Walk through the souvenir shops at Bradley Airport, and you’d be forgiven for not realizing that the Hartford Whalers no longer exist.

Whalers gear is nearly as prevalent as UConn memorabilia, and it’s displayed proudly as if a trip to Connecticut wouldn’t be complete without a reflexive nod and a smile at the unmistakable logo that has endured in the nearly three decades since the hockey team left town.

The widely-beloved logo has come to represent much more than the team that once wore it on its sweaters, but author Pat Pickens would like to remind everyone that the team itself was very real, too.

Pickens’ book, “The Whalers: The Rise, Fall and Enduring Mystique of New England’s (Second) Greatest NHL Franchise,” was published in 2021 and a documentary film, “The Whalers,” based on the book, made its television debut earlier this month.

The film includes interviews with more than 30 former players, coaches, staff and fans, including former owner Howard Baldwin, and it can be seen on SNY over the next month.

“I think what I continue to strive to do is to cut through the myth, to some degree. That this is not some fairy tale, not some myth,” Pickens told The Courant. “Nostalgia is a part of it for sure, but this was a hockey team. This was a real team that had Stanley Cup ambitions, that was talented enough to win the Stanley Cup a few years.

“It’s easy to get lost in the nostalgia and the Brass Bonanza and all of that weird stuff … but this was a team with fans, with a building. This is a team that Wayne Gretzky would line up and play against them, or Mark Messier,” Pickens said.

The documentary chronicles the history of the Whalers from the franchise’s inception in the World Hockey Association, to its final days in Hartford. It covers the franchise’s departure, but it also delves deep into what happened on the ice, from Gordie Howe’s time in Hartford to the team’s struggles and playoff runs.

“There’s a whole generation of people who just know the logo,” co-director Tal Pinchevsky said. “Or the hat. They see the hat, and they go, oh cool, the Whalers. And there’s obviously way more to it than that. I love the jersey and the hat, and all that, but there’s way more to it, and some great stories and great people involved.”

Part of the Whalers mythology also seems to stem from the idea that the franchise was almost a sporting miracle, as if it were a wonder that it ever came to exist, with its arena inside a shopping mall at the then-Hartford Civic Center, representing one of the smallest professional sports markets in the country. Pickens and Pinchevsky said that was part of what made the franchise unique, and part of the appeal to this day.

“It was all locally sourced. It was this interesting bubble where the corporations and the local officials and the government and the fans and the team all worked together to make something that everyone seemed to love in Hartford and in Connecticut, and that doesn’t exist anymore,” Pinchevsky said. “If you want to own a pro sports franchise today, you better have 3, 4, 5 billion dollars, cash, to snap it up. The Whalers represent this bygone era of like, we’re all in this together, this is our team, and we’re all going to do it together.”

“I always think about it as like, if I turn on ESPN2, and I can see a hockey game in Hartford on the TV, or you watch the ESPN crawl, and you just see Hartford as a major league city,” Pickens said. “There’s the uniqueness in how it came together, and there are these kitschy elements of the Whalers that’s part of it. That they had a parade after a second-round loss. There were all these things that were kitschy and weird and of a different era, but also like, way ahead of its time.”

The 90-minute film was backed financially by the Sacred Heart University’s School of Communications, Media and the Arts.

Fans can watch it on SNY throughout the month of May.

SNY Broadcast Schedule

Saturday, May 3, 5:30 p.m. Saturday, May 10, 4 p.m. Friday, May 16, 8 p.m. Friday, May 23, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 31, 5 p.m. Sunday, June 1, 7 p.m.