Mayor Pic

The first thing Mayor Iveson said when he entered the lobby was, “wow you guys really want that sign”. 

Earlier this week, I heard that City Council voted in favour of shedding Edmonton of our City Of Champions slogan. I initiated a campaign to get one of those 7 legendary signs for our SONiC Control Room. I spoke briefly with Mayor Iveson about my proposal this morning (off the record). I’ll confess; I was more than a little disappointed that he didn’t just have one of the signs strapped to the roof of his Subaru. Apparently, it’s not quite that simple.

I asked about the criteria required to make something like this happen. Is it a petition thing? A charity thing? I was told the issue wouldn’t even be brought before council to begin weighing options until the end of June. When you think about it though, this isn’t really Mayor Iveson’s decision nor is it that of City Council, it’s up to you. Mayor Iveson is just the man we’ve entrusted with executing the plan. YOUR plan.

Iveson says we are in a post slogan era. Agree or disagree, we don’t need to stop being champions. We aren’t champions because we have signs indicating so. We aren’t champions because the Oilers had a good run back in ’80s. Most agree that we are champions because of how we handled the events of Black Friday in 1987. I respectfully disagree. It wasn’t BECAUSE we handled those events with the grace and poise of champions — that was merely the event that made us aware that our champion spirit was there a along.

I won’t lie. I love the idea of displaying a trophy of our city’s heritage here at SONiC but that isn’t the reason I’ve started this campaign. It’s because from the minute we fired up this FM transmitter 10 years ago, this station has been about one thing; you. This is YOUR station, in YOUR city and YOU are the Champions. YOUR tax dollars paid for that sign. YOU own that sign and ultimately decide its fate. The question becomes, how do we, as a station, earn that privilege from YOU?