Hockey Player for Life

I've been really busy of late, so I haven't been able to keep up with my logo posts. However, I got this email from a friend, and I am happy to pimp his book on my site. So take a look:

In anticipation of the October 7th release date of Howard Shapiro's new book, "Hockey Player For Life", Supersonic Storybook Productions (SSP) is very pleased to announce that the book's back cover will feature quotes in praise of it from noted hockey writer and author Brian Kennedy and ESPN's John Buccigross.

"Having attended Book Expo Canada in Toronto in June, I came away really energized," said Howard Shapiro. "I received a lot of good feedback about the book and decided to tweak the front cover a bit and I think we've now got a great cover that will hopefully entice folks to pick up the book and check it out. As far as the story itself, I've received some rave reviews from the hockey blogging community. The folks who have read the pre-release electronic version of the book have enjoyed it thoroughly."

"And through the youtube video I've been able to target and reach a worldwide audience of hockey fans eager for a story about the sport they are so passionate about. In six weeks my contacts on youtube have gone from about 130 to over 1,000 and my website mailing list and myspace contacts have both doubled in size as well. My viral marketing campaign will continue through the rest of summer to hopefully continue to build a buzz for the book."

"It was a phenomenal honor to have Brian Kennedy, who's book "Growing Up Hockey" was a great influence on my writing along with the great John Buccigross contribute to the back cover of the book. Having the opportunity to work with them along with Keith Primeau means a tremendous amount to me and I cannot thank them all enough for their time and efforts."

Excerpts of a review of "Hockey Player For Life" by K. Kniazev - The story kept me involved the whole time. I particularly enjoyed the twist in the story and I think that just about anybody who ever played a sport as a kid, in school, in college, etc… can relate to this. Even though I have never played hockey, I could easily identify with all of the trials and tribulations which Tom goes through. This is absolutely an every-athlete book with an excellent teen appeal. I think - if I were 13 - I would just as easily dig in to the book. You did an amazing job writing this from the perspective of a teen, and have put together a fantastic collection of thoughts and situations. I can already see this book being a great success. For some reason, I pictured this as a movie script with a great story that could easily translate from the written to the visual.

The "Hockey Player For Life" video can be seen at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfkIl1VMakE

Howard was a recent guest on "The Book Chick" show which is broadcast from Regina, Saskatchewan on CJTR FM: http://www.cjtr.ca/index

For a sneak peek of "Hockey Player For Life" and for further information, please log onto www.howardshapiro.net

To receive the electronic version of "Hockey Player For Life" please contact Supersonic Storybook Productions at 866.520.4286 or send an email to howard.shapiro@hotmail.com

Ranking the Five Worst Logos in Hockey: #3

Minnesota Wild


The Wild went for an abstract idea rather than an actual, tangible thing for their team name. Now it's not a bad name, the Wild sounds pretty cool, and it's at least as good as the Ducks and much better than the Blue Jackets (seriously, WTF kind of mascot name is that?). However, it's pretty hard to come up with a logo for an abstract idea. Apparently the designers who made the logo decided that a "Wild" is a cat-like looking thing with some Christmas trees in the background. The Wild picked a great color scheme (they pull of the Evergreen green and dark red better than the Devils did), but their logo leaves a lot to be desired. It's hard to tackle an abstract idea like the Wild, but if they couldn't have come up with something good, maybe they should have just spelled Wild or Minnesota diagonally across their jersey (I LOVE when teams do that). But no, they went with this animal/forest/desert moon hybrid and it just has too much going on.

Ranking the Five Worst Logos in Hockey: #4

In this installment of the worst logos in hockey, I'm taking a look at the New York Islanders. Their logo is one of the ugliest in the NHL. While the fact that they turn the Y in NY into a hockey stick is pretty cool, the Islanders color scheme is what kills the logo. I am not a fan of the orange and blue mixture that they have going on. It's an eye-sore. The Islanders current logo is a slightly darker shade of blue than their original logo (which also sucked).
The Islanders tried a new logo for a couple of years in the 90's, but the new fisherman logo was so bad that they reverted back to the circular logo that they currently have now. Here is the Fisherman logo that they used from 1995 to 1997:
No matter which direction the Islanders go, it seems, they can't figure out a way to mix blue and orange and come up with something that looks good. Hopefully they'll wise up and try a different color combination.

Ranking the Five Worst Logos in Hockey: #5

So one of the reasons hockey is my favorite team sport is that the logos are so much better than they are in any other team sport. The sweater allows the logo to be prominently displayed, so it is important that a team has an appealing logo. Over the next few weeks, I will be ranking my favorite five, and my least favorite five logos. Just because a team makes the list, it does not reflect how much I like the team or not. I am basing this solely off the logo design. I will start with my least favorite logos beginning with the fifth worst (#1 being the absolute worst) logo which goes to...

Buffalo Sabres



The Sabres logo is one of my least favorite logos in the NHL because of one factor: it looks like a yellow slug. I realize that upon further study, it is obvious that it is a buffalo and not a slug, but that brings me to my next point: you would never know that Buffalo were the Sabres from that logo. Nowhere on the logo do I see any reference to a curved sword. The logo is more geared towards the city in which the team plays, rather than their mascot (which is what the other 29 teams in the NHL try to depict with their logo). The Sabres had a nice mix of their city and their mascot with their original logo:
I don't know why they completely went away from the Sabre when they changed their colors back to blue and yellow.