We are dealing with some old teams, this week. The Northeast Division has three of the "Original Six" teams dating back as far as 1909. And, while the current Senators started in '92, an Ottawa Senators hockey team was a charter NHL member surving until a move to St. Louis as the Eagles in the 30s. The Sabres come off as the "new" team, and they're now over 30 years old. So our competition is largely between some truly vintage logos.
So who comes out on top? Click it and see:
5th place: Ottawa Senators
The Senators have made some subtle improvements on their logo in the
last few years, removing "Ottawa Senators" from the circle, and migrating the helmet branch flourishes to the edge. The main issue with their logo is the overdetailed head and helmet, and the weak line thickness, causing the logo to lose definition at a distance.
It's not clear if the 3 projections off the left side are to be the cape draped over the Senator's shoulder, but, though they work as interesting graphical elements, the top third seems too large and out of place given the viewpoint of the man. The logo gets credit, though, for having about the only legitimate use of a metallic color, since they're using it to represent metal.
Advice: Simplify/abstract the face and inner helmet. Potentially redraw or resize the top third of the left cape flourish to fit with the perspective.
4th place: Boston Bruins
The Bruins logo is (apparently) meant to represent the B of the city placed upon
a wheel, or hub, that represents Boston (originating from some mis-adapted quote of Oliver Wendell Holmes). While this helps to explain the spokes, it does nothing to stop the logo from looking more like a basketball or volleyball than anything hockey related.
Still, the logo is profesionally designed, and impressively recognizable at even the smallest sizes. In the end, the decision to rank Boston 4th comes down to their negligence in using the "Bruins" symbology. Their
alternate logo is better, though it's much too detailed and realistic for a clean, visible graphic.
Advice: Incorporate the line strength and sharp colors of your primary logo into a version of your alternate logo.
3rd place: Montreal Canadiens
Montreal's team existed long before any other hockey team, which must have made for a boring season. Being first, however, they got dibs on the Canadiens name, and have held on to it since. That inner H in the logo apparently stands for "Hockey" rather than "Habitants," as is popularly thought, further pointing to the ancient origins of their team.
Unlike the Bruins, the Canadiens have quite a tough name to objectify. They could have gone with a Strange Brew style caricature, but that would have gotten old quickly. In this case, it seems wisest to leave the name out and simply use the initial letter. Like the Bruins, the Canadiens have a very crisp logo, identifiable even on the tiniest and farthest away fan.
The C is a bit odd, with its strangely angled top serif, though it doesn't harm character readability. Completely closing off the C causes some slight negative space issues, making the curved triangles on either side of the H and the squares formed by it standing out a bit too much. Additionally, while the H is understandable given the era during which the logo was originally formed, it manages to be both too obvious (WE PLAY HOCKEY!) and too obscure (wait, what does it stand for again?). In balance of the issues, the Canadiens earn a quality 3rd place in the competition.
Advice: Consider a light pale blue to fill around the red C and the H, to separate it more from the white background behind the H.
2nd place: Buffalo Sabres
Buffalo is a town saddled with an over obvious name. No sports team, regardless of its mascot, seems to survive in Buffalo without blunt animal symbology. With that in mind, this design of the buffalo head is extremely well done. The forward slant of the logo, with the head, brow, horns, and snout all at a diagonal, help create a clearly charging beast. The colors chosen are simple enough, but complement each other perfectly, and the line width is bold and strong, while still allowing for some variation in smaller areas like the eyes.
Ultimately, the close second place finish comes down to the lack of any Sabres reference, though it's not obvious where one could be made (aside from the "throw it in there" attempt in their
older logo). Similar to the Bruins, they resort to using the alternate logo to illustrate their mascot.
Advice: Might there be some subtle way of slightly creating swords out of their horns? There might not, in which case you should leave the logo untouched.
1st place: Toronto Maple Leafs
Like last week's winner, Dallas, Toronto had a solid name to build a logo from. The Canadiens get the country's citizens as their name, but Toronto gets the flag. The slight simplification from the actual flag leaf, changed from their
pre-1970 version, is perfectly done. The team gets its own original look, while clearly still referencing the
country's symbol. And while their
older logos have a quaint charm in their elementary school style, it's good to see a team not afraid to continually, and expertly, simplify and polish their team standard.
Advice: The only suggestion I have is slight: remove the words. Your symbol is clearly known to all who have ever seen it, and no one needs to read who you are.
Congratulations, Toronto, and good luck in the later rounds.
What are your rankings for the Northeast Division?