Leafs Prepare Early for Centennial

Photo by Alan Hudes | Logo from Canadian Intellectual Property Office

First, apologies for the lack of blog updates recently. It's not that there's been nothing worth reporting. Just having difficulty finding the time these days. But I wanted to get this on the record.

Toronto already promoting 100th anniversary season

The Toronto Maple Leafs are wasting no time getting prepared for their upcoming 100th anniversary season — which is, you know, still four years away in 2017. Never too soon, right?

Icethetics reader Alan Hudes wrote in a couple weeks ago with the above photo of a trailer. Specifically, it's the Leafs Nation Mobile Fan Zone. Inside, it contains a replica of the team's dressing room which isn't weird or anything. But that's not important.

What we're interested in is its new look — which prominently features artwork related to that centennial I mentioned before. (The one that's still 52 months away. That's 52 months, not 52 weeks.) The "MFZ" — their acronym, not mine — currently features the previous Leafs logos, including those from before they adopted the Maple Leaf moniker, the Arenas and St. Pats. And there's also a rather boring 100th anniversary logo to top it all off.

Knowing the "creative" for that event is already underway, one might consider a quick trip to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office to turn up another centennial logo. And it's hardly an improvement over the trailer. That's what you see next to the photo. The trademark was filed last March — a year ago today, in fact.

Only 16 years between 75th and 100th anniversary logos

The funny part is that you may recall Toronto celebrating its 75th anniversary back in 2001. Quick math shows 2017 minus 2001 does not equal 25. So what's going on? Well apart from the obvious marketing ploy, the team was only counting its years as the "Maple Leafs" — which started only in 1927.

In 2017, the club will be marking the founding of the franchise in 1917 as the Toronto Arenas with the formation of the National Hockey League. (Next, I want to see the NHL's 100th anniversary logo. Think they'll make all the teams wear shoulder patches like they did with their 75th in 1992?)

I've spent far too long writing about this topic at this point. It could be the late hour or it could be me just trying to make up for my recent silence. If you guys have anything to add, feel free.