LGAHL Logo Rankings (Part 1) “Look good, feel good, play good.” It’s an accepted truth in sports, and there’s a lot of good looking fellas out here in the A. S43 just got underway, and due to the lack of media output, I decided a ranking of my own wouldn’t hurt. Now I know this isn't the (power) ranking people were hoping for, but I don’t know nearly enough about LG to make a power ranking or something that is actually relevant to the league. In which case I’ll work with what I’m capable of doing, which is a ranking of logos. A few more notes before I begin: 1. This ranking will be split into 2 separate posts. Part 1: Logos 32-16, Tiers F, D, C, B Part 2: Logos 15-1, Tiers A, S 2. This ranking will be based on the following criteria: Logo design Use of colours Intimidation factor How the logo would look on a jersey. This consists of: Shape Symmetry Simplicity And a bit of value given to incorporation of “hockey” in the logo Other factors like logo/team history, personal bias, hidden messages, and whether or not the logo looks like it was copied off its NHL logo will all hold little to no value in these rankings, since they don’t really add or take away anything from the actual logo itself. I've put a lot of thought into this ranking and my goal is to make it as objective as possible, while also explaining every ranking in detail. 3. LG is currently using the wrong logo for the following 7 teams in the AHL. Alternate logo: Charlotte Checkers, Milwaukee Admirals Unofficial logo with the text omitted: Cleveland Monsters, Colorado Eagles, Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Springfield Thunderbirds Outdated logo: Hartford Wolf Pack (the new one has a darker shade of blue) To avoid confusion I’ll be sticking with the LGAHL logos instead of the official AHL logos, since after all, this is an LG ranking. The logos I’ll actually be ranking can be found in the “Roster” or “Standings” pages. Ok can we start yet With that all finally out of the way, I'd like to remind you that this is a very long read, so grab some chips or somethin cause this one might take a while. We’ve got 32 teams, 32 logos, and 32 different reasons for you to disagree with this 2-part list, and I can't wait to hear it. Hope you enjoy. ---------------------- F Tier ---------------------- 32. Laval Rocket An extremely boring letter logo to kick off this list. You’ll notice a bit of a trend here over the next few rankings. Letter logos are almost never any good and Laval’s here is no different. It’s an ugly stretched out letter “R” that… I think has a rocket inside of it? Okay great job, you named your team after the legendary Maurice (Rocket) Richard. At least honour him with a half decent logo. Instead of making the letter "R," the logo for a team whose team name is "ROCKET," maybe they could have designed something that includes… gee i don’t know… anyone got any ideas? 31. Providence Bruins This logo sucks. Plain and simple. A general rule of thumb for hockey logos is that if it can be recreated by a toddler, it’s probably not a very good logo. Here you have a 2-dimensional P in a plain font, in front of a boring 2-dimensional wheel. All it is is a massive downgrade from the Bruins logo; a logo which I personally love. This one just hurts my eyes to look at. At least the Bruins have some symmetry here though and have more than just a letter, which puts it above the Rocket. 30. Bridgeport Islanders I’ll never understand why a team would change their logo from a roaring tiger to an ugly letter B. The colours are just plain ugly. I will never understand why people force themselves to like the combination of Royal Blue and Orange. Now Navy blue and Orange is a different story (see Bakersfield Condors), but this logo's colours suck. This logo has pretty much the same concept as Providence’s logo, but there’s a little more going on here so I put it one spot higher. It’s also got a hockey stick in it so… bonus points? 29. Belleville Senators Lots of creativity here. A letter B over some red and black stripes. Wonder how long it took to come up with this one. Well I did some digging and here’s what I found. The Bellevillle Senators were purchased by the Ottawa Senators franchise on September 26th, 2016. The team began play the following year in 2017-18. For one year the team had no logo, and a temporary logo was used while the brilliant designers worked on what is now the Belleville Senators’ logo. After one full year, this is what they came up with. “Our goal was to create a symbol that is transcendent,” said Rob Mullowney, chief operating officer of the Belleville Senators. Well I have news for you Rob: this logo stinks. At least it has nice colours though and it doesn’t hurt my eyes to look at like the last 3, so that’s always a plus. 28. Tucson Roadrunners And here begins the second biggest dilemma I’ve had while making these rankings: Boring vs. too cartoony. Which of the two shits is bigger? This will be the subject of this post's vote, so let me know what you guys think. Anyways, the fact that this childish cartoon character is a logo for a professional sports team makes me cringe. I would feel almost embarrassed to skate onto the rink with this little guy on my chest. But is it worse than a letter logo? It’s definitely got a better design, though still not a great one. The Roadrunner is also an icon that fans and players can somewhat relate to and cheer for, something that simple letters lack. But this looks more like a logo that would be used for a peewee hockey team, not for the AHL. Normally I would rank a character-based logo far far above any letter logo, but this one is so bad I decided to rank it down here. Still above the boring letter logos and below the somewhat interesting one. 27. Calgary Wranglers A little bit better than the other letter logos, as the flame here gives it some more life. The overall design though is still pretty lame. The W is too plain and too fat, and I don’t like that it’s italicized. The Calgary Flames are one of very few teams I’ve ever seen successfully pull off a letter logo, but their affiliate just couldn’t do it. Definitely still an upgrade from whatever the hell the Stockton Heat logo was. ---------------------- D Tier ---------------------- 26. Texas Stars This logo is a lot worse than a lot of people think it is. To me this is just Texas with a star for the X, with the only colour on the being in the outline. I really don’t see anything else here. My biggest issue with this logo is that it’s elongated. As I mentioned in the intro, shape is an important part of how a logo looks on a jersey. The length to width ratio here is just not a good fit for a logo. I would choose Dallas’s logo over this one even though it’s just a letter, just because the overall shape is better and more suited to be a logo. That being said, this logo does have an okay design and since it’s got more to it than the basic letters, it’s well above the F tier logos. 25. Iowa Wild I’m usually not a fan of logos that are literally just the team name, but the Wild use a nice font to make a logo that somehow manages to be attractive to the eye. I went back and forth between the Wild and the Stars’ logos, but I think the Wild’s font plus the fact that the logo can take up a proper amount of space on the jersey is what put it ahead for me. 24. Ontario Reign It will forever annoy me that this organization refuses to use their crown as the primary logo. The Kings’ crown logo was so much better than the shit they have now. Why do hockey organizations keep ruining logos with words? Anyways, the dashing “REIGN” is pretty cool but other than that this logo is pretty mid. The lack of colour doesn’t help either. The emblem in the back I guess makes the logo more than just text, which puts it above the last two. ---------------------- C Tier ---------------------- 23. Rochester Americans I actually really like this logo. It’s well designed and has pretty nice colours, and the slanted crest is a nice unique touch that just works. The “americans” text helps complete the logo, even if it is similar to a baseball text. What keeps this logo so low is the absence of some sort of character. It’s hard to rank this much higher when the main part of this logo is just a shield. Pretty much the same idea applies for a couple others in the C tier. Overall there’s a big enough gap between the Americans and the Reign logos for this one to be a tier higher. 22. Milwaukee Admirals I’m a little torn on this logo. First of all it’s a shame that LG uses this Admirals logo instead of their main one, (which will be mentioned later on). It feels almost wrong for me to include this one in my rankings instead of the better one, but to stay consistent we’re going with this. This logo isn’t particularly bad, but the skull here is just such a big downgrade from the badass skull on the primary Admirals logo. There’s not enough detail on this skull to make it good, and the dude looks like he hasn’t slept in 4 days. That and the use of baby blue in the logo just completely ruined the intimidation factor here, which is disappointing for a team whose logo is a skull. Still more creative than the Americans’ logo though which is enough to put it one spot higher. 21. Utica Comets I like the incorporation of the puck as a shooting star. Not at all a fan of the boring font used for Utica and Comets, but at least it’s not too overpowering. Overall it’s a solid logo and it comes together very nicely. The logo finds a nice balance between boring and busy, and the colours are great as well — hard to go wrong with black red and white. Again, the absence of a character is why it’s not any higher than this. 20. Rockford IceHogs Like the Islanders, the Icehogs are a team who changed their logo for the worse. The old logo with the stick in the mouth looked quite a bit better than this one. Still though, both IceHogs logos suffer from being too cartoony, and the old logo would probably only be in the B tier on this list. This one here isn’t terrible, and the design of the hog is still nicely done. I like that he’s mean and angry, unlike whatever emotion the Admirals’ skull is producing. The circle on the outside is alright though kind of unnecessary, as it kills the colours for half the logo. Overall it’s an okay logo and the design of the hog plus the inclusion of a character is enough to put it above the Comets for me. 19. Toronto Marlies There’s something about the symmetry on the Leaf logos that make them satisfying to look at. I do think that the crown is a little busy, and the blue, yellow, red, and green are a lot of very colourful colours. But for some reason these colours work very well together. Normally I would be completely against the use of all these very different colours, but I think that because this logo is just a Leaf and Crown, it’s still acceptable. What I’m really against is using too many colours on character logos, particularly those that include an animal who is trying to be intimidating. The number one thing that can kill the intimidation of a logo is too many colours, or just an overall bad colour palette. You’ll see exactly what I mean in the next ranking. Back to the Marlies though, it’s a little hard to explain what makes this logo so good, but the only thing I can think of is the symmetry and the colours. Those are my reasons for putting it this high. Again, the absence of a character is the only reason it’s capped at C tier. ---------------------- B Tier ---------------------- 18. Colorado Eagles First off, this logo is far better than the official one with the awful text, which would have dropped it down to the C tier. I’m still not a really big fan of this logo though. The design of the Eagle is far too simple, and while simple can often be good, this Eagle just doesn’t have enough going on for it to be good. I do like that the Eagle’s expression is stern and somewhat intimidating unlike the Admirals’ logo, but like the Admirals’ logo, the lack of detail and shading is part of what keeps it so low. Also as previously mentioned, the use of all 3 primary colours is too much, and ruins the colour palette in my opinion. It’s a decent logo but they could’ve done so much more. Despite that, the logo is still an Eagle, and I’d much rather have that than a leaf or an angry cartoon pig, putting it a tier above those two. 17. Syracuse Crunch I can’t decide if this is a good or a bad logo. The detail is great, and the font used for the “CRUNCH” is one of the best logo fonts I've ever seen. But the positives pretty much end there. This character they used looks like he could be found on the back of a cereal box (crunch?). Also the way they mixed colours makes this logo weirdly hard to look at. Is that a hockey stick or a golf club? What is going on with the helmet? Is that supposed to be a visor? I also don’t like that for such a detailed logo, the main colour used is just white. Despite all my criticisms, it’s still a solid logo and better than the oversimplified Eagle before it, but there are so many other good logos I’d rather have than this one. 16. San Jose Barracuda Why why why why why the huge SJ letters. I have never seen a logo that gets this much worse from letters or words alone. This logo would probably be in the S tier if it was just the Barracuda alone. He’s angry, he’s intimidating, and he’s wielding a hockey stick as a weapon. It doesn’t get much better than that. The colours used here are great, but there’s just no way to get around the massive letters overpowering the logo. The team just recently changed their previous logo, but the problem stayed the same. Get rid of the letters and then we’ll talk. For now, the excellent design of the shark is enough to put it above the cereal box hero Crunch, but the “SJ” keeps it below the rest. ---------------------- A Tier ---------------------- Coming Soon...
