The second, quite frankly, sucked. I can deal with using the first initial for your logo. Using the name, however, seems much weaker. It didn't help that it was written in the god-awful teal and magenta color scheme that was so overused in the 90s.

And if the second logo was bad enough, the jersey got even worse. Their first jerseys with the second logo simply showed the second logo in all its lame glory. I don't think they ever officially changed the logo again, but they kept tinkering with what got shown on the jersey, and it kept reaching new lows. The absolute worst, I think, was when the jersey just showed a gigantic "R" that covered not just the middle of the chest area, but the entire front of the jersey. Making the initial that big only underscored just how bad the logo was, if you ask me. Basically, the "R" looked like it was melting. And melting is not a good mental image for your hockey team's logo.

The new Renegades are owned by the founder of the old Renegades, so I really didn't have high hopes for the logo being worth anything when it came out. I figured it would be more of the same, and if it wasn't then it would be another cartoony animal (i.e., more of a different same). So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this.

That's not to say this logo is perfect. The use of a pirate in the logo, even if it is a good example of a renegade, is a little too trendy. (Between the Disney movies and the role pirates play in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'm pretty much pirated out.) The gold tooth is a bit over the top. The eyebrows somehow manage to go over his bandana. And finally, it's also a little too symmetrical for my tastes. But all in all, this is a vast improvement over anything they've had before, not to mention most of the logos out there.

One other thing the team does which I particularly like is that their "home" jerseys (I am old school and continue to refer to the colored jerseys as "away" and light jerseys as "home") aren't white like most teams. Instead, they're yellow. Granted, a lot of people don't like that. It reminds too many people of the Vancouver Canucks and the horrible jerseys they wore in the 1980s. But I like the idea of having colored "home" jerseys. Truth be told, I don't even see the point of having "home" and "away" jerseys. If you ever get the chance to watch a game from the Britain's Premier League, pay attention to the jerseys. A team wearing red against a team wearing blue is nothing unusual. And no one has any trouble telling who's who, because humans have this thing called color vision, and televisions have been able to duplicate it for fifty years, give or take. (When was the last time you even saw a black-and-white television?) Teams do have an alternate jersey (used by the visiting team when the jerseys they usually wear are the same color as what the home team normally wears), but that alternate usually isn't white, either.

This approach would work fine in any league. Heck, the SPHL barely even needs to do that. There are only seven teams in the league, for crying out loud. Every team could get by with just one jersey. You could put the Columbus Cottonmouths in white, the Fayetteville FireAntz in black, the Huntsville Havoc in grey, the Knoxville Ice Bears in purple, the Jacksonville Barracudas in blue, Pee Dee Cyclones in red, and the Richmond Renegades in yellow, and there wouldn't be any duplication. That might not work perfectly (there could be some confusion in a game between Knoxville and Jacksonville, for instance), but all in all it would be viable. Some people might say they'd limit their marketing opportunities, but I don't by that for a second. Fans of the Carolina Hurricanes can buy black Hurricanes jerseys even though the Hurricanes never wear black. Hell, I've seen stores sell baseball jerseys for the Atlanta Falcons (a football team, for the four people reading this who don't already know), so if there can be a market for that I see absolutely no reason why minor league hockey teams couldn't sell jerseys in colors the team doesn't actually wear.

This would also create a little variety. One of the things I hate the most about the "colors at home, whites on the road" approach to is that the view never changes. If the home team wears white, then a fan of, say, the Pittsburgh Penguins would see white vs. black when the Capitals came to town, white vs. red when the Devils came to town, white vs. blue when the Rangers came to town, etc. (Admittedly, the ridiculously large number of teams currently wearing black weakens the argument, but just as with teal and magenta, this shall pass). With the home team wearing colors, it's black versus white, every time. How monotonous. If they went to the system the Premiership uses, you could have the variety while letting the home team wear something other than white as well. Everybody wins, except for the TV viewers still watching on black-and-white televisions...both of them.

But getting back to the earlier point, I like the Renegades' yellow home jerseys. I wish more teams did that. But even if the Renegades still did a standard white home jersey, I'd still be happy with their logo. It's easily the best any hockey team called the Renegades have ever had. In fact, if you've seen the logos other hockey teams in Richmond used, you'd probably come to the conclusion that this is the best logo any of them have ever used. And I'd probably agree with you.

Final Score: 21 points.
Penalties: Alliteration, 2 pts; Cartoon, 17 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts.
Bonuses: None.