There have been five teams called the Phoenix Roadrunners (or "RoadRunners" in the case of the current incarnation), the oldest having debuted forty years ago. Most of them used essentially the same logo with minor variations. The ECHL version uses a new logo, but it isn't really a new logo as mush as it is the old one reimagined. Many of the details of the new logo are retained. The roadrunner is in the exact same stance, right down to the detail of the position of his right foot. He still has socks that have a blue stripe. His torso is still in that odd curvature (I don't know about you, but I'd have to dislocate a vertebra or two to bend like that). But the logo is clearly updated.

Unfortunately some things did not get fixed. The roadrunner has always had an unfortunate resemblance to Heckle and Jeckle, the Talking Magpies. The resemblance is even stronger now. The beak is shaped more similarly, it is now actually yellow, and the eyes are inexplicably set on the beak instead of above it. I don't think this is possible. I make no claims of being an expert ornithologist, but I sincerely doubt there's a single bird species in the entire world whose eyes are on its beak.

The brown features have been replaced by black, azure, and white. This fits better with the team's color scheme, but looks a lot less like an actual roadrunner. On the bright side, the tail, when colored brown, always did look like he was spraying liquid poo out of his ass. The new tail is white, and looks more like a tail. More like a horse tail than a roadrunner tail, but it's still an improvement.

The weird tufts are actually fairly accurate, as the picture at the right shows.

For some reason, the team has chosen to write "PHX" in the logo instead of actually putting the word "Phoenix". I find this irritating. I think they were trying to be cool, but I don't see how using the airport code for the nearby airport is cool, even if it does have the letter "X" in it.

Fortunately, the logo they use on jerseys doesn't include that. It has just the bird with no words. This is a relief; I'm worried about the questions the words "PHX RoadRunners" could generate. I can see it now. The RoadRunners are visiting another team in another part of the country. There's a man who's taken his family to the game. He's a family man who believes in traditional values; he takes his family to Sunday school and church without fail; he has taught his children to be courteous, respectful, and soft-spoken, and prefers to teach by example. He wants his children to be well-educated, and he's glad that his four-year-old daughter watches Sesame Street without fail and knows the how letters and letter combinations sound. She also wants to learn geography, and as the other teams come into town, she has successfully sounded out locations like Trenton and Charlotte and Cincinnati and asked her dad to tell her about these places. For him this is an opportunity to teach her and also to bond with her, so he's happy about this. And so the Phoenix RoadRunners come to town, and this sweet, little four-year-old girl sees "PHX RoadRunners" on the jerseys and innocently asks, "Daddy, where is Fucks?"

The man is, of course, appalled and embarrassed for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that everybody within five seats heard this and is now looking at him quizzically. They don't know the backstory, of course, and they may not have even heard the whole sentence. They were watching the game and not really paying attention to any particular conversation, and then something in their head processed the sounds that just came through their ears. Someone, they think, just said "fucks". In fact, I do believe it was a small child who said it. Is there a little girl around here? Why yes, there's one. And there is the man she was talking to, so he must be her father. I think I'll glare at him to let him know I disapprove of his parenting.

The father reacts the way any parent would, which is that he is left speechless. Everyone is speechless. This means that no one is answering the little girl's question. And she still has no idea that what she said is wrong. So she does what any child would do at this point:

"Daddy, I asked you a question! Where do the Fucks Roadrunners play?"

Only this time she has said it louder, plus everyone within five seats is silent, meaning her voice carries much farther. Now half the arena is looking in the father's direction. In fact, the father's too busy being mortified to notice, but there was actually a stoppage in play when the daughter asked the question, so there are now players from both teams that are looking into the stands, trying to figure out where this little child with the foul mouth is. They, too, quickly home in on her (and her father), because it isn't difficult to home in on a father and daughter surrounded by ten rows of people staring at them from all directions.

The father stammers, caught between trying to explain to the rest of the arena that he has no idea where she learned that kind of language and trying to tell the girl that "PHX" is just an abbreviation for "Phoenix", and should not, under any circumstances, be pronounced the way she just pronounced it.

Unfortunately, the stammering doesn't get anyone to quit looking at him, and the daughter is still curious.

"Daaaaaaddy—"

"Quiet!" he hisses. She shuts up, but he instantly realizes that this was a mistake. Clearly everyone assumes that she learned this language from him, and the anger he is now showing is probably making them assume he's going to beat her to death with a belt when they get home. He'd like to leave right now, but he knows that if he tries to take his family out of the arena at this instant, someone is going to have the police waiting for him in the parking lot to take his little girl away to Social Services.

Fortunately, the girl's eleven-year old brother is not as petrified as his father, and calmly says, "It's Phoenix, sis. 'PHX' is an abbreviation for Phoenix, which is the capital of Arizona. And the way you tried to pronounce 'PHX' is a word you shouldn't say."

In the half second that follows, the girl is happy to know the answer to her question, the crowd is relieved to understand that it was a perfectly innocent misunderstanding, and the father is finally able to get his heart rate back under 280 beats per minute. The crowd quickly loses interest; the referee drops the puck; play continues. This is a good thing, because it means no one hears the eleven-year-old boy mutter under his breath, "God! What a dumbass!"

Final Score: 59 points.
Penalties: Software, 8 pts; Cartoon, 17 pts; Anthropomorphization, 10 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-Logo (quadruply-egregious), 25 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts.