I want to unconditionally love this team's name and logo. But they just won't let me.

Let's talk about the name first. If you've read a lot of these reviews then you know I hate regional names in any case. But if it's a small town I can at least understand the thinking behind it. I can understand why the Stingrays would rather say they are from "South Carolina" than from "North Charleston". I can understand why the Rage would rather say they're from "Rocky Mountain" than from some town no one's ever heard of before. But Cleveland? Cleveland is the second largest metropolitan area to have minor league hockey but not major league hockey (Houston is the largest). It's metro population is over two million people. There are eight NHL cities with smaller populations, for crying out loud! How is Cleveland not big enough to deserve the team being called Cleveland? You might as well rename the baseball team the Atlantic Ocean Mets!

But that's the extent of the problems. "Monsters" is great if you ask me. Remember what I say about team names: they should command fear and/or respect. Is there anything in this world that commands as much fear as a monster? Let your imagination run wild. Whatever scares you, that's what a monster is. And because the name "monster" leaves it to your imagination, it doesn't have to worry about someone saying, "I'm not scared of ______." Okay, so you're not scared of wolves. Maybe you're not scared of bats, either. Or bears. Or gladiators. But you're scared of monsters. By definition, you are scared of monsters, because it's not a monster if you're not scared of it. It's a great name.

And the logo works for the same reason. You don't really get to see the monster. You have a peek at its head, but you have no idea whether it's got claws or tentacles or huge fangs or hideous pustules or demon's wings or fire breath or any number of other scary things. You have a bare minimum of information: it's got pure black skin, glowing yellow eyes, and spikes. Beyond that, you figure it out...if you dare stick around long enough to find out. We don't even have any scale to know how big it is. For all we know, the water around him is the entirety of Lake Erie, meaning he could eat Cleveland in a single bite (although the Cuyahoga River would probably give him heartburn).

The "Lake Erie" part of the name, of course, justifies the "Monsters" part. (Lake Erie supposedly has its own lake monster, too. All lakes do, when it comes right down to it. Hell, the little lake in the park near my house probably has a lake monster, although in that case it's probably the size of a beagle.) The thing is, you don't actually have to call the team "Lake Erie" so long as the city in question is actually on the lake (last I checked, it was). "Cleveland Monsters" would have been fine. They should have called themselves that. But they just couldn't leave well enough alone. They had to pair a great nickname with a horrible location name. I'm tempted to do something really bizarre and give them the "Cool-Name" bonus and the "Yucky-Name" penalty. In fact, what the hell. It'll balance out, right?

Still, all in all they did a good job. This is probably my vote for the best new logo of the 2007-08 season. If I have to deal with a team calling itself "Lake Erie" to get it, I'm sure I'll manage.

Final Score: 1 point.
Penalties: Region (doubly-egregious), 7 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Yucky-Name, 4 pts.
Bonuses: Cool-Name, -4 pts; Cool Logho, -5 pts; Local, -3 pts.