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	Long Beach Ice Dogs	39
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Posted 2005 January 13

I'm looking at the feet on this dog, trying to decide whether the way the legs are splayed out represents poor drawing or attention to detail. See, an English bulldog (and based on the face, that's clearly what the dog is supposed to be) has legs that go straight down, not angled out. So it's a sloppy drawing, right? But hold on. Whenever there's ice on the ground at home, my dog does two things. First, he whimpers and tries to hold his bladder as long as possible because he despises walking on ice. (My wife, god help me, actually bought little dog boots for just such an occasion, but the dog hates them even more than he hates the ice, so we almost never use them.) The second thing he does, when we finally drag him out and tell him to quit being such a weenie and go answer nature's call already, is to walk in an exaggeratedly careful fashion (he's quite sarcastic), with legs splayed out as far as he car get them. Since he does this while he's walking on ice, and since the team here is called the "Ice Dogs", maybe this is really just attention to detail and I should be impressed.

Do I have to even state explicitly that I'm not?

The main problem is that yet another team has thrown in so many elements intended to make the logo look fierce that they wind up going overboard and looking silly. He's so strong that he was able to break a chain in order to escape. He's eaten an ice skate. He has a spiked collar. He has glowing red eyes.

I'm amazed they didn't give him a tattoo and blood stains on his claws.

As for the name, it's your standard, ho-hum cheesy name. It's hardly even worthy of comment. "Dogs" is neither a classic nor a novel name, and I believe we all know by now that the word "Ice" doesn't improve anything. And having a name that consists of four monosyllabic words doesn't scan well. It rolls off the tongue like a flat tire on a broken axle.

I'm not willing to call this the worst name in the Los Angeles area -- not as long as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are still around -- but every other team in the area could fold and I still wouldn't be willing to call it the best.

Final Score: 39 points.
Penalties: Ice, 9 pts; Compound, 13 pts; Name-Logo, 2 pts; Equip-Logo, 5 pts; Yucky-Logo, 5 pts; Yucky-Name, 5 pts.
Bonuses: None.