Toronto Star July 30th 2005

 Nor does the NHL logo, new or old, have much competition from what's displayed by other leagues or sporting associations. Major League Baseball is noteworthy in its complete disregard of any design sense, perhaps in the fear that it might take away from the look of the New York Yankees' storied pinstripes. The baseball logo, with a white silhouette of a player awaiting the arrival of a ball against a blue and red background, looks like just another shoulder patch you get in scouts, like knot tying.

In comparison, the NHL logo is as no-nonsense as a board- crunching bodycheck. [Ed Horne] talks about "passion" when he talks about his logo. "It's like being part of a club," he says.

Logos work like band names. If the band's great, the name matters little (think the Tragically Hip). If it's a flop, the name reads like lettering on its tombstone (R.I.P. Hoobastank). A classic logo such as Coca-Cola's can help a brand over the rough spots. But the lost NHL year proved the old logo wasn't enough to keep the brand going. And the new one seems to be pointing straight back to where it all came from.

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The real news coming out of the National Hockey League's return to action this week wasn't the Sidney Crosby story, but the official media launch of the new NHL logo.

The Crosby saga was this year's NHL feel-good story as he's being touted as the next this or next that, and the ever popular "great ambassador for the game." We've heard it before. We'll hear it again.

But the new logo reveals how the NHL truly sees itself and wants to be seen by the real world. And it isn't pretty.

The logo, or "shield" as the NHL calls it, with a glint of silver against black, gives the impression of weight, thickness and danger - note all those pointy edges. It looks like a cop's badge.

The letters "FBI" or "CIA" wouldn't be out of place on this sucker. In fact, I fully expect referees to be flashing it during gameplay.

"McCreary, NHL," veteran ref Bill McCreary will snap as he whips the badge out of his pocket.

"In fact, it looks like a really old police badge from the '20s or '30s," says Keith Rushton of the design department of the Ontario College of Art & Design. "It looks like a board decision by a bunch of visual illiterates."

Or as one executive from Labatt says, "It looks offside."

If both speakers are right, then the NHL may not be skating toward any new era at all, but bringing back the past, when players were kept in line, owners ruled and a big fat shield guarded the whole business.

Balancing the new and the old was a delicate matter, according to Ed Horne of NHL Enterprises. The addition of all the silver was a new thing, he says. "It celebrates the competitive parity" where any club can have its shot at the Stanley Cup.

But the badge wielding, tough-guy look was also part of the strategy. This is the NHL, not Disneyland. "We are an 88-year-old brand," says Horne.

Not that the former NHL logo had ever taken home any graphic design honours. Its orange-and-sludge-coloured background was probably better suited to be affixed to a nuclear generator as a warning of potential contamination.

Nor does the NHL logo, new or old, have much competition from what's displayed by other leagues or sporting associations. Major League Baseball is noteworthy in its complete disregard of any design sense, perhaps in the fear that it might take away from the look of the New York Yankees' storied pinstripes. The baseball logo, with a white silhouette of a player awaiting the arrival of a ball against a blue and red background, looks like just another shoulder patch you get in scouts, like knot tying.

Nevertheless, the National Basketball Association was sufficiently impressed with the baseball idea to more or less repeat it for its own logo, only with a basketball player dribbling away. (The professional American women's league, the WNBA, followed suit.)

Maybe physical contact has something to do with logo design. More dangerous, crunching sports seem to enjoy the cop aesthetic. The National Football League goes the crest route, like the NHL, with a badge-like design. However, the best of the lot might well be the Canadian Football League. A fearsome-looking football comes flying, forward-pass style, out of a red Maple Leaf background, over the letters "CFL." It's retro, fun and flashy all at once, not unlike the league it represents.

In comparison, the NHL logo is as no-nonsense as a board- crunching bodycheck. Ed Horne talks about "passion" when he talks about his logo. "It's like being part of a club," he says.

It could also be argued that with its unimpressive new logo, the NHL didn't want its new branding to overshadow that of the individual teams. With the likes of Detroit's flying red wheel or Toronto's blue maple leaf, these are among the most distinctive in all of sport.

"They don't want to suppress the identity of any individual team," says Rushton. "The question for them always is what are they really selling?"

Still, the NHL blew its opportunity in logo-land, which is an important place to succeed these days, if only because of all the ruckus generated when a logo goes really wrong.

Contempt greeted the announcement earlier this year of the Inukshuk-referencing logo for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. One critic described it as the "offspring of the Michelin Man and Miss Gumby." Yet this is mild compared to the recent dusting taken by the oval "IUD-like thing," as one observer remarked, that proudly heralds the disaster-ridden "Toronto Unlimited" campaign.

As the descendents of flags, military banners and heraldic symbols, commercial logos tap deep and powerful forces. When Camilla Parker Bowles recently unfurled her new coat of arms, as befits her title as Duchess of Cornwall and the future Queen of England, a lot of oink-oinking was heard throughout the British press, which noted that the central symbol on the crest was a wild boar.

"Not boring" is the central idea of the new NHL logo. The black and silver - can you say Oakland Raiders? - aims to bring a certain edgy quality to it, as befits a game played on ice. Much the same idea is to be gleaned from those sharp little serif spikes on the letters N, H and L.

But this is a very old idea of what's new, like the excessive use of drop-shadow lettering to give an increased sense of heft.

Logos work like band names. If the band's great, the name matters little (think the Tragically Hip). If it's a flop, the name reads like lettering on its tombstone (R.I.P. Hoobastank). A classic logo such as Coca-Cola's can help a brand over the rough spots. But the lost NHL year proved the old logo wasn't enough to keep the brand going. And the new one seems to be pointing straight back to where it all came from.