to come and see hockey while the team recoups some costs, but offering free admission and parking? It seems that Dave Pasant was giving away the goods a little too easily.

Thanks to a contract dispute with the Sharks, Sandis Ozolinsh signed on with the Spiders for two games to begin the 1995-96 season, and he holds the distinction as being the first Spider to score a goal in the IHL as he did so in the team's first regular season game on September 29, 1995 as the Los Angeles Ice Dogs defeated the Spiders by a 5-1 score that night. His two-game IHL stint with the Spiders was the second time he had played in the IHL after a 34-game run with the Kansas City Blades in 1991-92.

Just three games into the season, Bruce Boudreau was fired by Jean Perron in one of the most bizarre sequences of events I've ever heard. According to a report in La Presse, Boudreau was fired because Perron "was afraid of" Boudreau and "felt threatened". But there has to be more to this story, right? Well, Dan Steinberg of the DC Sports Bog went down that rabbit hole with the following paragraphs:

Needless to say, Boudreau's stint with the Spiders lasted only three games in which the club was 0-1-2. I'm quite certain that Boudreau's career hasn't been derailed by this dismissal, so all's well that ends well, I guess.

Perron's choices for who he had on his roster were also eyebrow-raising at times. On October 4, 1995, the Spiders announced they had signed former San Jose Sharks enforcer Link Gaetz to a 25-game deal. Despite the article incorrectly identifying Perron as "Jean Fallon", the terms of the contract that Perron and Gaetz negotiated did get out eventually. Gaetz had agreed to a deal that saw him paid $500 per week with mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous meetings attendance as one of the conditions for his contract. After three games that saw Gaetz rack up 37 PIMs, he was cut loose by Perron.

Weird moments in personnel aside, there were some bigger moments on the ice. The Spiders recorded their first-ever win on October 11, 1995 in a 4-1 home win over the visiting Orlando Solar Bears. Greg Bullock scored the team's first game-winning goal in the third period of that contest. They'd follow that game up with another first as they won their first-ever road game by a 4-1 score over the defending Turner Cup champion Utah Grizzlies which, coincidentally, marked their first win streak as well! They would put together a four-game win streak that was eventually stopped on October 26, 1995 by the Chicago Wolves, leaving San Francisco with a 6-5-1 record.

In a rather surprising piece of reporting, sixteen-year-old Slovakian hockey phenom Robert Dome, who would be drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins 17th-overall in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft, scored a pair of goals for the Utah Grizzlies against the Spiders on October 28, 1995. Before we go on any further, imagine being a sixteen year-old playing professional hockey in a league that rivaled the AHL and against men who are literally twice your age or older. I don't know how this was allowed back then, but Dome became "the youngest player ever to sign a pro contract in a North American hockey league" when he signed a two-year deal on October 18, 1995. That's absolutely wild!

Back to the Spiders, the Peoria Rivermen were the first team to shut out the Spiders in their history when they scored a 3-0 win over San Francisco on November 15, 1995 as Jon Casey stopped all 23 shots from the Spiders. It took them a few months to pitch a blank scoresheet themselves, but the Spiders finally did it on April 11, 1996 when they recorded a 3-0 win over the Utah Grizzlies at home thanks to Stephane Beauregard stopping all 31 shots.

The losses, though, were piling up and the fans were far more enthralled with the NHL's Sharks than the IHL's Spiders as attendance began to fall. On any given night, rows of seats went unfilled as the Spiders battled their way through the IHL regular season. Perron's squad, led by John Purves' scoring ability, remained in the hunt for a playoff spot, though, and they would make it into the Turner Cup Playoffs on April 6, 1996 thanks to a Peoria loss that helped the Spiders make the promised land in their first season!

With a playoff spot guaranteed, it was a question of where would the Spiders finish, and who would they play in the opening round? With a victory in their final game, the Spiders would clinch home-ice advantage in that series as the fourth-seeded team in the Western Conference where they would meet the fifth-seeded Chicago Wolves. I can tell you that the Spiders lost that game to Las Vegas, but still held onto third-place in the South Division with a 40-32-10 record and the fourth seed in the West as they opened their first-ever playoff series against the Wolves.

The playoff action would have been great for the city had anyone noticed. Cracks were starting to form in the foundation that held the Spiders together as it was reported by Ray Ratto in SFGate that Dave Pasant had put the Spiders up for sale after losses climbed past the $7 million mark. It wasn't hard to see that the Spiders may be struggling financially with rows of seats available for as low as $5 per chair, but the future looked grim in terms of the Spiders surviving a second season after averaging just 4555 fans through 24 home games into January.

The Wolves and Spiders split the opening two games of their series in San Francisco before the series shifted back to Chicago. April 19 saw the Spiders win their first-ever playoff game by a 4-2 score over the Wolves before the Wolves regrouped and downed San Francisco by a 4-1 score. The April 24 game saw the Wolves push the Spiders to the brink of elimination in the best-of-five series with a 3-1 victory, so the Spiders needed to rally for a big road win if they hoped to send this series to a fifth and final game.

As they were preparing for the game, though, the news only got worse for the future of the Spiders. After meeting with the city in an effort to keep the Spiders in the Bay Area, a report by Tony Cooper of the San Francisco Chronicle was published that suggested that the Spiders would fold following the playoffs. Pasant didn't go as far as confirming the report, but he made it clear to Cooper that there were considerable changes coming for the franchise which including moving the team to somewhere other than the Bay Area. Clearly, this was a distraction the team didn't need while preparing for their biggest game yet.

In some better news, though, the Spiders were able to boast the 1995-96 IHL MVP as part of their roster as goaltender Stephane Beauregard was named the league's most valuable player on April 27 as voted upon by IHL coaches. Beauregard might have been a large part of the reason why the Spiders made the playoffs as he went 36-24-8 in 1995-96. He led the IHL with 1944 saves, and boasted a 3.09 GAA with a .903 save percentage and one shutout. For a season that saw Orlando's Craig Fisher score 74 goals and Chicago's Rob Brown amass 143 points, it seems that the IHL coaches noticed how important Beauregard was in helping the Spiders all season long!

The Spiders and their MVP suited up for Game Four on April 28, and they scored early to lead 1-0 thanks to Dale Craigwell. However, Chicago would find the equalizer in the third period to make it 1-1, and we'd need overtime to solve this one. Unfortunately for the Spiders, Chicago's Kevin Pozzo scored in the extra time to give the Wolves the 2-1 victory, eliminating the Spiders from the postseason.

While things still weren't looking good for the team's future in the Bay Area, it got a lot darker on May 17, 1996 when the San Francisco Spiders filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In the story filed by Larry Stone of The Examiner, it appeared that "Pasant had an agreement in principle to sell the Spiders to Harvey Nathan, a Charleston, S.C., delicatessen owner who planned to move the team to Tacoma", but the deal fell through. Pasant was still talking about moving the team there, but other destinations that had been mentioned included Sacramento, Saskatoon, and Atlanta, but options for those places never materialized.

By June 24, 1996, the team had ceased operations altogether as Pasant simply wasn't willing lose any additional money. The IHL suspended the team's membership in the hopes that it may be transferred somewhere, but there simply wasn't a city or owner who wanted to assume the losses that the Spiders had shown in the Bay Area nor risk moving it somewhere only to have the franchise lose money in a new location. The team was almost transferred to downtown Victoria, BC in 1997 to begin play in 1999-2000, but the new, state-of-the-art facility planned for Victoria never materialized. As a result, the Spiders were disbanded for good, and the IHL itself would fold in 2001-02 after years of financial losses on the league's side. The AHL would absorb a handful of IHL teams into its league, and the rest were folded.

If there's one quirk that I haven't mentioned yet, it's the font used for the customization of the jerseys. The font used was fairly easy to read, but there's a lot to be disappointed with in that home jersey's number. As you can see on the Rochefort jersey, the wider numbers with the contracting outline make them fill the blank space quite nicely, but the Roy jersey's numbers leave far too much white space. The numbers themselves need to be thicker in terms of width, and they need a solid contrasting colour to draw the eyes to them - red, for example - and they need to follow a proper arch in the radially-arching scheme. The font in the image in the bottom shows the prototype Spiders font with the webbing incorporated into the number, but this was scrapped early on when the costs for this design became far too great.

For one season of hockey in 1995-96, the arachnids invaded the IHL and the Bay Area with their unique brand of hockey. There were highs, there were lows, there were cheers, and there were tears, but the San Francisco Spiders certainly had wrote an interesting chapter into hocey history. Could they have been a strong franchise with fan support? That's debatable considering the challenges that the IHL faced as a whole, but one thing is for certain: the Spiders certainly spun an interesting tale.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!