Dumbest Name In Hockey

If you're a fan of the New York Islanders, you're likely also a fan of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers who play an hour north of the Barclay Center where the Islanders call home. It's an easy commute of the Islanders need to call a player up while on a homestand, but the players they'll be calling up next season won't be Tigers. The logo you see to the left is the new logo for the Bridgeport Islanders, the rechristened name of the Tigers, who will reinforce the Islanders' presence in Connecticut or something moving forward. The AHL team, like the Binghamton Devils who will become the Utica Devils, will now have the same team name as its NHL affiliate.

This has to be the dumbest rename in the history of hockey simply due to geography. Using Google maps, let's take a look at the satellite image of Bridgeport, Connecticut and the surrounding area.

What don't you see in that image? If you said "an island", you're today's grand-prize winner! Bridgeport does not have an island upon which the AHL team plays which makes this "Islanders" name rather confusing. How can a team be the "Islanders" without actually being on an island? That's like calling a team based in the United States by the name "Canadians". It makes no sense.

For those asking, the "Bridgeport Sound Tigers" name incorporates a few very smart ideas. First off, the team is located in Bridgeport, so there's no trouble figuring that part out. The "Sound" part comes from the city being located on the estuary known as the "Long Island Sound", and the New York Islanders play on Long Island which allows for a direct link between the NHL and AHL club with this addition to their name. The "Tigers" part of the name comes from the main attraction at Bridgeport's Beardsley Zoo, but also brings forth a little history as PT Barnum, the circus magnate, was once mayor of Bridgeport.

In short, the "Bridgeport Sound Tigers" name tied in civic, historical, geographical, affiliate, and cultural links in one team name. There aren't a lot of teams out there that can claim that, but the Tigers certainly had that going for them. The logo was, at worst, a fairly rudimentary depiction of a tiger, but there was the imagery of water around the exterior border of the tiger image which ties the logo back to the estuary's imagery as well. In short, the menacing tiger logo worked well for a minor-pro hockey team, and the elements of the team name were included in the logo to wrap everything up in a nice little package.

The logo at the top of the page? I'll let the Islanders' marketing team explain the imagery because there's all sorts of grasping at straws happening here.

You can be forgiven if you didn't immediately recognize the traditional "NY" posing as the hockey tape because that "Y" is missing the hockey stick normally found in the NHL Islanders' logo. It's literally half of a "Y"... meaning it's not a "Y" at all. If anything, it looks like an "M" which could stand for "mistake" or "miss" because I'm not sure that "NY" comes close to pulling its weight.

The stick "B" makes very little sense other than to include a hockey stick somewhere in this logo that doesn't completely overshadow the "B". The NHL Islanders also grasp for a straw in turning Bridgeport into "bridge" despite the city being named for the bridge that crosses the harbour. Stating that the AHL club will be the bridge for future generations of New York Islanders hockey feels less like a clever use of imagery and more like stating the obvious. That's never good when playing off a city's name as the people of Bridgeport do have civic pride for their city's place in US history.

The "Colours of Champions" seems redundant considering that the Tigers already wore the same colours of the New York Islanders. What makes this claim a little more puzzling is that they've only played for the Calder Cup once in 2001-02, and only have two division championships to boast in their twenty-year history. For the NHL Islanders to impose their own championship status from forty years ago onto the AHL Islanders who have missed the playoffs ten times and haven't won a playoff round since 2003 is just tacky.

So to recap:

• No island.
• No civic, historical, geographical, affiliate, and cultural links tying Bridgeport to the new logo.
• A terrible use of "NY" to try to link the two teams.
• Brutal incorporation of "bridge" in Bridgeport.
• Zero championship history for a team that already was wearing orange and blue.

Can someone explain to me why are they called the "Bridgeport Islanders" again if not for the NHL club's own vanity? Why wreck a smart team name and logo when changing the name was neither wanted nor needed?

With the logo feeling like a grade-school redesign and the name making absolutely no sense, this is a total failure by the New York Islanders to establish some sort of stronger connection to their AHL affiliate. If nothing else, they've completely made the community of Bridgeport irrelevant in their own logo which means that it's harder for casual fans to buy into the ideas and imagery presented by the new logo.

For a team who sported the Fisherman that was universally panned, you've officially done it again, New York Islanders. Congratulations on the grade of "F" for this logo.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!