Syracuse Crunch

49

Down in Pennsylvania, there's a team called the Hershey Bears that has managed an impressive feat: they are named after candy, yet they have a good name. Simply by taking the best known product of the city they're located in and adding an "e" in just the right place, the team has given itself one of the classic nicknames for sports teams. I am, of course, talking about the Hershey Bears.

The Syracuse Crunch are named after a candy bar as well. When they first debuted, there was a factory owned by Nestlé in nearby Fulton (about a half-hour drive from Syracuse, if you're wondering), and although my memory is shaky I believe Nestlé were part owners in the beginning. And of course, Nestlé makes the pseudorice-in-pseudochocolate product known as the "Crunch Bar". Needless to say, this didn't work out nearly as well as the Hershey Bears name did. I'd suggest fixing the matter by adding an E, but I'm not sure where to place it to help matters any. Syracuse Crunech? Syracuse Crunceh? It's not helping.

Truth be told, "Syracuse Crunch" isn't a horrible name. It is a bad one, but it certainly doesn't deserve to be put in the pantheon of truly awful names along with "Evansville IceMen" and "Toronto Marlies". It does, however, have one major problem, which is that it doesn't lend itself to a good logo. Over the years, the team has tried to address the issue by not even bothering to make a logo that had anything to do with the name. First they put a superhero in their logo. Then they went with a bizarre-looking albino gorilla head. Now they're back to the superhero theme. Or so they claim. This doesn't look like a superhero to me. If I had to guess, I'd say it's supposed to be a speed skater that for some reason decided to put on a cape. Putting a speed skater in a hockey team's logo actually wouldn't be a bad idea, since speed skaters are supposed to, you know, skate, just like hockey players. And unlike gorillas, but really, can we agree to stop talking about the gorilla? It was weird.

These logo changes, apparently, are all related to changes in affiliation. The original superhero logo — his name is "Crunchman", by the way — was used when the team was paired up with the Vancouver Canucks. "Al the Ice Gorilla" (I know I asked if we could agree to stop talking about the gorilla, but I never heard you say "yes") made its debut when the team changed its affiliation to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Al stayed around when the team switched its affiliation to the Anaheim Ducks, but apparently there was a color change in the logo that I never knew about until today. Now, the team has affiliated with Tampa Bay, so it's time for a new logo. That's why the new, speed-skating Crunchman has a sort of lightning bolt effect on his helmet.

I will give them points for one thing: I like the idea of changing your logo when you change your affiliation. Most teams change their affiliations every once in a while, and by making the changes when they change affiliations, teams have a decent excuse for changing their look aside from "our merchandise sales needed a boost".

Can I give them credit for anything else? The only thing left to give them credit for is the logo, but the logo is really hit-or-miss. Aside from the problem with the superhero/speed skater having nothing to do with the name, there's the fact that the hockey stick looks ridiculous. However, I love the dramatic foreshortening of the right hand, which looks bigger than the head. So, good or bad logo? The tiebreaker has to be the use of the colors, and sadly, that sends it into "bad" territory. That's odd, because I love the combination of blue, grey, and white. But there's so much white and so little grey that the logo just isn't colorful enough. Nevertheless, it's a dramatic improvement over the old logo. Then again, they could wear jserseys with absolutely no logo at all, and it would be a dramatic improvement over the old logo. It was that bad. Seriously, people: albino gorillas? Who thought that one up, and why did anyone ever listen to him?

Final Score: 49 points.
Penalties: Singular, 6 pts; Cartoon, 17 pts; Irrelevance, 14 pts; Name-logo, 2 pts; Equip-logo (egregious), 8 pts; Yucky-Name, 5 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts.