The American Hockey League’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers (the top-level affiliate of the New York Islanders) teased a potential change to their franchise this afternoon when they Tweeted out a video promising both a “Refresh” and a “Reboot”.
Of course it took the Internet no more than five minutes to spot a possible Easter Egg-esque leak in the video.
Thanks to several Twitter users (@caghockey and @Luke_Hunter91 were the first two I saw) we see a split-second of the video shows a new logo, one which identifies the team as the Islanders.
As you can see the logo is a blue, orange, and white stylised “B” with a hockey stick forming the back of it, this design is placed within a circle which reads ISLANDERS. The odd shape you see surrounding this logo is the remnants of the Sound Tigers‘ existing logo which was included as part of the video the team posted.
Some quick detective work shows a new Twitter account with the handle @AHLIslanders was registered in January 2021, the same month as two new domain names AHLIslanders.com and BridgeportIslanders.com.
The Sound Tigers play out of Bridgeport, Connecticut and began play in the AHL as an expansion team during the 2001-02 season, they have been affiliated with the New York Islanders for twenty seasons. While the new name certainly makes sense due to their ties to the NHL’s Islanders, the City of Bridgeport itself isn’t on an island, as far as I can tell.
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