HISTORY IS IMPORTANT: RETCONNING IN SPORTS

This is old news at this point, but hell, when has that stopped me before?

When the NBA starts back up in a few months to kick off the 2014-15 season, the Charlotte Bobcats will officially be the Charlotte Hornets, reclaiming the name, colors, logos and team history from the original Hornets that started up in 1988. Now if that was confusing to you, don't worry, it's pretty convoluted stuff. What does that all mean? Basically, its an example of retconning.

Now what's retconning? Retroactive continuity. Let's take a look at comic books to showcase an example (or read TV Tropes article on the subject).

Back when Superman was created in the late 30s, a bunch of things were established about him in the intervening years after his in inception. He was naturally super strong and could fly, but he also had a bunch of powers that you would never think he would have, and frankly, only showed up once when he was confronted with a specific situation that would require his one-shot power. Like the ability to weave baskets at super human speed, or rainbow blasts that he could shoot out of the tips of his fingers (both of which actually happened, I swear).

He was also the last survivor of the planet Krypton. Mostly. A bunch of other super-beings would pop up from time to time (most notably Superman's kind of, sort of cousin Supergirl) that were either from Krypton's cousin planets, or were criminals trapped in another dimension called the Phantom Zone (basically, Kryptonian solitary confinement) that got out and fought Superman. There were also the Super Pets, like Krypto the Super Dog and Streaky the Super Cat. Again, that actually happened.

Also, Superman had a career as a teenage superhero in his hometown of Smallville, as Superboy. He also befriended a young Lex Luthor, and incurred his eternal wrath when a freak accident caused young Lex to lose all of his hair, becoming permanently bald. And once again, yes, all of this actually happened. And Superman's adopted parents Jonathan and Martha Kent died at some point before he became Superman. Tough break, Sups.

But then, the retconning commenced (See? I worked it in. This wasn't just an excuse to talk about Superman. Mostly.)

In 1987, DC Comics rebooted the universe in which their characters existed, because after 50 years of comic book storylines, they figured that the backstory for everything had gotten a little too convoluted. So they basically tore everything down and started from scratch.

Superman was now officially the only survivor from Krypton. No Supergirl. No Phantom Zone criminals. Nothing. Just Superman. He had also never been Superboy. His parents were still alive while he was Superman. Lex Luthor never knew Superman as a young man and was now an unscrupulous and overly ambitious businessman in Metrotropolis (he was also bald, apparently by choice). Superman also had a set number of abilities (most notably super strength, flight and impeccable durability) but none of the other weird-ass powers he'd have from time to time.

Essentially, retconning is changing something that had been fact for a while and making it so this new fact was actually the case.

Yeah I feel you, man.

(By the way, that was the least complicated example I could think of in comic books. I'm not even gonna try and touch the X-Men.)

So how does that fit with sports? There have been a couple of examples of sports retconning in the past, so why don't we look at those.

The Cleveland Browns. Established in 1946, they spent the 40s in the All-American Football Conference, where they won every championship in that league's history. In 1950 when the AAFC folded, the Browns were admitted into the NFL. There they remained until the end of the 1995 season, when their owner Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore.

So Baltimore Browns, right? Wrong. The city of Cleveland, pissed that their beloved Browns were taken from them, held on to the team's colors, logos, win-loss record and championship history. The NFL decided to give Cleveland an expansion team that would be named, you guessed it, the Cleveland Browns. Basically, according to the NFL, the Browns have played consecutively since 1946, except for a weird three year gap where they just plain weren't around.

The original Browns meanwhile, were renamed the Ravens, and started from scratch as a team. They had different uniforms, logos and for all intents and purposes, were an NFL expansion team, without being an NFL expansion team (the Ravens didn't have any compensatory picks in the 1996 draft like a real expansion team would have normally and just used the picks that would have been used by the Browns had they remained in Cleveland.) A new team just popped out of nowhere and began play while another team disappeared, until the original team reappeared again in 1999, continuing like nothing had happened.

That's not the only example. Let's go back to the Hornets from the beginning of the article.

As I mentioned, the Charlotte Hornets began play in the 1988-89 NBA season as an expansion team. The city embraced the team and all was good. Until 2002, when then owner and all-around awful person George Shinn moved the team to New Orleans, where they kept their uniforms, history and name, becoming the New Orleans Hornets.

Completely seamless.

Meanwhile back in Charlotte, the NBA set up an expansion team there a couple years after the Hornets left. Because Shinn still owned everything Hornets related and wasn't about to give the name up, the new Charlotte team had to start from scratch. They were named the Bobcats, a toothless name if ever there was one. Many believe that original owner Robert Johnson named the team after himself (Robert, Bob, Bobcats, get it?). If true (and it probably is), it's pretty dumb. Though to Johnson's credit, he's never been accused of raping anyone, so he's got that one up on Shinn at least.

And that's how things were until 2013. By then, Shinn had been removed as owner of the Hornets due to financial problems and the team was actually owned by the NBA. Finally, Tom Benson, longtime owner of the New Orleans Saints, bought the team. Benson, a New Orleans native, hated the Hornets name since it had no cultural baring on New Orleans. So he changed the name and uniforms of the team, renaming them the New Orleans Pelicans.

Since his team was no longer the Hornets, Benson saw no reason to keep the name, and they were given to the Bobcats. The team adopted the Hornets name and took on the colors of the old Hornets. And here's where the retconning begins again.

In addition to getting the name, the Bobcats also got the Hornets history from before they moved to New Orleans. Meaning that the Hornets, like the Browns, just disappeared for two years before reappearing with the Bobcats name. The Pelicans meanwhile, now have no history before the 2002-03 season, their first in New Orleans. So, like the Ravens, a new team just popped out of nowhere.

This is funny for several reasons. Now, Chris Paul never played for the Hornets, just the Hornets (he was there in New Orleans only, bypassing Charlotte entirely). Allan Bristow now has the most coaching wins for a team he technically never coached. There are other similar things like that popping up, but all in all, this is a good thing overall. The Pelicans are now have stronger ties to New Orleans and Charlotte gets the Hornets name back. And all is right in the world.

But there is one instance where retconning hasn't happened that should. I'm speaking of the Winnipeg Jets. This also involves backstory.

The Winnipeg Jets were a charter member of the World Hockey Association in 1972. Along with three other WHA teams, the Jets were accepted into the NHL in time for the 1979-80 season. But before the 1996-97 season, the team moved to Arizona and became the Coyotes.

As such, Winnipeg was without an NHL team. So the NHL put up an expansion franchise there, right? No. Winnipeg was Pro-Hockey-less for 14 years. In that time, the NHL added four teams, none of which crossed over into Canada. One of those teams was the Atlanta Thrashers.

This was the NHL's second foray into Atlanta, a place known for not giving a damn about sports unless it's college football. Predictably, the Thrashers didn't draw. And after a decade of futility (both on and off the ice), the Thrashers packed up and moved north. To Winnipeg. To throw the city a bone, the Thrashers renamed themselves the Winnipeg Jets.

Frankly, the Austin Powers picture would have worked here, too.

But here's the rub. These Jets have nothing in common with the original Jets, now the Coyotes. All of the uniform numbers that were retired by the original Jets are still retired, and remarkably, the Coyotes continue to retire numbers based on players' time in Winnipeg. Dale Hawerchuk's number was (rightly) retired in 2007, a full decade after they moved from Winnipeg.

The Coyotes also retain the uniforms and history of the old Jets, which they have never taken advantage of besides saying, "yeah, this team used to play in Winnipeg." What's the point?

You could argue history. The Coyotes don't have much of one. The Jets (the old ones that is), while usually mediocre in the NHL, were a powerhouse in the WHA, winning three Avco Cups in the league's seven year history. But there isn't a place that could be more different from Winnipeg than Phoenix (or Glendale, whichever comes first).

Personally, all the Jets history should belong to the new Jets and the Coyotes should just make due with everything they've done since 1996-97. Yeah, it's weird that the current Jets have the history as the Thrashers and then there's the three year gap before the Thrashers were established and the old Jets moved. But a name is a name and the old Jets belong more to the city of Winnipeg than they do in the Arizona desert. So make a retcon and fix everything. It always works.

Most of the time.