Hershey Bears

11

Here we go again. Another team sticking a bear into its logo for no good reason. I am getting so sick and tired of looking at stupid bears every time I have to do one of these damn things. When are these logo designers going to get their heads out of--

What? The name of the team? What about-- oh. Um, yeah. Okay. Never mind.

If you know your minor league hockey history, you know that the Hershey Bears have gone longer than any other minor league hockey team (and longer than all but six of the NHL teams, for that matter) without relocating, changing leagues, or changing their team name. In 2008, they will celebrate their 70th anniversary as the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League. When you consider the fact that the average age of a team in minor league hockey today is about five years, that's a hell of an accomplishment. Consider this: Not only are the Bears older than every other team in minor league hockey, they're also older than every other league in minor league hockey. Even the name of their own circuit hasn't been around as long as the Hershey Bears name (the American Hockey League was called the "International-American Hockey League" until 1940, two years after the Bears joined). Over the years the AHL has transformed from a league without affiliations and concentrated in small-to-medium Northeastern markets into a league where teams are required to have an affiliation and and which covers major cities as far away as Houston and Manitoba. In the process the league has seen over 60 teams fail. The Bears have outlived all sixty of them. So regardless of what I might have to say about the name and logo, I have nothing but profound respect for the team itself.

Now, about the name. It's a great name...now. "Bears" is one of those classic, how-can-you-argue-with-a-name-like-this names. And normally I wouldn't argue with it. But there's one small problem: The team is named after a piece of candy. Seriously. The team was first created back in 1932 and competed in the Tri-State Hockey League (a very early ancestor of today's ECHL). Back then, the team's name was the Hershey B'ars, an obvious attempt to split the difference between a decent name and a product of the Hershey Chocolate Company. And if that isn't explicit enough, for the 1933-34 season the team was known as the Hershey Chocolate Bars -- a name that would probably win the title of "Silliest Team Name Ever" had the Renfrew Creamy Kings not beaten them to it. The Hershey Bears website claims the "Bears" name came from them "being referred to as 'the Bears from Penn's Woods' when the team played at Madison Square Garden", but come on. The same page that tries to feed us that line admits the name was originally the B'ars. And why would the guys as MSG be calling the team the Bears? Just admit it, guys: Your team is named after a candy bar, and after some people complained about the commercialization factor, you altered it slightly. You altered it into one of the classic names for a sports team, but that doesn't change its origin.

As for the logo, it's one of the better renderings of a bear I've seen. For starters, it looks like a bear, not a man in a bear suit. The silver eyes, claws, and puck are an unfortunate side effect of their decision to use brown and silver as their team colors. I understand why they did this, given their home town -- as you can see to the left, the street signs are even brown and silver, and the street lamps look like mutant Hershey's kisses. I'm guessing there's a city ordinance requiring brown and silver to be visible at all times within city limits. Still, the result is that it looks like someone jammed kisses onto the ends of his paws and into his eyes. Nevertheless, it's a good logo.

Since we're talking about Hershey in general at this point anyway, I'd like to ask one thing: Can you get good chocolate in Hershey, Pennsylvania? Because lord knows that Hershey's chocolate isn't very good. You may disagree and think I'm being a chocolate snob. I freely admit that I am one. But that doesn't change the fact that as far as I can tell, Hershey bars are sugar bars with brown food coloring. I'd had glasses of chocolate milk that were more chocolatey than Hershey's bars. Want good chocolate? Head to your local superpretentious grocery store and look for Dolfin, El Rey, or Chocovic. They're expensive but they're worth it. Somehow, I could see stuff like this being a little hard to find in Hershey. Hell, they're hard to find in Raleigh. In any case, it doesn't really matter (I'm not going to be in Pennsylvania any time soon), but if you know whether you can get any of these brands in Hershey -- or even a decent Lindt or Ghirardelli -- I'd be curious to know.

Hmm. that reminds me: I have a bar of El Rey Apamate (their darkest bar...73.5% cocoa) sitting on my counter that I haven't opened yet. This suddenly strikes me as an intolerable situation that must be rectified. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll wrap this up real quick and go do something about that.

Final Score: 11 points.
Penalties: Wordplay, 7 pts; Name-logo, 2 pts; Equip-logo, 5 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts