Colorado Eagles

6

As I write this, the Colorado Eagles website is announcing that they have recently held tryouts for women who want to be the Eagles' resident cheerleaders/dance squad/whatever they are. And what is the name of this group?

I kid thee not: they are called the "Eagles Chicks".

Come on, people. Doesn't it offend women enough just that teams have cheerleaders? Do you have to rub their faces in it like this? Hell, this is rubbing it in the faces of the women on the squad. I'd say I'm amazed that they can even get women willing to apply, but I'm far too jaded for that to be a true statement. And if I may engage in blatant stereotyping for a moment, I'd like to point out that their names are Amber, Chanel, Charleen, Erica, Ginger, Jenna, Jennifer, Jessica, Kelly, Khala, Leia, Lindsey, Lisa, and Nicole. Okay, maybe those really are their given names, and if so I shouldn't make fun of them. But do all of these really sound like given names to you? Most of them sound like stage names chosen by women who go into what I shall euphemistically refer to as "selected career fields" — and I know you know what I mean.

Anyway, onto the name and logo. The "Eagles" part of the name, in my opinion, is fairly unassailable. "Eagles" is one of those classic names, and eagles are even native to the area. But they did blow it by calling themselves "Colorado" instead of using a more local name. Maybe the people running the team, being from Colorado themselves, don't understand the problem with this. The problem with this is that whenever you say "Colorado" to anyone in any of the other 49 states, he automatically thinks of Denver. The team is roughly an hour away from Denver — in fact it's closer to Cheyenne, Wyoming than to Denver . This isn't quite as bad as the team calling itself "Rio Grande Valley" (you could be a thousand miles away from the team calling itself that and still be in a valley formed by the Rio Grande), but Colorado ain't exactly Rhode Island, guys. Give us a better idea of where you actually play.

As for the logo, I can't complain. The eagle's head is drawn rather well. The three stripes are a bit odd at first, but when you picture the logo without them, you understand that they needed to add something other than just the head, and I like the fact that they did something other than just frame the head with a circle or some other basic geometric shape. Also, the three stripes for a very subtle "E". I know it's subtle because I had looked at the logo countless times before it clicked. What can I say? Some days I'm a little slow on the draw.

So all in all, they do a fairly good job on the things I'm grading them on. Good logo, and a good name.

But they should be thankful I don't grade the name of their cheerleading squad.

Final Score: 6 points.
Penalties: Region (doubly egregious), 7 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts.