The Williams Lake TimberWolves say they are open to changing the look of their new logo after logo designer Keith Flynn said Wednesday the team had ripped off a logo he created for a New York-based East Coast Hockey League team, the Elmira Jackals.

“We have been in contact with the Elmira organization and have extended that we felt we had an image that had enough difference from theirs that it would not be confused with their image or organization,” part-owner of the TimberWolves Richard Kohlen says.

“We have relayed that we don’t have a problem with revisiting the art and graphic process, which we have started to do directly, to even distance our image further from theirs in order to relay any concern that there might be.”

Flynn, the Mississauga, Ont. artist, says when he first saw the new TimberWolves logo, he was a bit angered by what he saw.

“It [makes me angry] when I see something like that,” Flynn says. “When people just take stuff and rip it off you feel a little bit violated.”

Flynn became aware of what he calls “similarities” between the two logos when a friend noticed a message posted online on a popular logo artist’s message board called Chris Creamer’s Sports Logo Community.

“Some of the major sports logo designers belong to this,” he says, adding the article about the logo from the Sept. 30 edition of the Tribune had been linked to the site for discussion.

“People were saying this logo looks very familiar — that it looks like the Elmira team. Sure enough, they flopped it and flipped the ears.”

Flynn says he doesn’t understand why someone would steal the design and then take credit for doing it himself.

“The thing that bugs me the most is how the guy said how much development he put into it,” he says. “That was a little bit funny.”

However, Flynn sold the rights for the logo to the Jackals — who are the current owners — and it will be up to them to decide if, and how to proceed.

Robbie Nichols, general manager of the Elmira Jackals, said Wednesday he planned to get in touch with the TimberWolves to find out if they had an alternate plan for a logo.

Nichols also said he was going to speak with the Jackals’ legal team and owner about the matter in regards to international copyright laws.

Dave Abbott, T’Wolves logo designer, says he is aware of the Jackals logo, but did not intentionally copy it.

“Yes, I’ve seen that one,” he says. “I certainly was aware of it, and if you look at them together you can see that the area on the mouth and the nose and so-on is reversed.

“If you look at the rest of it — the eyes, the ears and the chin, they’re all different.”

The TimberWolves’ logo is black, red, silver and white, and the Jackals’ logo is red, blue, silver and white.