Did You Even Think This One Through?

I was in and out of the house all afternoon as I was working on a few smaller projects on a lovely autumn day in my neighbourhood, but I did happen to see that Regina and Prince Albert were playing a WHL contest on CBC this afternoon. The Pats were wearing their red jerseys at home that I wrote about the other day, and the Raiders were in their normal road whites. That's probably for the best because Andy Samberg's "uh oh" reaction was the same one I had when I saw that the Raiders announced yesterday that they were going to a throwback jersey for their alternate uniform this year. As you may have guessed from the Samberg GIF, there's a major problem with that chosen jersey.

From 1982 until 1996, the Prince Albert Raiders used the jerseys to the right with what can only be considered to be a highly distasteful and seemingly racist logo on the front that depicts a cartoonish Arabian-like character brandishing a scimitar and hockey stick. One would have thought in today's day and age when race is playing such a large influence on most of society that jerseys with this logo wouldn't have seen the light of day, yet here we are with the Raiders planning to use them all season long. One has to wonder who was the brains behind this idea because social media was all over this jersey from the moment it was posted.

I will say that the Raiders likely were wanting to celebrate the 1985 Memorial Cup-winning squad who wore these jerseys with this logo, but it's pretty clear that no one considered the cultural inmplications of wearing that logo. Times change, people's views on matters change, and, as members of society, sports teams need to change to follow the socially-accepted norms of the day and age. It's clear that no one from Prince Albert thought this logo was going to be an issue, but they thought wrong. Way wrong.

Part of that could be due to recent history when the Prince Albert Raiders went to their racially-insensitive throwbacks in 2019 for a February 8, 2019 game against the Calgary Hitmen in Calgary when the Hitmen threw back to the WHA days by wearing the Calgary Cowboys jerseys for that game. There was far less outrage over the logo on Prince Albert's throwback jersey that night, so perhaps we're seeing society evolve right before our eyes as social media citizens were vocal and critical of Prince Albert's choice to bring back the "Raider" logo.

Whatever the case may be, Prince Albert quickly deleted the post with its players wearing the jerseys in stage photos, and the WHL released a quick message on Twitter tonight that said the league would be discussing the jersey with the club. Shortly after, WHL Commissioner Ron Robison released a statement that read,

"On Friday night the Prince Albert Raiders unveiled an alternate third jersey, which was inspired by a highly successful era in Club history. We recognize the dated design is insensitive and offensive. After consultation with the Prince Albert Raiders, this uniform and brand will be discontinued effective immediately. On behalf of the WHL and the Prince Albert Raiders, we regret this uniform design was approved and sincerely apologize for any harm it may have caused."

Kudos to the WHL and Commissioner Robison for stepping up and doing the right thing here despite some nitwits on social media exclaiming their disbelief and outrage. The logo is both "insensitive and offensive" as Commissioner Robison stated, and I'm glad that the league used its influence to prevent Prince Albert from donning these uniforms this season and, hopefully, in the future.

With every professional, minor-pro, junior, university, college, and school teams in North America reviewing their team names over the last few years, it's had to fathom who would have rubber-stamped the idea of playing with the logo seen above on the chests of young men. Whether it be Edmonton's CFL team, Washington's NFL team, Cleveland's MLB team, the University of North Dakota's school teams, or the Neepawa MJHL team, we've seen a vast number of teams at many levels take long, hard, serious looks at what they were once named, and all have committed or already have changed their names and logos. This isn't like Prince Albert wandered into some new, uncharted territory regarding insensitive logos and names and didn't know what to do.

Whatever the case was for the decision to push forward with this ridiculously offensive logo, smarter people - read: the WHL itself - stepped forward and said no after social media took Prince Albert to task. Social media got this one right, and kudos to the WHL for stepping in quickly, putting its foot down, and correcting something that legitimately should have never got beyond a conversation in the Raiders' boardroom.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!