The IOWA CHOPS?

[CMUBrent]

This is the worst identity I have ever seen.

Ugly logo. Embarassing name. Bad colors. Everything screams awful.

I have a feeling this identity might not see the light of day.

You've obviously never been hunted down by the infamous CANTON ICE PATROL...

Thankfully, that team never saw the light of day, yet they were able to change their nickname several times:

Ohio Gears

Arctic Xpress

Canton Xpress

Canton Ice Patrol

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

But even if Iowa's logo is passable, the "Iowa Chops" could be the worst nickname in professional hockey; yes, I am taking into account the Syracuse Crunch and the Columbus Blue Jackets, who were named for a fictitious insect before they decided to go all Civil War nostalgia on us.

just wanted to take issue with the blue jacket statement in the article. while not recognized as a blue jacket, but being in the same wasp family as the Yellow Jacket, i do want to present a blue jacket for all intents and purposes.

[Viper]

This is the worst identity I have ever seen.

Ugly logo. Embarassing name. Bad colors. Everything screams awful.

I have a feeling this identity might not see the light of day.

It also breaks what is now my Rule #1 for team identities: Don't name your team after something you might find on your dinner plate.

See also the Moorhead (MN high school) Spuds, and just down I-80 a ways from the Chops, the UIF's Omaha Beef.

[leggman01]

wow...not sure it says pork chop, but it's a badass boar!

[spyboy1]

If that were suddenly my teams new name, especially after being the classy looking Iowa Stars, I'd never go to another game again.

The c?h?o?p?s logo just creeps me the hell out. Just imagining the sound that pig is making hurts my ears right into my brain.

If they polls show 70% negative, then did they actually test this thing first? How does something so important to a team get this far and then get received so poorly?

RedEye's version is so much better it's not even funny. Nice work and I really like the wordmark.

[LogoFan]

RedEye's version is so much better it's not even funny. Nice work and I really like the wordmark.

I agree. RedEye's version is great!

The c?h?o?p?s logo just creeps me the hell out. Just imagining the sound that pig is making hurts my ears right into my brain.

That's because the logo wasn't properly finished. Here ya go:

Just put on a plate with a garnish, and serve.

[CMUBrent]

Instead of using the Ducks jerseys, the Chops should have taken the templates for NHL practice jerseys and turned the commas on the sides into pork chops. With a name like Iowa Chops, might as well see how ridiculous you can get, right?

Iowa Chops is terrible, and Canton Ice Patrol was horrific, but this nickname is still, hands down, the all-time worst:

I'm sure opposing teams' fans never made fun of that one. :blink:

[rams80]

Instead of using the Ducks jerseys, the Chops should have taken the templates for NHL practice jerseys and turned the commas on the sides into pork chops. With a name like Iowa Chops, might as well see how ridiculous you can get, right?

Iowa Chops is terrible, and Canton Ice Patrol was horrific, but this nickname is still, hands down, the all-time worst:

I'm sure opposing teams' fans never made fun of that one. :blink:

Most likely. Fortunately that lasted all of two years.

Oh....and the pig with the apple in the mouth is also a poster candidate.

[Gothamite]

But even if Iowa's logo is passable, the "Iowa Chops" could be the worst nickname in professional hockey; yes, I am taking into account the Syracuse Crunch and the Columbus Blue Jackets, who were named for a fictitious insect before they decided to go all Civil War nostalgia on us.

just wanted to take issue with the blue jacket statement in the article. while not recognized as a blue jacket, but being in the same wasp family as the Yellow Jacket, i do want to present a blue jacket for all intents and purposes.

Wow. What the hell is that?

Also, FWIW, the Civil War thing has been with the Blue Jackets ever since the beginning. They just muddied the waters by using a bug as their secondary. Kind of like the "We're no longer the Devil Rays" with their twinkle of sunlight and Devil Ray sleeve patch - trying to play off both meanings of the name only waters down its meaning.

[BallWonk]

This is the worst identity I have ever seen.

Ugly logo. Embarassing name. Bad colors. Everything screams awful.

I have a feeling this identity might not see the light of day.

It also breaks what is now my Rule #1 for team identities: Don't name your team after something you might find on your dinner plate.

See also the Moorhead (MN high school) Spuds, and just down I-80 a ways from the Chops, the UIF's Omaha Beef.

Just to be clear: You're against the names of the Florida Marlins, Chicago Bulls, Milwaukee Bucs, Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and St. Louis Rams, too, right? I've eaten meat from all six of those animals.

And while we're at it, both the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Royals are named after institutions that get meat to your plate, so they should be out, too. Also the Cowboys and Spurs, whose names refer explicitly to beef production. And while we're at it, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are out, since the word "buccaneer" describes a method of preparing meat.

(I'm kidding here, taking the rule so seriously, but the fact that taking it seriously yields such absurd results is a pretty good argument against any blanket rule against food-related team names.)

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

This is the worst identity I have ever seen.

Ugly logo. Embarassing name. Bad colors. Everything screams awful.

I have a feeling this identity might not see the light of day.

It also breaks what is now my Rule #1 for team identities: Don't name your team after something you might find on your dinner plate.

See also the Moorhead (MN high school) Spuds, and just down I-80 a ways from the Chops, the UIF's Omaha Beef.

Just to be clear: You're against the names of the Florida Marlins, Chicago Bulls, Milwaukee Bucs, Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and St. Louis Rams, too, right? I've eaten meat from all six of those animals.

And while we're at it, both the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Royals are named after institutions that get meat to your plate, so they should be out, too. Also the Cowboys and Spurs, whose names refer explicitly to beef production. And while we're at it, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are out, since the word "buccaneer" describes a method of preparing meat.

(I'm kidding here, taking the rule so seriously, but the fact that taking it seriously yields such absurd results is a pretty good argument against any blanket rule against food-related team names.)

names like the Rams, Sharks, ducks are fine, but naming a team the pork chops, or rib roast is something out of a fantasy hockey league.

i'm still waiting for the realization of teh Fighting Fois Gras

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

But even if Iowa's logo is passable, the "Iowa Chops" could be the worst nickname in professional hockey; yes, I am taking into account the Syracuse Crunch and the Columbus Blue Jackets, who were named for a fictitious insect before they decided to go all Civil War nostalgia on us.

just wanted to take issue with the blue jacket statement in the article. while not recognized as a blue jacket, but being in the same wasp family as the Yellow Jacket, i do want to present a blue jacket for all intents and purposes.

Wow. What the hell is that?

Also, FWIW, the Civil War thing has been with the Blue Jackets ever since the beginning. They just muddied the waters by using a bug as their secondary. Kind of like the "We're no longer the Devil Rays" with their twinkle of sunlight and Devil Ray sleeve patch - trying to play off both meanings of the name only waters down its meaning.

i don't know but its a pretty sweet looking wasp. as for the bj's identity, they would have been better off just playing off the civil war imagery and leaving the bee off it. out of curiousity was it a bee or was it a wasp they were portraying. i know most names like the yellow jackets, hornets are wasps.

[Gothamite]

I don't know exactly what the hell this was supposed to be. But as you can see, the Civil War imagery was always there.

You're right - they would have been much better off forgetting any wasp imagery and just going Union. Eventually, they got it right.

[illwauk]

If that were suddenly my teams new name, especially after being the classy looking Iowa Stars, I'd never go to another game again.

The c?h?o?p?s logo just creeps me the hell out. Just imagining the sound that pig is making hurts my ears right into my brain.

If they polls show 70% negative, then did they actually test this thing first? How does something so important to a team get this far and then get received so poorly?

RedEye's version is so much better it's not even funny. Nice work and I really like the wordmark.

Chalk it up to the AHL's ineptness when it comes to marketing. When the Milwaukee Admirals put out their new logo a couple years ago, the response on OnMilwaukee.com was at least 80% negative, yet they kept the pee wee league pirate on their sweaters (effectively killing one of the coolest minor league identities that existed). To add some more lighter fluid to this effigy, I've had at least 3 people PM me and ask what team that pirate/skull logo in my signature is for. I never got that with the previous logo. Not that I'm a marketing person, but replacing an identifiable logo with one that makes it necessary to ask questions about what it represents probably isn't the best way to go.

Back to Iowa... I'd just as soon have them be the Des Moines Buccaneers... at least that has history.

[Gothamite]

Chalk it up to the AHL's ineptness when it comes to marketing. When the Milwaukee Admirals put out their new logo a couple years ago, the response on OnMilwaukee.com was at least 80% negative

And yet they're selling more merchandise than they ever did before.

Online polls should never be taken seriously as an indicator of public opinion. They're fun, but nothing more.

[BallWonk]

Chalk it up to the AHL's ineptness when it comes to marketing. When the Milwaukee Admirals put out their new logo a couple years ago, the response on OnMilwaukee.com was at least 80% negative

And yet they're selling more merchandise than they ever did before.

Online polls should never be taken seriously as an indicator of public opinion. They're fun, but nothing more.

Exactly. According to online polls, Ron Paul is the landslide winner of the Republican presidential nomination. Also according to online polls, "Devil Rays" and "River Bandits" are good team names. He's not, and they're not, and that's all anyone needs to know about the value of online voting.

There's a larger lesson here: Any name, except for the dread compounds of unrelated adjective/noun pairs, can be good. What makes a team name work is not whether it's threatening or intimidating or "serious" or in other ways like familiar existing names. What makes a name work is its history and how the team builds an identity around the name. New names lack history, and so must rely entirely on the team's use of the name in the larger branding context, and that's why Chops is such a failure. There's nothing inherently good or bad about the name -- there is no objective justification for considering Chops a bad name but Yankees a good name -- but the larger identity-building by the team is so poorly done that it makes the name unattractive. If the Iowa Chops had debuted with a good logo, the quality of the logo would have made the name seem like a stroke of genius.

[Sodboy13]

If the Iowa Chops had debuted with a good logo, the quality of the logo would have made the name seem like a stroke of genius.

True. The concept in this thread is magnificent-looking. And yet, there would still be the issue of being the second "pig" team in the division, even if the logo was superior to the cartoonish crap of the IceHogs and didn't implement a similar color scheme.

[daschuck77]

If that were suddenly my teams new name, especially after being the classy looking Iowa Stars, I'd never go to another game again.

The c?h?o?p?s logo just creeps me the hell out. Just imagining the sound that pig is making hurts my ears right into my brain.

If they polls show 70% negative, then did they actually test this thing first? How does something so important to a team get this far and then get received so poorly?

RedEye's version is so much better it's not even funny. Nice work and I really like the wordmark.

This is only going to wind up a guerrilla marketing success story just like the Sabres unveiling where so much negative attention initially was spun positive perception...

Even the C?H?O?P?S' website is tauting how the hockey world is oddly enough focused on an Iowa AHL team only 91 days away from the Season. They are spinning away...even with a 60 percent disapproval rate...

Clever...there are so many puns you can run with when trying to market this team...

I guess as long as the on ice product is marginally more successfull than the Iowa Stars, the CHOPS won't be licked...ha ha.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs...TS1403/80709018