The Williams Lake TimeberWolves will be seeing red when the puck drops at the beginning of the 2009/2010 season.

Not necessarily from their opponents, but coming in the form of their new logo and jerseys.

“The colours, I wanted to go back to something related to the Mustangs,” local artist and logo designer Dave Abbott says. “The red, I thought was a more active, exciting colour and I wanted to do something related to that.”

This past Saturday at the Cariboo Memorial Complex, the TimberWolves hosted a tailgate party where the new logo and team colours were unveiled before the hundreds in attendance.

“The Mustangs were the Junior A team in the late 70s to 1996 and their colours were red, white and yellow,” Abbott says.

Gone is the “TimberWolves” lettering written on the old logo, replaced with a more simplistic and striking “T-Wolves” etching.

The blue and yellow colours from the previous logo have been removed, replaced by vibrant red, silver, white and black.

Abbott says while going through the various design phases of the logo, simplifying it was the most difficult part.

“This one went through a number of stages and we just had to find ways to reduce it,” he says. “You have to find the impact where there’s not stuff that doesn’t need to be in it.”

A painter for the past 40 years in the community, most recently, Abbott designed the logo for the provincial Scott Tournament of Hearts curling event that’s been used since 2006.

“This was a challenge I really looked forward to doing because I’m a hockey fan as well,” he says. “This was more of a personal investment of being a hockey fan.”

Part owner of the TimberWolves Richard Kohlen says he’s absolutely thrilled with the new look of the logo.

“I love it,” Kohlen says. “We tried quite a few variations and eventually came up with this one.

“In the process I had no idea how many variations of a wolf you can get.”

Kohlen, along with the two other owners of the team, Dave Pocock and John Wright, were on hand serving burgers and hot dogs to the fans who attended the event.

A road hockey rink was set up in the parking lot, providing youngsters with hours of entertainment throughout the day in celebration of the T’Wolves announcement.

Also planned to be discussed at the tailgate party were designs for upgrading the arena; however, Kohlen says some of the finer details still need to be ironed out.

“Basically, we’re designing the mezzanine for our beverage garden and we had to put some effort in for where we’d put the entrances and exits and things like that,” he says, adding once this is completed, plans will be forwarded to the City for approval.

Kohlen notes season ticket sales are booming, and last week, the club had past season ticket holders visit the office to claim their previous seats.

“We’ve really vamped it up this last week,” he says, adding many of the businesses in the community are now on board canvassing for corporate season’s tickets. “We were selling almost 100 a day for the last few days.”

Mayor Scott Nelson also attended the tailgate party to congratulate the team on its accomplishment.

“It’s a fantastic logo,” Nelson says. “It’s the best looking logo in the league.

“It’s great for the community, and I’m looking forward to working together to make this a huge success for the team and the community.”