$65,429,140 in salary / $50,048,333 committed next season / 18-15-5, 10th place

$67,066,709 in salary / $58,591,190 committed next season / 17-17-4, 11th place

$64,312,657 in salary / $47,402,143 committed next season / 14-18-7, 13th place

$51,009,847 in salary / $35,835,833 committed next season / 20-15-5, 6th place

We spend a lot of time here at Welcome To Your Karlsson Years thinking about hockey logos. Maybe it’s because Ottawa has had mostly terrible logos for years. (Gold sparkles, the Senagoth, SNES, three-dimensional HE’S LOOKING RIGHT AT ME! Senator) backed up by even worse jersey design (the swoop, the flying squirrel flaps). What’s surprising is that the NHL has its share of stinkers out there. It gets even more embarrassing when compared to other relatively low budget leagues. Despite having all of this money for designers, the NHL absolutely gets its ass kicked by the ECHL, whose aesthetic game is unsurpassed.

As far as we can tell, hockey logos have three tiers:

1) Heritage: reserved for very old teams, like the Habs or Red Wings or Oilers or Maple Leafs, whose brand is so richly respected that it doesn’t matter if the terminology, concept, execution, or grammar don’t make a lick of sense. This kind of pedigree can’t be attained by any means other than time and patience. Teams may emulate (see Sens’ current attempts) but it’s a long road to hoe, and it has little to do with design and much, much more to do with trying to get your father to like you.

2) Safe middle ground: the majority of logos in the NHL, comprised of at least one and no more than three of the following elements: A) forces of nature, B) Animals, which are either B1) ferocious, or B2) playing hockey, C) a tough looking man, usually in a tough profession or belonging to a class of ancient warrier, D) a weapon, or E) something simply denoting that the team is the best (see: Kings. No team would ever be The Mid-Level Dukes. It’s only a matter of time before we get a Kansas City Number Ones.)

3) NHL 2.0 High Concept: Hopefully dead. Either is an adjective turned into a noun (Wild), or is a logo that doesn’t resemble anything at all (Buffaslug, Thrashers, Todd McFarlane’s Oilers logo). Is simply a byproduct of trying to distinguish oneself, or maybe hockey ownership in non-traditional markets not having any idea what resonates in a league where everyone is trying to reach that traditional tier, or maybe even the league attempting to set off league-wide aesthetic overhaul to make money on jersey sales.

All things considered, the ECHL has the perfect balance of the totally absurd and thus totally awesome (Orlando Solar Bears, Florida Everblades, Toledo Walleye), or actual, beautifully designed logos that display creativity and solid execution.

In this recurring feature, I’ll pick three ECHL logos and let’s all vote on the best. I’ll run this feature mostly when we don’t have anything else to write about.

Colorado Eagles

Chicago Express

Las Vegas Wranglers

Join us for this year long series...

Have you read TSN’s latest bon mots? It’s all the rage in the salons. You’ve done it again TSN. Only this time in reference to our wily step-cousins to the south! Clever girl! Its moments like this that remind me why I dropped out of that Mongolian Chiropody school and started devoting all my time to this blog.

UPDATE: 12:01pm The Ottawa Senators enjoy CAPITAL GAIN by inking forward and amazing namer haver Bobby Butler (pronounced Butlah) to a two year deal. Details to follow on other more detail oriented websites…
http://senators.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=569316

Digging DEEP!

The Staff at TSN has taken time out of their busy schedule of writing about what Brian Burke dreamt about once to come up with this ABSOLUTE ZINGER of a headline for a record 25, 000^th time! CONGRATS ALL OF US! I never thought I would injure my hands from golf clapping but seriously…feels like I have a sunburn as I type this. YOWCH! Oh…just getting a telecopy here from a reader…sorry a little hard to read as it looks like it was written with expired chipotle mayo… I think it says, “Me No Understanding”  Well, gentle reader I’ll explain: By signing this player m’kay, the KAPITAL city (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, North America, Earth)’s professional hockey organization has GAINED…m’kay, m’kay follow me?…an asset.

Look, as a person who doesn’t understand the pressures of pandering toToronto fans writing DAILY about –Toronto and occasionally the other Canadian teams NHL hockey in the summer for a ravenous, ravenous  readership, I accept I look a bit like a jerk here. I know it’s a bit unfair to pick at the overuse of a terrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible pun but good gravy I have seen this old grey mare trotted out for virtually every signing the Senators or Washington Capitals have made since the twitternet was invented 2 years ago. Anyway, is it JULY or is it JULY!? Great post, me! Sound off in the comment section about what pun YOU would have used to celebrate the signing of who is it again…let me just cheeeeeeeck tsn.ca/nhl like a jerrrrk …right! What pun would YOU have used to zellerbrate the signing of Mark Parrish to his two way contract? I suppose I will contribute, PARRISH THE THOUGHT OF SIGNING MARK PARRISH OTHER NHL TEAMS! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! (I’m including the “Boom” part in my headline)  

By the way, for all my biting the hand that feeds moaning about the disproportionate amount of stories written about Toronto compared to all of the other Canadian teams put together, I must give credit where credit’s due giving the lead story to the a two way Senators signing that even a bored fan like me doesn’t give a crap about!