Florida Everblades

40

This is truly going to be a challenge to my scoring. There are so many penalties that kinda sorta apply that I hardly know what to do with them all.

First, there's the "Irrelevancy" penalty. Is an alligator relevant to the name? Obviously they're relevant to the Everglades, but the team's name is Everblades, not Everglades. Do I count that? Does the fact that the alligator is in the shape of a hockey skate help matters any?

What about equipment in the logo? There's obviously a skate in the logo except for one minor detail, which is that there isn't actually a skate in the logo. How do I score that?

Does the fact that the team colors were deliberately chosen to match the Hartford Whalers – the team their NHL affiliate used to be, but wasn't anymore even when the team debuted in 1998 – mean they earn the "Offspring" penalty?

I think I'm going to give them a bunch of half-penalties and save myself a lot of thought. Hell, maybe I'll just give them half-penalties for every single penalty out there and see what happens. The scary thing is I honestly believe they wouldn't have the highest score.

There are undoubtedly some goofy aspects to this logo – most notably the shoelaces on the alligator's nose – but all in all I like this logo. Green and blue is a neat color scheme. The alligator looks pretty sinister (the ghostly white eyes help on this front), And I like the font the name is written in. The only thing I don't like is that I keep thinking of alligator-skin boots. How could I not?

The name, on the other hand, doesn't thrill me nearly so much. Wordplay needs to be audacious on the level of "Macon Whoopee" or else it just sounds silly. "Everblades" is not audacious enough.

And how many freaking teams did the ECHL have in Florida when this team showed up? Four, that's how many. Most of them are gone now, but at the time there were the Pensacola Ice Pilots, Tallahassee Tiger Sharks, Jacksonville Lizard Kings, and Miami Matadors. And this team decided to call itself "Florida". Wow, how's that for chutzpah? Forunately for them the rules only allow me to give them points for teams still in the league, or else the points just for the "Regional" penalty would be 115 points.

NOTE: I checked, and I was right: They wouldn't have the highest score if I just gave them half penalties for everything. They'd have 95 points that way.

Final Score: 40 points.
Penalties: Region (triply-egregious), 10 pts, Equip-Name, 4 pts; Compound, 13 pts; Wordplay, 7 pts; Irrelevancy (half penalty), 7 pts; Equip-Logo (half penalty), 3 pts; Offspring (half penalty), 3 pts.
Bonuses: Cool-Name, -5 pts; Local (half bonus), -2 pts.