Knoxville Ice Bears

94

This is the second team I've done in a row where the team is named after bears. First it was the Providence Bruins, and now it's these guys.

I've long known that bears are among the most popular animals to put in a logo that shouldn't have an animal in the first place, but it's not until now that I realized how many teams actually name their teams after bears. Just in the American Hockey League alone, there are three: the Providence Bruins, Hershey Bears, and Utah Grizzlies. There's also this one, plus recently-defunct teams such as the Madison Kodiaks. I understand that bears are one of your basic sports-team-name animals, but by comparison, there's only one team in all of minor league hockey named after tigers. There is (of course) nothing wrong with naming a team after bears, but I really don't understand the fascination with them.

As far as the logo is concerned, I'm guessing that the designer was either color-blind or really desperate for a color scheme that had never been used before. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the purple, orange, grey, and black that these guys are using. Really, the grey and black don't help or hurt matters any. It's the purple and orange that makes this so awful. That has to be about the ugliest color combination imaginable using primary colors. The only ones that come close would be red and orange. And maybe green and orange. And...okay, let's just be honest here and admit that I don't like the color orange at all. Whatever. It's still ugly.

I do give them points for having a bear that's more stylized than cartoony, but it still has some problems. The head, for starters, is too small for the body. Have you ever looked at one of those body builders whose muscles are so exaggerated that it looks like his head has shrunk? Imagine that this bodybuilder forgot to shave all his body hair, and this is what the bear looks like.

The last thing I want to comment on is the eyes. The ghostly, pupil-less eye effect normally works pretty well. Not this time. I can't place what it is, but something about it just isn't clicking. It doesn't look very ghostly, and truth be told, it doesn't really even look like a bear. I think it's the round face. (Yes, I know bears do have round faces, but I still think that's the culprit here.) The face doesn't look like a bear; it looks more like a pissed-off Mickey Mouse with his ears shrunk. And as I already mentioned, this face is on top of an unshaven Arnold Schwarzenegger wanna-be. I have no idea what effect they were aiming for, but I do know one thing.

They missed.

Final Score: 94 points.
Penalties: Ice, 9 pts; Compound, 13 pts; Cartoon, 17 pts; Anthropomorphization, 10 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-Logo (quadruply egregious), 25 pts; Colorful, 13 pts; Yucky-Logo, 5 pts.
Bonuses: None.