Detroit Right Wings Co-Opt NHL Club’s Logo, Go Underground

DETROIT, MI — Last weekend, the Detroit Red Wings hockey organization moved quickly to protect its brand, “vehemently” denouncing the misappropriation of its logo by a white nationalist group protesting the removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia. The NHL club said it was exploring a copyright infringement action against the group, known as the Detroit Right Wings.

The looming threat of an intellectual property lawsuit appears to have sent the Detroit Right Wings further into the shadows, though little was known about the group until signs with an altered version of the NHL hockey club’s iconic winged wheel were spotted on signs at the rally.

The difference in the logos is slight, but dramatic — the spokes in the white nationalist group’s logo resemble the lightning bolts used by the Schutzstaffel, Hitler’s SS force.

A Twitter account for the Right Wings group, described as a “fraternal organization of identitarians located in the state of Michigan,” was disabled. The Muskegon Minutemen, described as an “alt-right and pro-white” organization, also used the Red Wings logo on a Twitter account that has been removed as well.

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Who are the Detroit Right Wings? Neither a legal nonprofit group that represents alt-right groups in court nor the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan have heard of the group, The Detroit News reported. The group also doesn’t appear on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center or on its hate map, which showed 28 hate groups in Michigan.

• 28 Michigan Hate Groups, 10 Ways To Fight Them: Southern Poverty Law Center

The Red Wings’ denouncement of the white nationalist group’s misappropriation of its logo spurred a smaller controversy, the choice of Metro Detroit country-hip-hop-rock artist Kid Rock for the opening concert at the team’s future home, Little Caesars Arena.

A turning point for Rock was a 2011 demonstration in which the embattled symbol was burned in protest outside the Cobo Center as Rock was receiving the Detroit chapter of the NAACP’s Great Expectations Award.

Sam Riddle, the political director of the Michigan National Network, said the Red Wings shouldn’t have been surprised their logo was co-opted by white supremacists. “The Detroit Wings are hypocritical at best for enabling a purveyor of hate symbols to rub his disrespect in the face of America's Blackest and poorest city, Detroit," Riddle said in a statement.

Olympia Entertainment President and CEO Tom Wilson called Kid Rock, a Romeo native and current Clarkston resident, “the perfect entertainer to open Little Caesars Arena.”

“Just as Henrik Zetterberg and Rick Mahorn serve as ambassadors for the Red Wings and The Pistons, respectively, Kid Rock serves as a true ambassador for the music of Detroit,” Wilson said. “He cares about this city and its people, and we’re thrilled to have him as this amazing venue’s opening act.”

Rock, whose name has come up in recent months as a Republican who could defeat U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Lansing Democrat, will perform a six-night concert stand at the arena, Sept. 12-20.

Rock hasn’t said for sure that he is running for Senate, but over the weekend, a Republican political operative said late last week that Kid Rock is trailing Stabenow by eight points in an early poll and “that’s not a bad place to start out.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Logo via Detroit Red Wings