The conversation was generally the same. The school was very young (it was only in its seventh year when I arrived) and changing dramatically each year (it's hard to explain...suffice it to say this was not a typical high school). The look of the campus was changing dramatically all the time, so I didn't see why the yearbook should be stuck looking the same. The people who disagreed with me (and there were always people who disagreed with me) said it was nice that the school was establishing traditions.

That, I said, was the problem. "Tradition", I explained, is another word for something stupid that people do because that's the way they've always done it.

I have, like most people, mellowed out a bit since high school. But I still think there's a lot of truth in that definition of "tradition". Yes, some traditions are nice. But a good tradition doesn't survive merely because it's a tradition. It survives because it's a good idea. The traditions that are followed for no other reason than "we've always done it this way" deserve to be abandoned.

If you know much about the history of hockey teams in Port Huron, you know exactly where I'm headed with this. Both the name and the logo of the current Port Huron team were used by an IHL team in the 70s. It's not the way they've always done it in Port Huron -- two teams in the meantime have used different names, and obviously different logos as well -- but clearly the team is trying to revive this old name and logo because of its status as a tradition.

And I will say about it what I used to say about the yearbooks: they need to stop.

First of all -- and I can already see the hate mail coming my way for this statement -- one could argue that the idea of having a hockey team in Port Huron in the first place constitutes a tradition being held onto for no reason other than because it's always been that way. It's been over five years since a team in Port Huron averaged more than 2,000 in attendance. Two teams have failed in that city in the past four years. So far this season, the expansion Flags have managed to break 2,000, but not 2,500. In any league other than the UHL (how teams in the UHL survive with attendance figures that would kill any team in any other league is beyond me), no one would have been crazy enough to put a team in this town. But if someone else wants to go broke trying to prove the third time's the charm, who am I to stop them? It's not my money being flushed down the toilet.

But laying that issue aside, there's still the matter of the name. Let's face it: The name is one letter away from making very disparaging remarks about the players. Remember "The Electric Company", that show that used to come on after "Sesame Street" back in the 70's? Remember the character they had called "Letterman"? You could make a really funny parody of Letterman involving this team's name. I might be inclined to let that slide if "Flags" was a really cool name. It isn't. Bears can claw you to death and eat you. Pirates will make you walk the plank. But all flags ever do is wave in the breeze, hang on a staff, or occasionally cover a coffin. This isn't terribly awe-inspiring. Even "Beacons", the name of the previous team in Port Huron, was better.

Finally, there's the logo.

First of all, I could be wrong, but I think this is the only logo in the history of North American sports to put the word "The" in the logo. They couldn't be bothered to put "Port Huron" in it, but somehow the definite article made it in there. Go figure.

Then there are the flags themselves. The first thing that leaps out at you is the yellow. Yellow? There's no yellow in the Canadian or American flag. This reminds me of the early days of IBM-compatible computers (back when people would actually refer to computers as "IBM-compatible"...back, for that matter, when IBM actually made IBM-compatible computers), when "CGA" graphics were the standard and the only available colors were red, yellow, and green. Here green is replace by blue, but it's still the same vaguely psychedelic effect as the old video games on PCs where all the people had yellow skin, red hair, and green clothes. The black and yellow eagle is particularly odd. And by the way, when has there ever been an American flag that looked like this? I know there were flags with rattlesnakes during the Revolution, but I'm unaware of any flags with eagles on them. And why only seven stars? Thirteen I could understand. Twelve I could understand (it's easy to miss Delaware). But how do you miss Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, both Carolinas, and Georgia?

This, ladies and gentlemen, if a tradition that needs to be abandoned. If there is to be a team in Port Huron, it should have a better name than this. And if they insist in using this name, they should at least have a better logo.

Incidentally, soon after I graduated from high school, the school started having different covers every year. As soon as I saw it, I hated it. The school was something different from other high schools, and the yearbook reflected that by looking unlike other high school yearbooks. When the yearbook started changing every year, they all started looking like typical high school yearbooks. It was terrible.

I'm never satisfied, am I?

Final Score: 47 points.
Penalties: Cartoon (the bird in the "American" flag), 17 pts; Name-logo, 2 pts; Equip-logo (egregious), 8 pts; Colorful, 13 pts; Yucky-logo, 5 pts; Yucky-name, 5 pts.
Bonuses: Local, -3 pts