Glacier Ridge Riders

133

I'm sure many of you are looking at the name of the team and assuming that it parses out as (Glacier Range) (Riders). Nuh-uh. It's actually (Glacier) (Range Riders)...go to the team website and you'll see that the team is consistently referred to as the Range Riders, and if you look at pictures of the team in uniform you'll see that they either say Range Riders or Glacier. Why Glacier? Does it play in the city of Glacier? No, it plays in Kalispell, Montana. So, again, why Glacier?

The answer is that it plays near Glacier National Park, which gets its name from...look, do I really have to tell you why Glacier National Park is named Glacier National Park? I mean, it's kinda obvious, right? If you start at the baseball stadium, you can be at the entrance of the park in a little over half an hour. That's not to say you'll be at the actual glacier in a little over half an hour. For one thing, it's not the glacier, because there are a few dozen small glaciers in the park, not one big one. That's not a global warming thing; there have always been multiple glaciers in Glacier National Park. On the other hand, the number of glaciers and the size of the glaciers that are still there both keep shrinking, and that is a global warming thing. Apparently geologists consider it a given that at some point in the future, there won't be any glaciers left in Glacier National Park. I don't know if they plan to rename the park when that happens. I also don't know if the baseball team will change its name.

(In case you're wondering when that is predicted to happen, I'll simply recommend going to the Glacier National Park website. I say that partly because they can go into more depth than I want to dedicate to in a logo review, but mostly because I don't want to depress you.)

Anyway, the fact that the team is named after Glacier National Park explains why there's a goat in the logo. The mountain goat is the official symbol of Glacier National Park. And that also explains why the mountain goat in the team logo is wearing that outfit: that's the official uniform of national park rangers. Well, part of it. Most actual rangers don't go around bare-assed, after all. Also, the red neckerchief the goat is wearing isn't part of the actual uniform, but I think we can all agree that's a minor variance compared to the lack of pants. We do agree on that, right? If there's anyone out there who thinks that the kerchief is a bigger variance from the real uniform than the lack of pants, please do us all a favor and keep it to yourself. Weirdo.

Final Score: 133 points.
Penalties: Region, 8 pts; Alliteration, 5 pts; Equipment, 13 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Irrelevance, 39 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts.
Bonuses: Graphic, -9 pts.