TEASER: Members Only Mailbag May 2025

It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

With me is Judge John Hodgman.

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I have a dispute with Judge Hodgman.

He should stop saying the Hartford Whalers are extinct.

Their records persist and their uniforms remain in use.

The Arizona Coyotes are a truly extinct hockey team.

They don't exist anymore.

The Hartford Whalers are the Carolina Hurricanes.

I moved and changed my name once.

Am I not me?

I think Judge Hodgman just enjoys telling people he's into an obscure thing, but he's doing it wrong.

I think the judge should refer to the Whalers and Nordiques as relocated.

Save extinct for the California Golden Seals or the New York Americans.

Well, look, John.

Yeah.

I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to take my co-host's prerogative and stipulate that Judge John Hodgman enjoys telling people he's into an obscure thing.

There's no doubt about that.

Yeah.

But

that doesn't mean the rest of it is true.

Yeah, I don't even think it's that obscure.

I mean, 10 years ago, probably when I started thinking about and talking about the beautiful Hartford Whalers logo designed by Peter Goode of West Hartford, the Peter Goode and Company Design Company, the most gorgeous logo in all of sports.

Never mind, extinct hockey.

Never mind, non-extinct hockey.

This beautiful logo.

And I loved it and I started talking about it.

At that point, it might have been obscure.

The only time I ever saw any merch for it was at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

And it was like one hat.

Now you see the Hartford Whalers logo all over the place, including, including, as you point out, Yael of San Francisco, on the uniforms worn by the Carolina Hurricanes.

They have throwback nights

where the team will wear old Hartford Whalers uniforms because you're not wrong.

In fact, I dare say you're right.

The Hartford Whalers franchise, the team moved to Carolina, renamed and rebranded themselves the Hurricanes.

But I did learn when I was doing my research into, let's call it defunct hockey teams or defunct hockey brands

that that is, it is still the same team, right, Jesse?

That's true, right?

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