PowerPlayGoal.com – Hockey From A Different Angle

When it comes to American Sports in Great Britain, not limited to but especially so in Hockey’s case, the way the sport is treated is beyond ridiculous, and it’s been made to feel more like British Football (or Soccer to anyone from North America) on ice, with promotion and relegation between leagues rather than franchise based systems in place, the same teams winning every season, at least four different championship trophies (knockout cup, league cup, etc), adverts all over the jerseys, lack of creativity when it comes to naming teams (think of how many teams in British Football are named “United”), and worst of all, many of the logos and jerseys are horrible. It’s almost as if the teams are deliberately trying to make themselves look and feel tacky to serious sports fans.

For this edition of War On Logos, I will be listing the top five things that are generally wrong with the identities of most of these teams from the United Kingdom, starting with…

5: Complete Irrelevance

Example team: Peterborough Islanders

As mentioned earlier, there is a general lack of creativity when it comes to naming UK based teams, with many of them resorting to using comfortably generic names that ultimately have little or nothing to do with the area they are based in. Pictured here for example is the logo of the Peterborough Islanders. To be fair, the logo looks quite good (probably because it was stolen or something), but they were named the Islanders because one of the founders of the team had ties with the Falkland Islands. And you guessed it; the name has absolutely nothing to do with the City of Peterborough.

Other examples: Chelmsford Chieftains, Streatham Redskins, Sheffield Scimitars, Swindon Wildcats, Basingstoke Bison… I could go on for ages here.

4: Boring, Old Fashioned Designs

Example team: Trafford Metros

Looking at this logo, you’d think that it was designed in the early 20^th century if not even earlier, despite the fact that this team hasn’t even been around that long. Believe it or not, this team was founded as recently as 2007, and then changed to this name and logo in 2009! Logos in this category are usually either hand drawn, or they tend to feature only the black lining, lacking in many, if any other colours. Most of the time these logos also seem to be trying to emulate British Football logos in appearance: this one shown here looks more like it belongs on a 1900’s Football shirt instead of a 2009 Ice Hockey jersey.

Other Examples: Oxford City Stars, Murrayfield Racers (defunct), Lee Valley Lions, Cambridge University Blues

3: Generic Clipart (Or Clipart-ish Graphics)

Example Team: Telford Tigers

When a team can’t afford/be bothered to hire a professional designer to make a good logo for them, one of their two other options is to go with a generic piece of clipart instead, which is usually provided to them by a jersey manufacturer such as Rhino (I had to mention them at some point). These graphics always have a tendency to be overly detailed, with way too many thin lines, and most of these logos make use of everybody’s favourite shading effect, gradients. Amateur designers always seem to think that gradients are “cool looking” for logos, yet it always feels tacky. Many logos of this type also tend to use generic word art to go with the clipart.

Other Examples: Chelmsford Chieftains, Wightlink Raiders, Paisley Pirates, Braehead Clan

2: Blatantly Stolen Logos

Example Team: Guildford Flames

Oh wow, that logo doesn’t look familiar at all now, does it? The other option for teams that won’t hire a professional designer to make a good looking logo for them is to instead “borrow” one already being used by a North American team (not limited to Hockey), much like how this Guildford Flames logo is evidently a rip-off of the Calgary Flames. It’s as if these teams either don’t know any better or they think that nobody will notice or care. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at least the teams that use generic clipart are actually trying to come up with an identity for themselves!

Other Examples: Romford Raiders, Streatham Redskins, Basingstoke Bison, Bracknell Bees, Manchester Phoenix, Grimsby Redwings… yeah, that’s a lot. And I haven’t even named every team that does this!

1: A Sponsor in the Team Name

Example team: Wightlink Raiders

Never mind using crappy Clipart or stolen logos: this is about as low as it can possibly get for British teams. Most, if not all UK teams are funded primarily by sponsors, and as if the adverts all over the jerseys weren’t enough, some teams actually make the name of their biggest sponsor part of their team name, with the Isle of Wight based Wightlink Raiders being an example of this (the sponsor is a ferry company that pays for the team to travel across to the mainland, go figure).

Other Examples: Not many, although some of the top level Elite League teams are doing it: the “LBM” Belfast Giants, “GMB” Nottingham Panthers, and “MobileX” Newcastle Vipers.

And that’s pretty much a summary of all British Hockey logos there. Maybe some time in future I’ll take a look at teams from other countries in Europe, as there are some pretty bad logos there too.

I’m Wildwing64, and I declare War On Logos.

Much like I did with War On Logos #10, this time I’ll be talking about another team, based in the UK, that I (or in this case, we) root for with an identity that I find very displeasing (the very fact that this is a UK based team I’m going to be talking about may already be a bad sign). This team also happens to be a long-time rival of another team we covered back in WOL #4, so any fans of that team who have stumbled upon this site might just be pleased to see this.

And before I get started, I’ll introduce this team to those not familiar with them: the Chelmsford Chieftains. Now unlike North America, Great Britain, or for that matter the city of Chelmsford is not exactly home to any Native Americans, so Chieftains is completely irrelevant as a name (although I’m safely assuming they really picked it just for the generic alliteration)… oh, but wait! Apparently the team are named that because back when they were founded in 1987 and still looking for an identity, the players started giving the nickname of “Chief” to their player-coach, and so the name stuck… yeah, kinda lame. And serving as further proof that UK sports team owners suck at naming their teams.

This team could probably be compared to the Vancouver Canucks in that they’ve gone through several different logos and colour combinations over their 23 year existence – the jerseys have changed too, but like many UK teams they change the jersey designs every year anyway, taking another page from football (soccer) so as to further ruin hockey.

Currently the Chieftains seem to have settled on this design, with a Boston Bruins-esque black and gold (orange?) colour scheme:

At first glance, this looks like one of the better logos belonging to a lower level UK team, but that really isn’t saying much. I can’t be completely certain, but something about this logo just screams “generic clipart”, that’s been provided to the team by their jersey manufacturer. And why do I think this? First of all, it’s been recoloured three times in the past five years (from red and black, to burgundy and silver, and finally to black and gold/orange), an even lower level team that plays at Chelmsford, the Warriors, who used the exact same logo even before their affiliation with the Chieftains, and finally, the team’s youth development program again uses the same logo, but with a red and blue colour scheme.

The second giveaway of this possibly being a clipart-type logo is the use of one of the most generic fonts ever, Impact, for the wordmark (We’ve been through this already…). Their junior team, the Warriors, also use the exact same font in the exact same position for their otherwise identical logo. In one this logo’s previous colour schemes, the wordmark had a tacky gradient going through it, which I’m glad to see gone.

Ah yes, gradients. Another favourite element of bad logo design. It’s great that they got rid of the aforementioned one in the wordmark, but why not remove it from all of the other objects that have them too? It’s tacky, and no matter how “awesome” you think it looks, it just doesn’t work, not even for shading. And this is why professional sports teams always go with solid colours for their logos, including any shading that’s needed.

And finally, the designer at some point seems to have gotten lazy. It’s not noticeable when you first look at it, but there’s been a lot of copying and pasting going on with this logo: the feathers are all exactly the same – not that consistency is a bad thing, but it really does feel lazy. They also use the same zig-zaggy line featured underneath the wordmark to act as the middle bit of the feather… but why is that zig-zag there in the first place? I have no idea…

OK, you know what: I’m going to be doing something very different for the next edition of War On Logos. As these teams from Romford and Chelmsford have shown, British hockey teams hardly ever get it right when it comes to their identities, so Instead of ranting about why a logo sucks for a change, I’ll be doing a list of the Top Five things that are wrong with British hockey logos.

Until the next time, I’m Wildwing64, and I declare War On Logos.

Its not very often that I will be looking through the internet and then suddenly see something so stupid, and terrible that I immediatly stop what I was originally doing, and the start writing a completely different article – however, this is an exception.

Understandably, sponsorship for minor teams is very important. It adds additional revenue that small teams need, as they are unable to generate massive amounts of cash from TV broadcasts. Sponsorship usually appears in the form of adverts around the rink, perhaps a small patch on the players jersey or pants, and often the name of the arena.
No problem with this, its there, but not blazingly in my face.

Sponsorship usually comes from a respectable enterprise also, such as a car manufacturer, a major airline or even a bottled water brand. However, the team that I found was not just sponsored, but owned by the same people who own the sponsor.

Ladies and Gentlemen. I proudly welcome to the ice:
The Danbury Trashers.

Sponsored by, and family owned by the AWD Disposal company, the team were named, and their logo was based on their sponsorship.
Usually, hockey teams have a vicious animal, a historical influence, even a geographical reason behind their name, however this team chose to be the laughing stock of a league and went for a domestic waste product. Seriously, what were they thinking? No one likes garbage, and it gives everyone so much amunition if the team plays badly – bringing a whole new meaning to the term “Trash Talk”.

They were established as a UHL expansion team for the 2004-2005 season, and the team themselves played pretty well for their first season, and they even claimed division titles, but alas, their time was short lived with them suspending operation within the UHL before the 2007-2008 season.

The teams final years were plagued with controversy, with 29 people behind the team earning a trip to the “Sin Bin” for various fraud charges. These charges of fraud involved phoney salaray cap figures and even wire tapping.

The teams logo features a bin, an inanimate object, playing hockey. The lid is slightly ajar and a set of eyes are poking out. This asks me questions on what exactly is inside the bin. My personal opinion is that its actually Oscar the Grouch from Sesame street.
What the design team have managed to do is to make the bin look menacing, although in my opinion it looks as it the bin is using an axe and is about to chop the puck in half, rather than shoot the puck across the ice.

This is definatly in my opinion one of the worst concepts ever conceived – whilst we usually choose a logo that has ripped something off, is badly drawn – what we have here is a proffesionally created logo, that is of possibly one of the worst ideas ever. Can you imagine the design teams faces when this logo was ordered?

“Hello xxx design agency, how can we help”
“We need a logo for a hockey team”
“Sure, whats the theme”
“Garbage”
“Excuse me sir?”
“The teams sponsored by a waste disposal firm, and we want the logo to be a giant bin”
“Erm, ok…”
Long Silence
“We have a dump load of illegitimately earned money for you”
“Ok, we will get you something in a week”

The phone call would have been followed by a large amount of laughter, followed by a team of designers struggling to find a way of making a logo.

Additionally, the team had a word mark, and a shorthand logo – Both of which aren’t as bad as they don’t show the bin – Although it is in my opinion that the short hand logo looks much like the sort of logo you might see at a Fast Food chain.

Worse still was the teams special NASCAR game jersey, which involves a horrible combination of racing checkers and the colours black, white and blue. I understand the reasoning behind the checkers, but theres no reason for a jersey to make anyone feel physically sick on seeing it.

I finish off by reporting that apparently, there was an opening for a mascot named “scrappy”. This position was advertised by the looks of it in 2005, whether it was implemented or not I cannot say – theres no images on google or other websites of it, so I will guess the mascot looks a little like the one that the state of Georgia use to advertise against dropping litter.

Im KevKev, and this was a rubbish War on Logos.