The Saskatchewan Rush of the National Lacrosse League are embracing their prairie home with their new visual identity, which was unveiled on Wednesday, September 13.
The new primary logo for the Saskatoon-based team features a bison head roughly in the shape of a lacrosse stick head. That sits in front of an elongated hexagon, meant symbolize the team’s home on the traditional lands of Treaty 6 Indigenous people. It also refers to the signage on Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevators that were once common across the province. That reference is reinforced by the typeface used to spell out “RUSH,” with “RU” on the left side of the bison head and “SH” on the right side.
The Rush have retained their previous black, green and white color scheme with the new logos. A version with “SASKATCHEWAN” arched overtop also appears on the team’s new website.
“Once we returned to play after the pandemic, we conducted an evaluation of our brand and where we wanted to go in the future as an organization. One thing that stood out was our logo and how it didn’t really reflect our province and our home. We feel our new logo is a strong representation of who we are as a team and also who we are.”
— Tyler Wawryk, vice-president of team business operations, Saskatchewan Rush
The announcement on the Rush’s website says the old logos will be “semi-retired” and brand new jerseys will be introduced in time for the 2023-24 NLL season.
Fans got a sneak preview of one of those jerseys in the material supporting Wednesday’s announcement, which showed a player wearing a green jersey with the bison logo on the front. A black shoulder yoke with a white outline swoops forward to resemble bison horns, while black shapes outlined in white on the sides of the jersey mimic the motion lines in the bison logo.
“As our team on the field grows into its next phase, we felt the timing was right to introduce a new look to coincide with a new era of Rush lacrosse, and most importantly to reflect our home here in Saskatchewan and on Treaty Six Territory,” Warwyk said.
The Rush brought their old logo — mainly consisting of the word “Rush” spelled out in a blackletter font with motion streaks coming off it — with them when they moved from Edmonton in 2016. They did, however, change the silver in the logos to green.
The 2023-24 NLL season will kick off on the weekend of December 1 and 2, 2023. A detailed schedule has not yet been announced.
