Atlanta Gladiators

-9

NOTE: This review incorporates text from the previous review for the Gladiators, which was posted 2016 January 3.

This is technically the third logo the Gladiators have used, but in reality little has changed since the first. And this is a good thing. As you can see, the team was originally known as the Gwinnett Gladiators. That sort of made sense at the time, as Atlanta had the NHL Thrashers and the minor league team wanted to differentiate itself somewhat. The Thrashers left Atlanta in 2011, and a few years later the Gladiators rebranded as the Atlanta Gladiators. The logo remained unchanged but for the obvious replacing of "Gwinnett" with "Atlanta". Now they've simplified the logo a bit by getting rid of the text and they've changed their color scheme, but this is still clearly a variation on the same logo.

And why not? It's a very good logo. When the team first debuted, I commented at how impressed I was at the restraint the logo designers showed. Rather than throw in any number of gratuitous hockey references (hockey stick instead of sword, goalie mask instead of gladiator helmet, et cetera), they just drew a gladiator. I was also impressed with the name, which to my knowledge has never before been used in minor league hockey yet in my opinion has excellent connotations: Gladiator manages to combine physical strength, honor, courage, and desperation into a single word. A gladiator will go to great lengths to win because he knows he might die if he doesn't, but he still has certain rules he is supposed to adhere to and does.

My one criticism at the time was the use of Gwinnett (the name of the county where the team plays). That, as noted above, has been fixed. And the logo, if anything, has just gotten better with the new color scheme. The new colors contrast better.

I would note, also, that the logo keeps setting new records for lowest BLF score. When they debuted, they had a score of -3 points, which wasn't a record but was close. The switch from Gwinnett Gladiators to Atlanta Gladiators got rid of the Region and Alliteration penalties, changing their score to -7 and setting a new record. Now the team no longer gets the Name-Logo penalty, meaning their score drops even further, to -9. Not only is this a new record, it's pretty close to the lowest score theoretically possible: the only way it could be any lower would be to pick up the Local bonus, which would give them -12. I don't foresee Atlanta opening a new gladiator school any time soon, so we're unlikely to get a truly perfect score. But they've come damn close.

Final Score: -9 points.
Penalties: None.
Bonuses: Cool-Name, -4 pts; Cool-Logo, -5 pts.