Stockton Thunder

17

I have to admire the cleverness of this logo. Every team who decides to name their team after a weather phenomenon — especially one you can't draw directly — has to face the problem of figuring out just how to represent the name of the team in logo form. The Stockton Thunder actually solved it: their logo features Thor, the Norse god of thunder. It's brilliant. And given the fact that Norse gods seem to have this odd association with heavy metal, it also intensifies the name somehow.

Unfortunately, the logo doesn't quite work. The trouble starts with the helmet. I realize the Thor is often depicted as having a helmet with wings on it (although I've no idea why), but this one looks kind of silly. Most depictions I've seen have large wings, and they're made of metal and thus purely decorative. These look like actual wings. And not even actual wings from an eagle or falcon or equally fearsome bird. They look like they came from a seagull, or maybe even some kind of songbird. They look, to be totally blunt, goofy. Making Norse gods look goofy doesn't strike me as a good idea.

Then there's the big black splotch that Thor's head and arm seem to be sprouting out of. I think it's supposed to be representing his torso and left arm in shadow, but the shape's wrong for that. Something about the curves on the right side remind me of a disc of some sort. In other words, it looks like a hockey puck is metamorphosing into Thor. This is a disturbing image. I know I've often said that team names and logos are supposed inspire a certain amount of fear, but not like this. It's supposed to be one of those instinctual things that generates an involuntary muscle spasm that makes your testicles try to climb back inside you. This is not instinctual. This only evokes fear when you sit down, stare at the logo, and ponder it. Hockey players on the opposing team don't have time to do that. And even for those of us who do, the fear it generates is not so much the testicle-climbing kind as it is the existential dread kind. I don't need a hockey logo to inspire existential dread. I get all the existential dread just reading the newspaper. And the section I read most often is the comics.

Then for good measure, the logo gives a hockey stick to a Norse god. By now I shouldn't have to say anything about hockey sticks for you to know how silly I think they are, but giving them Norse gods is even worse.

Gods of thunder abound in early mythologies, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Obviously Thor was the best choice for anyone wanting to go this route, but I have to wonder how some of the others would translate into a hockey logo. The Greeks had Zeus, of course, but quite frankly, a rendering of Zeus would make for a weird logo. Indra would be neat (especially since he's the god of both thunder and war), but few people would get it. The Aztec god of thunder and death, Xolotl (do not bother trying to pronounce this name. You can't. Seriously. The second "l" is a sound that doesn't exist in English, nor in any other European language save Welsh. Do you know Welsh? No? Then don't bother trying to pronounce this name), would be even more obscure, but as you can see from the drawing to the right (taken from an Aztec codex which is about five centuries old), he looks pretty cool in a scary sort of way. The description I found of him is even cooler and scarier: "depicted as a skeleton, a dog-headed man or a monster animal with reversed feet." And ultimately, isn't that what you want in a logo? Something that's scary but cool?

Yes, that's what you want. It's what I want, anyway. So the heck with Thor...put this guy on the logo. And when the team unveils the logo and people ask what the hell it is, the team can just say, "Oh, this? That's the Aztec god of thunder and death. We'd tell you his name, but we can't. We don't speak Welsh."

Note: Okay, I know some of you just aren't going to be happy if I don't give at least some clue as to how to pronounce "Xolotl". The best English approximation I can come up with is "ʃo lotθ", where ʃ is the "sh" of "short", both o's are the long o of "go", and the θ is the "th" in "thin". For those who want something more accurate, the "tl" at the end actually represents an affricate formed of a voiceless alveolar stop and a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative. If you speak Welsh, I can tell you that the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is the same sound as "ll". If you're not, please don't ask me to explain what a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is.

Final Score: 17 points.
Penalties: Singular, 6 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-Logo, 5 pts; Ripoff, 4 pts.
Bonuses: None.