Moose looking good for 25 seasons | TheAHL.com

by Daniel Fink | AHL On The Beat

The Manitoba Moose are in the midst of their 25th season in Winnipeg. With festivities ongoing, the Moose want to bring some of that legacy to fans throughout the campaign.

The team’s goal is to involve as many people as possible in the celebrations.

“Finding ways to layer the 25th season throughout the year, so everyone gets to be a part of it, is important,” said Colin Peterson, the team’s manager of game presentation. “Every time we have a conversation about a specific event, or something on our schedule, we add in the extra question of, ‘What does this mean for the 25th season? Is there some extra level we can add to this?’

“It’s about finding things that tie back to the main thread.”

Part of that process is coming to an understanding of how to approach celebrating the 25th season of Moose hockey. It’s an opportunity to tell new stories about the franchise, the people within it and the team’s relationship with fans.

“When we were celebrating 20 seasons, we’d only been back for a few years,” explained Raquel Payne, manager of marketing for the Moose. “Now we’ve re-established ourselves in our market. So, we’re not quite looking back as strongly on the nostalgic ‘1.0 era.’ We’re more focusing on what 25 seasons looks like more specifically within the ‘2.0 era.’ We’re focusing more on recent
accomplishments than accomplishments over a longer period.”

The Moose came to Winnipeg as members of the International Hockey League in 1996, and began play in the AHL in 2001. They relocated to St. John’s, N.L., in 2011 when the Winnipeg Jets took the ice, and returned in 2015 as the Jets’ top development affiliate

The so-called ‘2.0 era’ of the Moose now has nearly a decade of stories to tell. As one of just a handful of AHL affiliates located in the same city as its NHL team, many Moose alumni continue to have a connection to local fans as members of the Jets.

“We have direct lines to draw between current Winnipeg Jets and Moose who were here since the team returned,” added Peterson. “The fact we can tell these stories completely now gives the
anniversary a fresh look.”

The centerpiece of that fresh look is the team’s 25th season celebration jersey, which debuted on Nov. 23. The jersey merges the team’s classic “happy moose” logo with the organization’s current color palette to combine the franchise’s two eras.

Work on the celebration jersey began…