The Carolina Hurricanes Are Throwing It Back And Wearing Gorgeous Hartford Whalers Jerseys

Play the Brass Bonanza, the Hartford Whalers are back, baby!

Well, kind of. The Carolina Hurricanes are brining back the jerseys of the team they once were in Connecticut. The ‘Canes announced on Thursday that they’ll wear whale-clad green and white uniforms twice this upcoming NHL season, causing a frenzy of reactions online ranging from anywhere between joy and outrage.

Carolina posted a video on Twitter on Thursday to the tune of Brass Bonanza, the song made beloved to New England hockey fans by the Whalers over the years. The audio clue matched the visuals: A modern Reebok-created Whalers jersey that the Hurricanes will wear for the first time on December 23 against the Boston Bruins.

The Hurricanes can do this, of course, because they are still technically the Whalers, who moved from Hartford to the Carolinas in 1997. Presumably they still have all the copyrights to the logos and general designs here, so all it really took was a bit of nostalgia-driven capitalism and the assumption that the good people of Connecticut would not be too upset about the Whalers logo popping back up on the team that absconded to the south.

They were kind of wrong, of course, as the Whalers leaving Hartford still has a lasting scar on the hockey fans of the region. A sample exchange, for example:

There was plenty where that came from.

There’s also a little bit of this sentiment from those who were not Whalers fans but still enjoy Pucky the Whale nonetheless.

https://twitter.com/JeffVeillette/status/1045320687815208964

The mayor of Hartford however, who knows the Hurricanes have been rumored for relocation for some time, had a cryptic tweet in response to the move.

The Whalers logo — and its excellent use of negative space — rules regardless of the situation surrounding its return. But it is a bitter pill for Hartford hockey fans to swallow seeing the team that abandoned them celebrate their heritage without them.