Why the Anaheim Ducks rebranded — and, yes, the duck-bill mask is back (2024)

ANAHEIM, Calif. – In the late 1800s, Orange County, Calif., was created from the origins of a cattle ranch known for some decades as Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. Farming took root in the vast region, with a diversity of crops produced. The proliferation of orange groves helped paint the rural land and inspired its name, which served to promote a semi-tropical paradise in Southern California.

In 2005, Henry and Susan Samueli bought the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim from The Walt Disney Company. The second year of their ownership began with a major rebranding that included a name change — Anaheim Ducks — along with new colors, new sets of home and away jerseys and a different logo. It was a dramatic departure from their origins.

Particularly the logo. The franchise that was named after “The Mighty Ducks” movie and started play in 1993 was identified by a duck-bill-shaped hockey mask sitting atop two crossed hockey sticks and an inverted triangle crest. And the main home and road jerseys were at the heart of wildly successful merchandise set that outsold all other NHL teams combined. Those defined the Ducks until 2006, when black and metallic gold became the primary colors, with a tinge of orange — and a new logo.

In 2015, the Ducks introduced an alternate third sweater, primarily orange and — most notably — with the old “Mighty Ducks” logo. That reflected both the Samuelis’ affinity for the connection to Orange County and their realization of how much fans still craved the original look.

A tribute to our legacy, with eyes on the future.

You're entering Orange Country. pic.twitter.com/oXF8lTV7Os

— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) June 26, 2024

With the revealing of their jerseys for the 2024-25 season on Monday, the Ducks are putting orange at the heart of this latest rebrand and marketing campaign. And the duck-billed mask is back, seemingly for good.

“I think as we moved through the last few years and we really started to think about going back full-time, there was a little bit of a test and see how truly popular and longstanding is the desire for this mark,” said Merit Tully, the Ducks’ vice president of marketing. “And so, we did a bit of very quiet polling of folks to get a little deeper sense of that, but then also talked with our fans a bit, saw what people said online and, from there, the conversations became much easier to really align a direction.”

It’s not quite nirvana for those who cherished the threads that Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne wore in during their prime, but it is callback to a period beloved by a large part of their fan base and – perhaps more impressive – legions beyond.

The original logo had a crossover appeal that stretched beyond their diehard base. And the new jersey already is becoming a fashion statement, at least on social media. Baseball star Mike Trout of the neighboring Angels was set to trot it out on Wednesday, as was Orange County native and Pittsburgh Pirates standout rookie Paul Skenes. So did comedians Gabriel Iglesias and “Saturday Night Live’s” Kenan Thompson, who was in “D2: The Mighty Ducks.” Super Bowl-winning quarterback Drew Brees, volleyball legend Misty May-Treanor and MMA icons Chuck Liddell and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson can be counted as fans of the new look.

“I think a franchise is in some ways like people,” Tully said. “There’s a time where you get into your early teen years that your fans and you want to move on and become a little bit of a different see-who-you-are, prove who you are as a person. And when you turn 30 years old, a lot of times you can look back over your history and pull the things that you really like about yourself and you’re proud of and move forward with them. And help them become a little bit more of who you are moving into the future. Bringing this mark back and these jerseys back is a piece of that.

“We’re ready to look forward. You look at from a timing standpoint of where our team is, the rebuild that we’ve been going through, this comes at an awesome time for us as we look to move to the future with, not only the players in the locker room but the fans that have been with us. Not only for the years where we’ve been a really great hockey team – and we were for a really long time – but those that have been watching us and sticking with us over the past five, six years where the wins haven’t come as regularly.”

This is all part of a marketing strategy the Ducks are introducing — “Orange Country” — to declare to the more than 3 million residents of Orange County, and to the population they reach in nearby Riverside, San Diego and the eastern edge of Los Angeles, that they are their NHL team. Tully said he’s been a fan of how the Tampa Bay Lightning have effectively draped their logo and colors around their arena and across their downtown area. There is momentum, he said, for the Ducks to do the same with orange.

The Angels have been promotional partners, but it’s clear the Ducks are not following their lead by identifying themselves with Los Angeles.

“Orange and Riverside counties itself would be a top-10 market if you pull them out of (Southern California),” Tully said.” So, there is a top-10 US market that again feel like is underserved with regard to having somebody that’ll really plant their flag for them.”

Leaning into orange isn’t a shocking switch, considering the 2015 alternate that was a marriage of fan demand and ownership signature. But there are distinct differences.

The home jersey puts the Ducks with the Philadelphia Flyers as the only teams that use a shade of orange as their dominant color. (The Edmonton Oilers last had an orange-based jersey as their main uniform from 2017-22). And the Ducks’ new orange is a slightly darker version than seen in previous iterations. The white road jersey is completely revamped. An orange shoulder yoke replaces the black that was in place for a decade. Striping has been cleaned up on both sweaters, with it remaining prominent in a black, white and gold scheme but running horizontally along the bottom — and no longer in a vertical swoop down the sides. Orange finishes off the white top and sleeves, while black completes the home sweater.

The pants are another dramatic change. Orange is, indeed, the new black at home and on the road, and it recalls what the Ducks used for the NHL’s Reverse Retro alternate series for the 2022-23 season. And they will introduce orange helmets for the first time, wearing those at home and becoming the only team in the league to use that color. (The Flyers wear black lids at home.)

And then there are the logo details. An orange eye within the duck mask replaces the blacked-out version in the logo, with the eyebrow altered to give an angrier presence. The sticks are now orange, with a different tape job on each in a “W” shape for Wild Wing, the team’s longtime mascot. Art Deco-inspired numbers are now white for the home jersey and orange for the road, with both in block form, accented by gold and black.

The D-shaped, webbed-foot logo that was initially part of the Ducks’ mark in their Stanley Cup season and became their focal point in 2014, will remain, after being given a refresh and secondary placement on each shoulder of the jersey. Playing a large part in this endeavor was Jillian Reddin, the Samuelis’ daughter, who is the director of hockey operations for their AHL club in San Diego. Reddin drove the project with Tully and Ducks president Aaron Teats.

“There isn’t this, ‘Hey, when we came in, that was the Disney days and the ‘D’ represents us,’” Tully said of their owners. “They recognize the full body of work that this franchise represents, and they also recognize that if you’re going to make it a community asset, and they’re fans as well – if you look at the jersey that Henry wears to most games, it was the orange third – there isn’t any sort of arrogance around. ‘No, this was ours.’

“It is a piece of our successful history. It certainly will never go away. We were the first (California) team to win a Stanley Cup and we did it with that logo as part of it. And so that’s something we’re obviously very proud of. We hope there’s many more Cups to come in this new kit. But you can’t take that away and we love to look back at those things.

With all rebranding comes the question of why the Ducks didn’t do a full retro move and go back to the original colors. Tully said the team went to the plum jerseys for the 30th anniversary season to honor their history and the color that helped symbolize their massive popularity after landing in Anaheim. It was always meant to showcase that, but it also was a one-off, never intended to last longer. “Orange Country” had long been in the works, and there was never a thought to make a 180-degree change.

“We’re not running from the fact that those are popular colors,” Tully said. “We recognize that. And it doesn’t mean that we won’t ever return to something with that color palette in it. We just know that for this franchise right now, and moving forward over a long period of time here, we want to identify and recognize that we’re from Orange County and we’re proud to be. This is a way to do that.”

With change comes reaction, and Tully is bracing for a lot of it. He’s already seen it through some leaks, some of which the Ducks have participated in through teasers on their social-media accounts. (The club also covered a rocket in orange, with the logo eye looking out over Interstate 5 outside the Discovery Cube science center in nearby Santa Ana.) The reaction will be good and bad. Among the references surely will be that they’ll resemble traffic cones on the ice.

But that’s fine with him. Their kaleidoscope of jerseys has been a talking point through the decades, and now there will be another shot of passionate opinions injected into the discussion. The Ducks figure that’s better than being bland and nondescript.

“We know that any time you’re bold, they’re going to be people who embrace that boldness and there’s going to be people who see it a different way,” Tully said. “We love the fact that there’s a conversation and so much passion around our logo scheme and what our colors are. That means people care. And I would argue we’ve got a group of people organizationally that care as much as our fans care, and we want to be good stewards of what this organization represents.

“When you say brace (for reaction), I would put it more, we’re excited for the conversation and the people are excited to talk about it. Because this is something that we’ve planned for a number of years now, and it’s something we know not everybody is going to sit around the table and feel exactly the same way. And that’s the beauty of sport. That’s the beauty of having a community that is excited about who we are and excited about where we’re going in the future.

“We welcome the conversation around it. Because, honestly, it’s what we do, too.”

(Top photo courtesy of Anaheim Ducks)

Eric Stephens is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in Southern California. Eric has been writing and talking about sports for newspapers and media outlets for more than 30 years. He has previously covered the NHL for The Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. He is also an occasional contributor on NHL Network. Follow Eric on Twitter @icemancometh