Retro Revamp for Logo Champ
Tuesday · Jun 30 · 2009 | 8:36 AM PDTWhy repair what's not broken? Tradition is a common response in this sport. The only thing that bothers me about it.
The London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League officially announced last month their intentions to sport a new — or old, rather — look for the next season. Interestingly, they didn't even bother to post their own news release on their web site, but rather borrow from Ryan Pyette of the London Free Press.
The Knights recently updated their web site to reflect the new symbol, seen here to the left. I'm all for a throwback except for when it goes out of its way to be aesthetically unpleasing. Which I feel like this does.
What I will give them is the new shades of green and gold. Huge improvements over the previous design. That's what you should be seeing on a hockey jersey.
GM Mark Hunter said, "When we took over the team, we didn't know what that Spider-Man Knight thing was. We wanted to go back to the old look, the green-and-white."
I half-agree with him. That logo was always a little off. While I don't know where he got "Spider-Man" from, it never seemed like it was balanced quite right. Despite its lack of clean, sharp design elements, this new logo is actually balanced.
However, I think hundreds of Icethetics readers and fans might disagree. After all, it was just over a year ago that the previous incarnation of the London logo beat out 19 others and was declared the best in the OHL by voters here. And not two months later, deemed to have the overall best logo of the 60 Canadian Hockey League clubs.
I think there could be no better reason to call a rematch. As we move into the summer, I plan to relaunch a feature that allows Icethetics readers to do what they do best: Express your opinion and vote! Logo tournaments will be back with a new format and everything. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After the Knights unveiled their new logo, shouldn't a jersey have followed? Reebok has infiltrated even the OHL now and has deemed it inappropriate for any team to unveil their new look prior to the giant, soul-crushing corporation's say-so. Or more accurately, "The OHL has a new sweater agreement with Reebok so teams have to wait for the cue in early September." Right.
So we'll wait until then to see it, but in the meantime, the article says to expect something from the early days circa 1968-70. For a better idea of what that means, we visit KnightsHistory.com, an offshoot of the Knight's official web site. See the following image.
;)
I really hope Knights fans are happy with this. I mean it's for you guys anyway. It just seems like taking a giant leap backwards. On one hand, yes, it truly looks like a hockey sweater. But on the other, "Those sharp-looking green third jerseys are done," writes Pyette.
Being a Lightning fan, I don't think I deserve a vote. So let's hear from some Ontarians. (Is that what you're called?) Is the retro look an improvement or did the Knights already have the best logo in all of Canadian junior hockey?
Reader Comments (21)
the spider man logo was released in 94-95
why are they changing a good logo?
Wow i just bought a frickin pat kane with the good logo. I hate that old logo. But its better thatn the spider man... that was a horrible idea.
I think they're all bad.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This may be the WORST logo in the OHL now. (Well, competing with the Bulls, IceDogs, Otters, Wolves, Spitfires, Storm, and Attack.)
Decent new look.
I love the retro logo. I absolutely agree with the "spiderman thing" logo sentiment, not terrible just too modern.
Really I'm just happy they are getting rid of black from their colour scheme. Black is so cliche and overused in sports thesedays. Not that the Knights looked bad, for having too much black, they had tasteful sweaters.
Thanks for the OHL news Chris, There's going to be a lot of OHL/QMJHL/WHL news coming with the Reebok edge conversiion. Any chance you'll be keeping us up to date on that front?
i really feel we need the banners on this website! have them going across. i mean we did vote for those chris, and it would look band ass!!
The Gens still have the best retro stuff in the OHL and the CHL.
Granted. I'm not from London or even Ontario, but I really like that logo. Does a good job of mixing the retro style crest with a more modern wordmark. Way better than that "spiderman" design (great description).
I think "Iron Man" would have been a better description than "Spider-Man." The throwback uni's look great btw.
As a person who was born and raised in London, Im pleased. The "Spider-knight" jersey was a terrible idea by a terrible team owner who said they wanted to do away with a losing tradition...and adversly the knights put up a 3-60-3 record. Knights fans called that teal and eggplant monstrosity the Spider-knight jersey and probably where Mark Hunter took Spider man thingy from. I personally, although I loved the logo, never liked the black jerseys...too much black and not enough green...which i feel is what the knights true colour is. Im happy to see an old logo make its return..although my favourite remains the L-knight as I'll call it. But a return to green is wonderful.
For those of you who are confusing the Knights most recent logo for what Hunter described as "that Spider-man knight thing", here is a link to the logo he was referring to.
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/logos/ohl/london_knights_2001.gif
yea I'm from London and the spider knight was this messed up purple and green thing that was the logo before the hunters bought the team
That's not going to be the new sweater, that's going to be the new THIRD sweater. That's why Pyette said "those sharp looking green third jerseys are done." They'll still be in their home black and road whites with the current logo for most of their games.
+1 Knights. That "Spiderman" logo is laughably bad.
I would say that a hybrid between the two logos would probably be best. Maybe use the colours and balance from the old and mix it with the sharpness of the new....
disgusting
Yeah, that late-90s "Spider-Man"-type logo was F-U-G-L-Y.
I liked the recent uniforms. The sweater design is like what the North Stars should've been wearing had they stayed in Minnesota (still sore about that), or what the Dallas Stars should be wearing now (instead of those ridiculously ultra-plain shirts). And the currently-outgoing Knights logo is probably one of the best designs to come out of the '80s ever - sharp, clean, elegant. The older logo is just plain clunky; I could see a third jersey that was a throwback design, but as a main? Not so much.
I like them both. Chris is right about the colours of the was-old-now-new one, those are great. And while I liked the was-current-now-old logo, it didn't really look like a Knight to me. Over all I guess I'd give it to the old-now-new one. Looking forward to seeing the full uniforms.
In Case Nobody Knows, The Knights Are Using That Primary. (I Got The Info From SportsLogos.net)