A franchise from Atlanta took the name of the club Winnipeg lost.

The name is older than the team that wears it today. English Wikipedia says Winnipeg was granted one of the founding franchises of the World Hockey Association on 27 December 1971, and that the original Winnipeg Jets began play in 1972. When the WHA wound down in 1979, the Jets were absorbed into the National Hockey League with the Quebec Nordiques, Edmonton Oilers and Hartford Whalers. In 1996, Wikipedia says, owner Barry Shenkarow sold the club to the American businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke, who reached an agreement with the Phoenix businessman Jerry Colangelo; the team played its last game in Winnipeg on 28 April 1996 and became the Phoenix Coyotes.

The club that plays as the Jets now began in another city. Wikipedia says the NHL awarded an expansion franchise to Atlanta on 25 June 1997, and that the Atlanta Thrashers began play in the 1999–2000 season. It was the city’s second NHL team: the Atlanta Flames had left for Calgary in 1980.

In 2011 the Thrashers moved north. Wikipedia says True North Sports & Entertainment, the company that owned Winnipeg’s downtown arena, then called the MTS Centre, and the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose, bought the Thrashers in May 2011, and that on 31 May NHL commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed at a press conference in the arena that the team would relocate for the 2011–12 season. True North has owned the club since 2011, and Mark Chipman is its chairman.

The name took a few weeks longer. Wikipedia says the Thrashers name and logo were not part of the sale and stayed with the ownership group in Atlanta, and that there was considerable support in Winnipeg for reviving “Winnipeg Jets”, with other names, including Manitoba Moose, also discussed. Because the league owned the Coyotes at the time, it controlled the old Jets trademarks and gave the new club permission to use them. True North kept its choice secret until the NHL draft in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on 24 June 2011, when Chipman introduced the general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff to make the club’s pick “on behalf of the Winnipeg Jets”.

The arena has since changed its name too: the former MTS Centre is now Canada Life Centre. One crowd habit belongs to the new era. Wikipedia says that since 2011 fans have shouted the words “True North” during the line “The True North strong and free” in the national anthem, in recognition of the owner.

A jet, a maple leaf and a circle from the air force.

The draft announcement came without a crest. Wikipedia says the top pick, Mark Scheifele, was handed a generic NHL jersey and cap, while True North said it was still developing a logo and colour scheme and that the old Jets’ blue and red would be part of it. The design was revealed on 22 July 2011, three days ahead of schedule, Wikipedia says, after team merchandise containers were broken into and a picture of a Jets T-shirt circulated online.

The new mark broke with the club’s past. CBC Sports, carrying a Canadian Press report dated 22 July 2011, described a sleek fighter jet pointing north over a red maple leaf, all inside a navy blue and grey circle known in military terms as a roundel, and said the design was based on that of the Royal Canadian Air Force. The same report quoted Chipman saying the owners wanted to make the name as meaningful as they could, by connecting it to the city’s history with the air force and particularly with 17 Wing, the military base near Winnipeg’s airport. Wikipedia identifies the aircraft as a silhouette of a McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet, and says the maple leaf was included with the permission of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Two secondary logos came with it. CBC said one showed military-style wings over two hockey sticks and a maple leaf, with the team name around it, and the other set the team name in large stylised letters beside a red maple leaf. Wikipedia credits the identity to Reebok, the NHL and the designer Linda Lynch, and associates Reebok’s uniform and identity designers Dominique Fillion and Lynch with the work.

The CBC report also explained why True North felt free to start again. The original Jets had worn more than one look: in the 1990s a stylised hockey stick formed the “J” of the wordmark with a small plane beside it, and there had been two earlier designs going back to the WHA. Chipman said that, unlike clubs with a single historic logo, the Jets had no one obvious mark to return to.

The military link came with rules. The Globe and Mail, carrying a Canadian Press report by Steve Rennie dated 19 November 2011, said a nine-page contract with the Department of National Defence, signed that summer, set out how the club could and could not use its air-force-inspired emblem.

The uniforms followed on 6 September 2011. CBC News reported that the club presented them at the air force base, 17 Wing, and that they used mostly two shades of blue: Polar Night Blue, found on many current RCAF aircraft, and Aviator Blue, similar to historical RCAF colours. The general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff said the club wanted a look that worked with Reebok’s Edge uniforms while honouring the city’s hockey history and the era of the air force that inspired the crest.

Design and documentation.

When a new club needs a name, the choice is sometimes handed partly to the public. A shortlist of candidates is published, supporters vote or submit ideas, and the final pick is announced at an event built for the reveal. Some clubs also play a first season under a placeholder: a city name with a plain word such as “club” or “team” after it, worn on a simple interim crest while the permanent identity is still being drawn. That gap gives designers time to test colours, wordmarks and secondary marks before the full set is fixed.

Military and historical references are another long-running source for sports marks. Flags, stars, period uniforms, cannons and regional history can give a crest a story that points to the place rather than to the game itself, and the details of those references often reappear in alternate jerseys and shoulder patches. Arenas add a further layer. A horn, a siren, a cannon blast or a particular song after a goal can become as recognisable as any logo, and those rituals are often written into how a club presents itself on match nights, in broadcasts and on merchandise.

A third jersey, throwbacks and a mascot in a flying helmet.

The roundel stayed on the main uniforms, while alternates explored both the air force and the old club. Wikipedia says the Jets kept their uniforms when Adidas took over NHL uniform production in 2017. CBC News reported on 14 September 2018 that the club had unveiled a third jersey designed by Adidas, in aviator blue with navy blue and white striping. Its new script wordmark was inspired by the Jets uniforms of the 1990s, and the outline of a fighter jet crossed the letter “t” in the name. The words “We Are True North” were printed inside the back of the neckline.

The original Jets returned as throwbacks. Wikipedia says that from 2016 to 2019 the club wore white uniforms based on the original team’s 1973–78 design, introduced at the 2016 Heritage Classic, and that a blue version was unveiled for the 2019 Heritage Classic against Calgary. That earlier club had worn blue and white with red trim and a futuristic “Jets” wordmark in the WHA; after the move to the NHL in 1979, Wikipedia says, general manager John Ferguson Sr. brought elements of the New York Rangers uniform to Winnipeg, and a final redesign in 1990 updated the crest and brought back red pants.

The newer Jets reworked those designs in their own colours. For the 2020–21 season, Wikipedia says, a “Reverse Retro” uniform recreated the original Jets’ 1979–90 design recoloured to the current scheme, and from 2021–22 the blue Heritage uniform replaced aviator blue as the alternate. A second Reverse Retro in 2022–23 drew on the white uniforms of 1990–96. In 2023–24 the Jets wore a special “Heritage” uniform for three games in collaboration with the RCAF for its centennial. Nicknamed the “Forty-Eight” after the Ottawa RCAF Flyers team at the 1948 Winter Olympics, it used a powder blue base, called “RCAF blue”, with red and navy stripes and navy numbers.

The mascot carries the theme too. Wikipedia says True North “recalled” Mick E. Moose, who had spent years with the Manitoba Moose, adding a vintage leather aviator helmet to the costume.

For a design guide, the Winnipeg Jets show how a club can take back an old name and still build a new crest around it, borrowing a national emblem with written permission and keeping the history of the earlier team for alternates and anniversaries. Compare it with Calgary Flames, the other Atlanta franchise that moved to western Canada, and Toronto Maple Leafs, whose permission put the maple leaf into the Jets roundel. For this guide we use polar night, aviator blue and leaf red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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