Neepawa hockey club renamed to Titans

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This article was published 07/06/2021 (1562 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new-look Neepawa junior A hockey club hits the ice as the Neepawa Titans this fall.

The Manitoba Junior Hockey League team unveiled the name, logo and uniforms on its social media platforms Monday morning. It maintained black and grey primary colours, adding gold trim to all three sweaters.

When the team announced in July 2020 that it would drop the “Natives” nickname, possible replacements came in quickly. As they were narrowed down — finalists included the Salt Miners, Bulls, Valour, Thunder, Salt Dogs and Generals — the focus was on representing the community as well as possible.

The answer became clear.

“A titan is known as one that stands out for greatness and achievement and the club feels that this community is full of titans in every facet of life,” said Neepawa product Branden Crowe in the team’s announcement video. “That includes pork production, lumber, brewing and most importantly agriculture.”

The Natives moniker, introduced in 1963, was sparked by Neepawa’s Cree roots and the manager’s passion for the Chicago Blackhawks. It was first used in 1989.

The move follows a number of name changes over the past year, including the Washington Football Team dropping “Redskins” and Edmonton’s CFL franchise ditching “Eskimos” and recently going forward as the “Elks.”

Neepawa head coach and general manager Ken Pearson was on board with the idea of changing before any significant public pressure. He actually received more blowback about the idea of removing a nickname associated with tradition, but held firm on the importance of moving on.

“There’s the old guard, and some of the alumni are obviously … disappointed in the change and still not understanding why we have to do it and why we did it,” Pearson told the Sun. “For the most part we reached out to a lot of alumni and explained to them what we’re doing and what we have in mind. Everyone I talked to was real happy with what we did and the changes we did make.

“… It’s been 11 months in the making here and it’s nice to see it finally come to an end. We’re real excited with how everything turned out. A lot of work went into the name, changing the colours and the design. We’re real happy and we’re real excited to start this year off.”

Virden native Brooks Freeman, who designed uniforms for the Brandon Wheat Kings 2021 hub season, crafted the new logos.

The home and away sweaters feature a sword forming a “T” behind all-caps Titans lettering, while the grey alternate jersey has a knight’s helmet that sports a “T” in the negative space. Freeman said the helmet is the primary mark and the sword is the secondary one.

“They wanted the secondary one on the main jerseys to start because it says ‘Neepawa Titans,’” Freeman said. “It’s just so that if people are wearing a jersey around a rink right now it says ‘Neepawa Titans’ until it becomes more mainstream in Manitoba.”

Pearson originally reached out to Freeman via Instagram and the two floated ideas around for months to get it right. They wanted to use the knight theme without mimicking the Vegas Golden Knights.

They also knew it’d be important to maintain the black and grey colour scheme of the 1990s but wanted a new splash as well, adding the gold trim, which represents canola fields on the horizon.

“Any changes I suggested, we didn’t always agree on everything but in the end we did agree on everything and we’re both real happy with his work,” Pearson said.

The Titans launched new apparel for sale Monday, and will continue selling old merchandise until it’s gone.

The 2021-22 season is set to open Sept. 17, with a 54-game schedule. The 12 teams are split into West and East Divisions, playing 40 games against their five division rivals and 14 against the other side. Niverville will join as the league’s 13th team in 2022-23.

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