The Las Vegas To-Be-Determineds are dead. Long live the Vegas Golden Knights.
After several months of waiting, followed by an additional several weeks of waiting for reasons nobody was quite clear on, and then a few more minutes of waiting while they tried to figure out how to get their video to play, the NHL’s newest expansion team finally has an identity. They’re the Golden Knights, as unveiled Tuesday night at what the league hyped as “historic event”.
Of course, we kind of already knew that; the name had been rumored for a while now, thanks to the team filing for trademarks on various Knight-related monikers back in the summer. But still, making it official counts for something, and the team also used yesterday’s event as an opportunity to unveil their logo and team colors.
So how’d they do? Well, the event itself was a disaster, one that featured two failed attempts to play the announcement video. For an agonizing few minutes, it looked like the team had gone with the “Placeholders”.
They eventually got the video working, although not before an extended stalling job by a clearly seething Gary Bettman. Oh, and while everyone was waiting the team web site went live and spoiled the surprise. Other than that, it was smooth sailing.
But that should all be forgotten eventually. What about the name and logo itself? Well, this being the NHL, we have a long history of new teams to look back on. Many of those franchises ended up being laughable failures, and while you can’t necessarily blame that on a name or a logo, every little bit helps. So let’s look back at some of the lessons learned from those teams that came before, and figure out whether the Las Vegas brains trust managed to get their first major decisions right.
Sportsnet (@Sportsnet)
Here's the official logo of the Vegas @GoldenKnights. pic.twitter.com/Bpo8UtN4iv
November 23, 2016
The name
What’s in a name? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? No, it wouldn’t, because sports teams with dumb names are embarrassing. The hockey world has had its share of examples, although to our credit we’ve never hit rock bottom and named a team the Pelicans like some other sports we could mention. Still, this is the big one, and you want to make sure you get it right.
The idea name will carry a taste of local flavor, without getting too cute. You want something creative, but not silly. Originality is good, but you can carried away with fancy spellings or singular names that will be confusing to write about.
And most importantly of all, you can’t just take the most popular team in the league and try to steal their name. Las Vegas almost made that mistake; reports from August had them leaning towards going with something based on the word “Hawks”. Thankfully, hockey fans laughed at the transparent attempt to hone in on Chicago’s territory and the idea was dropped. Instead, we got the Golden Knights.
When it was done right: In general, NHL team names have been getting better with age. They were all over the map in the early days of expansion, largely because they were left to the whims of owners or fan surveys. These days, much more thought goes into the naming process, and we end up with names ranging from the solid (“Lightning”) to the vaguely cool (“Predators”) to the lame-until-someone-explains-it-to-you (“Thrashers”). Personally, I’ve always like Blue Jackets, although I realize I may be in a minority there.
When it was done wrong: Sometimes, teams can get too clever, like when Pittsburgh went with “Penguins” even though there aren’t any nearby. Other times, they’re not clever enough, like when Winnipeg’s WHA entry went with “Jets” even though there was already an NFL team called that (and also, Winnipeg didn’t have airports, paved roads or running water until 2013). Both of those names are cool now, but it took some time.
But nothing has ever been worse than when the new Anaheim franchise named itself after a terrible Disney movie, christening themselves The Mighty Ducks in 1993. Everyone over the age of six hated it, and the team dropped the “Mighty” in 2006.
How’d Vegas do?: We’ll give them a “not bad” here.
Golden Knights is a reasonably cool name. Most fans will just call them the Knights, which has long been the go-to choice for kids who needed a fake name for a team in a computer sports game that wasn’t already being used somewhere. And “Vegas Knights” is kind of a pun, I guess. Sure, something about gambling would have been better, but the NHL apparently said that was a no-go, so here we are.
Owner Bill Foley went further in the press release, babbling on about how “We selected ‘Knights’ because knights are the defenders of the realm and protect those who cannot defend themselves. They are the elite warrior class.” That’s nonsense, the sort of thing that a marketing department with too much time on its hands comes up with and slips into a press release when nobody’s looking. But Foley clearly never actually said that, nor did any other actual human being, so we won’t hold it against him.
One interesting note: The official name drops the “Las” from “Las Vegas”, which is kind of weird. You just know they’re going to get all cranky whenever anyone calls them the Las Vegas Golden Knights. So let’s all agree to do that as often as possible.
The colors
The Las Vegas Golden Knight didn’t show us their uniforms – got to save something for the next unveiling, after all – but we did find out what their official colors would be. According to the official press release, they’re steel grey, gold, red and black. We even got a guide to what each color represents.
When it was done right: If you were a hockey fan in 1992, you either loved the San Jose Sharks’ teal or you thought it was a slap in the face to hockey’s blood-and-guts history. At the time, I was firmly in the latter group. I was 100% wrong. The teal is fantastic, and remains to this day.
When it was done wrong: Notice how when it came to the Sharks, I mention teal. That’s it. One color. Obviously, the Sharks weren’t entirely monochrome – their expansion uniforms also featured black, white and silver. But the key is to find one color, maybe two, and focus on that.
Or you could take the Phoenix Coyotes’ approach. They weren’t an expansion team, but when the Winnipeg Jets moved down south they were given a total makeover. And the new uniforms were among the most complicated the league had ever seen. They were burgundy, and also green, and also kind of beige, and purple and black and white and probably a few more I’m forgetting. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the team went all pretentious – the colors were forest green, and brick red, and sand beige, and… you get the picture.
It all came together in ridiculous Aztec-themed look that nobody liked, topped off with an awful logo that looked like a coyotes had been run over by an 18-wheeler. They smartened up in 2003, switching to a much nicer red-and-white look.
How’d Vegas do?: Four colors is too many, especially since they’re not counting the white that they’ll wear on the road. But it seems like the main color scheme here will be black and gold.
That’s a solid choice, although not exactly one that wins any points for originality. The NHL already has two teams, the Bruins and Penguins, who wear black and gold, and they fought all the way to the league president about it. No word on how they feel about the Knights blatantly ripping them off choosing something similar.
In the end, this feels a little too familiar. But we’ll withhold a final grade until we see the uniforms.
The logo
In the past, I’ve proposed something I call the Pencil Case Test for judging hockey logos. Put simply, a good logo is one that a little kid can draw on this pencil case. (Do kids still have pencil cases? Are they allowed to draw on their iPad protectors? I feel like I may have just shown my age here.)
Anyway, virtually every classic NHL logo passes the Pencil Case Test. A little Habs fan can put an H inside a C. A young Bruins fan can do a B with spikes coming out of it. Thing get a little tricky if you’re growing up as a fan of the Leafs or Red Wings, but you’ll learn. Heck, the first time you get it right is big milestone in the development of any young hockey fan.
But these days, somebody decided that logos have to be ridiculously complicated. You can understand why some design consultant getting millions of dollars to deliver a concept is going to make it as complex as possible, but that doesn’t make it right. Teams like the Coyotes, Predators and Panthers have way too much going on. That’s cool if you’re the Blackhawks, because their logo kicks ass. For everyone else, they fail the Pencil Case Test.
When it was done right: Logos are basically the opposite of team names: they were way better in the old days. Back when the NHL made its first leap into expansion in the late 60s and throughout most of the 70s, the hit-to-miss ratio was strong. Sure, some teams got a little too fancy – looking in your direction, Los Angeles – but for the most part teams kept it simple and it worked.
The teams may not have been good, but the Colorado Rockies had a solid logo. So did the Atlanta Flames. And my personal favorite: the Minnesota North Stars. That’s a thing of beauty. Not too complicated, but with more than enough going on. They debuted it in 1967 and kept basically the same look until 1991, during which time it appeared on thousands of Minnesota pencil cases.
When it was done wrong: The North Stars moved to Dallas in 1993, leaving Minnesota without an NHL team until the expansion Wild arrived in 2000. And when that new team arrived, it was with this logo.
See, it’s supposed to be local scenery, with pine trees and clouds and a big moon. But it’s also the head of a bear. The star is an eye and the river is the mouth, and if you forget which team it’s supposed to be it’s written in slightly crooked type across the top.
This is what’s known in the logo business as “overthinking it”.
How’d Vegas do?: It’s fair to say that the new logo is getting mixed reviews. It’s been compared to movie villains, Pokemon, and (by far worst of all) this guy. Hockey fans don’t really seem to like it. But hockey fans don’t like anything, so let’s dig a little deeper.
Does it pass the Pencil Case Test? I’d say it does. It gets a little carried away with the 3D effects, but overall it’s straightforward. It’s even a little bit clever – note how the space in the helmet makes a “V” – without hitting you over the head with it.
And most of all, let’s give the new franchise credit for not following in the footsteps of 90% of the sports logos created in the last decade and just having an anthropomorphized mascot holding sports equipment. You know there are a half dozen mockups laying around of somebody that looks like Monty Python’s Black Knight grimacing while holding a hockey stick the wrong way.
Instead, we got a helmet. It’s not the best logo in the league, but it will do.
So welcome aboard, Vegas. You may not know how to press play on a video, but your fans knew enough to boo Gary Bettman, so they’ve already passed their first test. After all the waiting, it finally feels like you’re a real team.
(Just don’t screw up those uniforms too badly, ok?)
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