I know that I like this logo. What I can't figure out is whether I should.

This team set itself up for trouble in the logo department the moment they picked "Rage" as their team name. I've said it countless times: when your team name is an abstract noun, it's hard to come up with a good logo for it. The logo designers are generally reduced to using the name as the primary element of the logo.

But somewhere, a designer that was given the unenviable task of making a logo for "Rage" had a flash of inspiration. Why not draw an eye (one of the most expressive parts of the human body) in a way that expresses rage? We see the result above.

On one level, I could have a field day with this, and perhaps I probably should. The color of the eye and the way it has this sort of flame effect to the side is an invitation to make jokes about suffering from burning, itching, red eyes. And the hockey stick for an eyebrow does deserve to be pointed and laughed at. (In fact, give me a moment to do that: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!). That is definitely a problem. And if you look to the right, you'll see that the logo's looks do improve considerably if you make the very minor change of losing the blade so that you're dealing with an ordinary eyebrow.

But still, it's a creative idea, it's different, and somehow it works. The eyebrow covering the top inside portion of the eye is standard artistic shorthand for someone being angry. We all know that the color red is associated with anger. And even the flames and the weird sort of lightning bolt convey a feeling of intensity and violence. This is an oddly abstract logo, but it's a very good oddly abstract logo.

That being said, there is one other pitfall to using the name Rage, which is that you then have to come up with with a mascot. Mascots, as a general rule, are supposed to look cute. Rage, however, isn't cute. So here we have two abstract concepts which are diametrically opposed to one another and which need to be embodied in a single costume. Do I have to tell you they failed miserably?

No, I don't have to tell you, because I can show you. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Rowdy Rage, the Rocky Mountain Rage's mascot. (Total non sequitur: that last sentence is absolutely hiliarious if you imagine it being spoken by Elmer Fudd.) We know we're in trouble the moment we hear the name. There's a big difference between being rowdy and being enraged. Rowdy implies an almost gregarious sort of violence -- the sort of thing that happens when people are happily drinking and things get out of hand. Rage, on the other hand, is anti-social even by anger standards. (Almost total non sequitur: I've been accused on more than one occasion of overthinking damn near everything I think about, and the last three sentences probably prove that point quite nicely.)

But even worse is the fact that rage/rowdiness/whatever is being represented by an overweight muppet with a toupee and cat's-eye glasses. Is this supposed to be a female mascot? Because never have I seen a man wearing cat's-eye glasses before. (For that matter, I've never seen a sports mascot with glasses of any kind.) On the other hand, I've never seen a woman with hair like that, either. And then there's the face shape. This creature has a double chin, for crying out loud! This thing does not look enraged; it does not look rowdy; it does not even look mildly perturbed. Between the happy smile, the glasses, and the ears, this thing looks like Clifford the Big, Red Cat.

Finally, there's the geographic reference for the name. Rocky Mountain? This is right up there with "Rio Grande Valley" for being an area so broad as to give no clue where the team is. You could be as far south as New Mexico, or almost as far north as the British Columbia-Yukon-Northwest Territories tripoint and still be in the Rocky Mountains. Why they couldn't just call themselves Broomfield is beyond me.

But I'll give them credit for one thing. They avoided the temptation. I doubt I could have. If someone had somehow convinced me to use "Rocky Mountain" as the geographic reference for the team, I'd have succumbed to the temptation in a heartbeat. I'd have given them polka-dotted jerseys and called the team the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Final Score: 23 points.
Penalties: Region (quadruply-egregious), 15 pts; Alliteration, 2 pts; Name-logo, 2 pts; Equip-Logo, 5 pts; Yucky-Name, 4 pts.
Bonuses: Cool-Logo, -5 pts.