Best & Worst Sports Logos - Hockey Edition

Anyone who knows me - or, let's be honest, anyone who has read this blog - knows that I love sports.  I love watching sports, playing sports and watching my kids play sports.  In fact, a Facebook friend recently asked me if I actually have a home or if I just live at various sports events.  With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to share my thoughts on what I consider to be the best and worst sports logos.  Since we are in the midst of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (LGB!), I thought I'd kick it off by sharing what I think are the best and worst logos in hockey.

Best Hockey Logo - Original Six Edition

From the 1942-43 season through the 1966-67 season, the NHL only had 6 teams: four in the U.S. (Blackhawks, Bruins, Rangers and Red Wings) and two in Canada (Canadiens and Maple Leafs).  This era is called the "Original Six," which is a bit of a misnomer since there were other teams that were in the NHL prior to 1942 and there were teams that preceded some of the so called "Original Six" into the league.  Regardless, for 25 years, the league's membership was stable with those six teams, so they are referred to as the Original Six.  Of those six teams, the best logo belongs to...

Detroit Red Wings

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong.  I hate the Red Wings and that hatred stems from the 30+ years that the Blues and Red Wings were in the same division, first the Norris Division and later the Central Division.  Still, the "winged wheel" is a great, classic logo and a terrific nod to the automotive industry that was the backbone of Detroit's economy for decades.

Worst Hockey Logo - Original Six Edition

New York Rangers

Not only is it much of a logo, it's not even anywhere on their uniforms.  It's a bunch of words and not much else. Lame.










Best Hockey Logo - Original Expansion Era

In 1967, the NHL doubled in size by adding six expansion franchises: Blues, Flyers, Kings, North Stars, Penguins and Seals.  While three of the six have/had cool logos, I think one stands above the rest:

St. Louis Blues

Am I biased?  Sure.  But I do think it's a great logo.  The team is named after the famous W.C. Handy song "The St. Louis Blues" and the logo is a stylized musical note.  It all ties together and it's a simple, clean, classic logo.  The team has tweaked it over the years, but what they have now (shown here) is close to what they had from the 1960s until the mid 1980s.




Best Hockey Logo - 2nd Expansion Era

After doubling size in 1967, the NHL added several more franchises through the 1970s, to the point that the league had tripled in size to 1968 by the end of the decade.  Of all of those new teams, one team's logo stands out as being the best.

Buffalo Sabres

I've always loved the Sabres' logo because it has the team name in it, but does so via pictures.  A buffalo and some sabres.  It's brilliant - like the hockey version of hieroglyphics.










Worst Hockey Logo - Expansion Era

Buffalo Sabres

In spite of having a spectacular logo (shown above) for years, some morons in the Buffalo front office decided to not only ditch it but change the team's colors.  They got rid of the blue and gold and did the predictable thing by making black a primary color.  Black = cool, right?  They replaced the awesome above logo with a buffalo that is apparently demonic, hence the red eyes.

Predictably, fans hated the new logo and color scheme and wanted the team to reverse course.  However, instead of doing so, some other morons in the Buffalo front office chose a different approach. 





They ditched the black and went back to the blue and gold, which was good.  However, in doing so, they also introduced one of the ugliest, most ridiculous logos in the history of North American sports.

It's supposed to be a charging buffalo (I guess), but it was derisively called things such as "Barney Rubble's hair" and, most commonly, the "buffaslug," owing to its similarities to a banana slug.

You be the judge...



Barney Rubble's hair

A banana slug

Fortunately, the doofuses in the Buffalo front office (yes, doofuses is a word) finally came to their senses and returned to a modified version of the awesome logo.  Better late than never, I suppose.


Best Hockey Logo - Defunct Team Edition

OK, technically this team isn't "defunct" per se - they just moved to a different city and changed their name.  Regardless, the logo is now longer used.

Hartford Whalers

This is one of my favorite sports logos of all time.  It's seemingly simple, but it accomplishes a lot.  It has the whale tail splashing out of the water, with the splash making an "H" for Hartford and a "W" for Whalers.  A great logo with great colors, because you don't see royal blue and kelly green together very often.

Unfortunately, the team relocated south to Raleigh, North Carolina and became the Carolina Hurricanes, who routinely play in front of thousands of empty seats.  So a city lost its team and fans everywhere we deprived of one of the world's greatest sports logos.


 
Worst Hockey Logo - Defunct Team Edition

California Golden Seals

The Seals were one of the original 1967 expansion teams.  They only existed for 9 seasons before moving to Cleveland, where they became the Barons.  In that 9 seasons, they went through 3 different names (originally California Seals then Oakland Seals then California Golden Seals) and they had this goofy logo.  To me, the "seal" looks more like a rocket or an airplane than a seal.  It also looks like something designed by a high schooler using rudimentary 1960s computer design software.


Best Hockey Logo - Secondary Logo Category

Chicago Blackhawks

I hate the Blackhawks more than any other team.  Most of that, like Detroit, is the longtime division rivalry thing.  Some of it, like Cards-Cubs in baseball, in the St. Louis-Chicago thing.  The hatred reached its peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Blackhawks featured the likes of Eddie Belfour, Jeremy Roenick, Steve Larmer and Dirk Graham. While their primary logo could be considered racist if you are opposed to Native American imagery, I've always thought this secondary logo was great.  It has the "C" for Chicago and the tomahawks for Blackhawks.  Good, simple, classic stuff.

 

Worst Hockey Logo - Secondary Logo Category

Ottawa Senators

To illustrate how dumb Ottawa's secondary logo is, I'm going to post three logos below.  One is the Senators secondary logo, one is the Oprah network logo and one is the logo for Opera software.  You have to guess which is which.

 

What was your guess?  The last one is the Ottawa secondary logo.  But you had to think about it, didn't you?  And that's my point.  It's not at all unique.  It's an O with a bi-color flag behind it.  Anyone with a basic computer program could come up with this logo, which is never a good thing.

 

Worst Hockey Logo - Miscellaneous Category

 

Columbus Blue Jackets

 



 

This logo doesn't fit neatly into any of the aforementioned categories, but I believe it belongs in a category all to itself based on, if nothing more, this absolutely ridiculous description of the logo.  This description - which I swear I am not making up - comes from the Blue Jackets website:

 

"The primary Blue Jackets logo that was selected features a star-studded red ribbon unfurled in the shape of the team’s initials, CBJ, with an electric green hockey stick cutting through the center to represent the “J.” The 13 stars represent each of the original 13 U.S. Colonies and signify patriotism. The star on top of the stick signifies Columbus as the state capital."

 

This is a perfect example of some graphic design nerd trying to put too many different symbols into one logo.  Simple is better and this logo is a muddled mess.  Never mind the fact that the initials for the team are "BJs".  C'mon....is it any wonder that won the "Name the Team" contest?

 

Fortunately, they wised up and replaced this logo a few years ago. 

 

There you have it - my take on the best and worst hockey logos.  I'll follow up soon with my take on the best and worst logos in other sports.  Until then, thanks for reading!