Every fan of the Bloomington Prairie Thunder who doesn't want to see their team get a high score on the Bush League Factor should be very grateful to Google right now, because it just saved the team 27 points.

I strongly suspected, when I started this review, that "Prairie Thunder" was made up. I had never heard of such a term (you don't hear a lot about "prairie" anything when you've lived on the East Coast your entire life), and the whole "geographic descriptor combined with generic icon" pattern fits in well with names such as the Lock Monsters, Sound Tigers, and RiverKings. This meant I could ding them for the "Compound" penalty, as well as the "Irrelevance" penalty since buffalo are not relevant to thunder. But there was some nagging doubt that there might be more to it than that, so I did a little checking. Turns out there is. Google the term and you'll find numerous references to the term.

"Okay," this Eastern boy wondered to himself, "so there is such a thing as 'prairie thunder'. Now, what the hell is it?" There is, it turns out, no single answer. I found about half a dozen different uses for the phrase, ranging from literal thunder on the literal prairie to a type of iris. The uses of the phrase were so varied that I was beginning to think the team could have used a drawing of a damn potato chip and I couldn't have definitely said it wasn't correct. (In fact, "Prairie Thunder Potato Chips" makes at least as much sense to me as "Cool Ranch Doritos", which is a real product.)

But then I found several references to the term being used for the sound of a herd of buffalo. And as best as I can tell, it's the origin of the term. I could be wrong, but I'm in no position to argue. City boy that I am, I have no idea what a herd of buffalo sounds like. The only time I've ever seen a buffalo (actually it may be a bison, but since I just told you I'm a city boy, you should realize I can't tell the difference) was at a zoo. There were, if I remember correctly, about four or five of them, which I don't think is enough to qualify as a herd and certainly isn't enough to sound like thunder when they start running (which I've never seen them do). So if someone tells me that the term comes from the sound of a herd of buffalo running, I'm going to believe them. They probably walk away snickering "Get a load of what I just told that gullible city slicker", but that's fine. I'd like to see any of them survive rush hour in Washington D.C. So there.

For the most part, I like the logo. It has a neat color scheme, and a dynamic look to it. I could do without the puck and the lightning bolt effects on the letters, but I can live with them. And even if the ice is really just another gratuitous hockey reference (I am going to consider the ice sheet a piece of hockey equipment and ding them for it), the way it has cracks going all the way through is a neat effect showing just how powerful those buffalo hooves are.

I'm also happy they resisted the urge to have smoke snorting out of its nostrils.

So all in all, this is a neat logo. And now that I know the meaning of the term (or at least think I do), it's a neat name, too. Still I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little disappointed they didn't go with an iris motif.

Final Score: 17 points.
Penalties: Singular, 6 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-logo (egregious), 8 pts; Ripoff, 4 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts.