What if they weren't the Jets?

When True North Sports and Entertainment announced it had purchased the Atlanta Thrashers and was bringing the NHL back to Winnipeg, most fans never doubted what the team would be called. The Jets name felt inevitable.

As it turned out, they were right.

But believe it or not, the Jets weren't the only name under consideration before executive chairman Mark Chipman made the official announcement at the NHL Draft in St. Paul.

There were several possibilities. The Manitoba Moose already had a strong connection to the city, having called the then MTS Centre home since it opened in November 2004. The Winnipeg Falcons also had a compelling case. The legendary club captured the Allan Cup in 1920 before representing Canada at the Olympic Games in Belgium, where it won the country's first-ever Olympic gold medal in hockey.

And then there was one more intriguing option: the Polar Bears.

"Eventually we started talking about what animal or what are things that are synonymous with the region or the area that are unique to us, and the city had just built the Journey to Churchill (exhibit at the zoo),” said Dorian Morphy, who is the Senior Vice President, Brand and Chief Marketing Office for True North.

“Polar bears are sort of like what we're world famous for. So, why don't we explore that? And it's such a great animal. In terms of when you think of merchandise and bears are cool, right? But I would say the final three were Moose, Jets and Polar Bears. But we wanted to make sure that we weren't just defaulting Jets. We went through the exercise of exploring it. It was fun.”

Let's dig into it a little further.

As the years have passed, Morphy admits it's become a little easier to talk about the possibility that Winnipeg's NHL team could have ended up with a very different identity. While the Jets name was ultimately the right fit, it's fascinating to look back at the options that were seriously considered.

Here's a closer look at what was on the table.

“We were playing around between Manitoba or Winnipeg. We were working, you know this stuff doesn’t just appear like this as this is probably nine months of work,” said Morphy.

“Ultimately the gut check came, I think, right when Mark was about to leave for the draft, we still weren't 100% He obviously announced the name on the draft floor on behalf of the Winnipeg Jets. It was crazy. We came to that conclusion, because first and foremost, you got to listen to your fans. But we definitely in that year before, knowing that this was a possibility, the team was a possibility, wanted to explore.”

Over the years, Manitoba hockey fans have got a look at what might have been as the Manitoba Moose have worn different versions of Polar Bear jerseys.

“There was a promotion that we did with the Assiniboine Park Zoo, and it was with Journey to Churchill, and we had a polar bear jersey that we put on the ice for the Moose,” said Morphy.

“We had never really told the story, so nobody knew (at the time). It was kind of like it was more of a little chuckle internally.”

While the Jets were always destined to return, it's still fun to imagine an alternate history where Winnipeg embraced the Polar Bears—and just how different those uniforms might have looked.

“It was too bad that this work was went to nothing but certainly it was you know we ended up using it for some of the new stuff that didn't see the light of day, but I thought we had created a NHL caliber mark,” said Morphy.

“I think our fans would have supported, I want to think they would have supported it.”

No doubt they would have. But since Jets was the right choice and was made public that night at the 2011 NHL Draft, the clock started ticking right away to get the logo and new look done and Reebok provided the right partner.

“They really did a good job of researching, 17 Wing and our history with aviation. We wanted to really authenticate the name Jets to aviation. Our relationship with the RCAF, we had done a bunch of Canadian Armed Forces appreciation nights, we had done an RCAF jersey with the Moose,” said Morphy.

“So, here's a Canadian institution that we've approached and would love to partner with us, and they're proud of that. We want to call the Jets, obviously, but need their permission to sort of use the logo. Believe it or not, this was in July. We were working with the Department of Defense on an agreement to let us use the intellectual property.”

The help didn’t end there though, the Jets ended up needing some assistance from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“The Leafs gave us permission to have a leaf in our logo. Yeah, (President and General Manager) Brian Burke was there at the time and granted us permission,” said Morphy.

“Obviously, there's parameters like we can't have the leaf exist by itself. But it was a cool process.”

With the announcement of the logo getting closer on July 22, 2011, rumours started to swirl about what it looked like and of course, there was a leak.

“We had some t-shirts being delivered to help us with our unveil, just some basic product, and a delivery driver cracked the box open and took a picture with his phone and put it out on social media, Twitter was kind of new, but it was still nonetheless, and there was so much speculation. Every day there was a dozen new jersey concepts. It was kind of interesting because like people didn't know what to believe,” said Morphy.

“Nonetheless, we said, ‘let's move up our announcement’, and we did it at 4 o'clock. Mark (Chipman) did that while at the same time, I stayed back and we had planned to basically open our store up for merch sales.”

The lineup outside of the store was huge, Morphy said it was around the block and fans could not get their hands on the merchandise fast enough.

“We literally had people grabbing like 10 shirts out of the box. Like we didn't even have time to unpack it. We sold out that first day, like it was incredible.”

The response left little doubt that True North had made the right call. During the Jets' first season back in Winnipeg, the club sold more than 32,000 jerseys—the same total as the next three seasons combined—and finished first in NHL merchandise sales.

It's impossible to know how Winnipeg would have embraced the Polar Bears, but history suggests the city was always ready to rally behind its NHL team.