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+---- Thread: S81 PT #2: Place To Be (/showthread.php?tid=141601)
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - TipToasty - 03-02-2025
Written Option 2
Expansion needs a lot of elements to work together successfully to work well. To start, the team’s name and mascot need to match expectations of the national audience and resonante with the local community. A quality logo and brand is to draw people in, and the successful integration of that branding is vital. The team needs an image - the bad boys of hockey, skilled goal scorers, the all-Americans. They also need one or more key personalities. They don’t have to be superstars, but they need to be figures the public cares about, both local and national. Finally, you need some success in the first five years. It doesn’t have to be a cup, but some form of growth and competitiveness is important. Utah HC is an interesting example as they have no name or mascot yet, but have made moves and attempted to built an image based around winning sooner than later.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - swoosh - 03-02-2025
Graphic Option 1: Create an image of your player enjoying the stay at home city of another team.
![[Image: 2HcpRMk.png]](https://i.imgur.com/2HcpRMk.png)
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Sburbine - 03-02-2025
Written options 2
Location, location, location! Actually not really, I don't think where the team is really matters as long as it's not somewhere insane (looking at you PBE). The biggest thing to liking expansion teams is it's logo and name. For the logo is has to look cool without being too complicated, it can't look cheap like a bad AHL logo, we want professional logos that look like they would be acceptable in real life. The esthetic of the logo needs to match with good looking jersey colors and the logo itself needs to look good on the front of the jersey. That all may sound complicated but pretty much every team in the league follows this so it can't be too hard. In terms of name, it has to be something catchy and at least a little threatening, you don't want other teams to laugh at you because the name is dorky. The way the team looks is clearly the most important thing, the location will always come second.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - kenvald - 03-02-2025
Option 2
A good expansion team definitely needs a catchy name, but also much more than that. For the locals to truly rally behind their new team, it needs to have a strong connection to the area. Be it through some historical references either in the team name or its branding, or something more modern and cultural to embrace what the city has become and what it's known for today.
Another key aspect is of course the branding: The logo, jerseys, and merchandise. As we've experienced many times in SHL's history, if you bring in an underwhelming or confusing brand for a team you'll quickly get shot down and ridiculed until HO locks the thread.
One impressive expansion team's name and branding from recent years is the Atlanta Inferno.The name touches upon the city's history, and the logo representing the city being reborn from the ashes of past wars. Plus, it looks really good.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Massive Coiler - 03-02-2025
Written Option 1
Antonio Flusso is a big fan of any of the warm weather cities around the league. A quick break from the snow is always welcome during the winter months of a long, cold, drawn out season. Hotlanta being a little too damp and San Fransisco bringing up too many bad memories of championships lost, that leaves another divisional opponent and another Californian team as the top choice. Flusso has seen a lot of playoff action in Tampa Bay, and is frankly unable to enjoy himself there. Along with Atlanta, who he may be able to overlook the countless playoff series' if it wasn't for the type of heat, these two are off the table. This leaves the Los Angeles Panthers as the clear choice for favorite city. No horrific finals losses against them, no damp air or Floridian peoples wandering the streets. Los Angeles has all the appeal that Flusso, as a vain and celebrity driven personality, could possibly want. He loves mingling in the parties, going out to the clubs to try to find recognizable characters. He will probably retire to this city when his hockey career is over in a hopeless attempt to improve his post-career endorsements and appearances in the media.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - karey - 03-02-2025
Expansion is one of those fun subjects to talk about because you get to hypothesize and Dream up team names and logos and what is best for this league. I would say that one of the things that I’m looking for with an expansion franchise is a sense of place. A good place that we could start looking into expand in is Mexico City or a team maybe outside of North America with the intention of spreading the game globally. We are a simulation hockey league from people all around the world. There’s no reason that all our teams are just based in North America America, especially when many of our members are from international places.
I think a good city could be London and Oslo, Norway, and Frankfurt, Germany these are major cities in Europe that are not a who played yet and have a strong hockey culture established already and part of the growing SHL would be to attract members from these places in the world and have them celebrate being part of our league.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - MrPresident - 03-02-2025
Option 2
To make a good brand and location, particularly for expansion, I think referencing the city's history and unique culture in some way is necessary. Whether it's drawing colour inspiration from the city crest, or referencing a notable landmark, I think showing that you looked into the city and want to represent the city well is really important. You can do good branding without explicitly referencing the team's history and culture and such (take for example Atlanta Inferno, who have fantastic branding). But teams that reference something about the city or region thoughtfully are S tier. A fantastic example of that is the Quebec City Citadelles. I think little details, like the skyline in the Panthers logo are always great touches. I also recognize that there's only so many colour combinations you can do that look good - both together, and with the branding of the team and such, but it would be cool to have new colour combinations come to the league. And tying colour combinations back to history, a great example is Tampa Bay Barracuda, which has a fantastic colour combination (with an absolutely UGLY logo), but they're a Tampa team using the Miami Vice colour wave...but yeah, we don't need more red and white/black teams, for example. Region is important as well - bring us an Atlantic Canadian SHL team!
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - CrazyMojito - 03-02-2025
PT Pass
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Steelflex - 03-02-2025
2: I think the most important for a new brand in just about any league is having a real idea you're passionate and really building something off of it. A catchy/funny name is all well and good but it's ideal to pick a location you have some sort of a connection to or a passion for that will allow you to draw from real life cultures and examples to tie into ideas not only for your team's visual identity, but also their social and cultural identity. Just as an example, I've always liked to set up my fictional teams in a location like Hawaii and then drawing on historical and cultural elements of the people that lived there in the past as well as those who live there now to make a team that really feels grounded and connected to their city. I think as long as someone is willing to put in that level of work to make a team feel like it has some real depth to it, the rest will fall into place.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Aephino - 03-02-2025
The most important aspect of an expansion team should probably be the location first. In this day and age, we are seeing a lot more unique hockey team locations, and not just the stereotypical ones of "Chicago" or "Los Angeles" or other usual large markets. And picking one that is fun and interesting is going to draw the attention of players wanting to play for that team. The second part would be putting it alongside a mascot or brand that fits the location, and has some meaning behind it. Once you have these together, finishing it off with the right logo and color scheme is vital to make sure your fans are repping that brand and logo everywhere they go. You want a logo that you are proud of, and other teams are jealous of. And the logo should also be very identifiable - maybe not completely "minimalist" (as we see in many rebrands IRL) - but should be quickly recognizable!
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Tripl3tsGamer - 03-02-2025
Written option 1:
Volta doesn’t really have a preference for the city that he visits with the games. In fact, he really likes the history of the city that he visits. Whenever it’s a rival city, a city near him or a city in the complete east of it, he loves to discover the story around that city. Historical monuments, museums, historical arts, historical buildings or good local food, Volta will try everything to entertained his brain. Sometimes, he comes with his colleagues to visit the best places on a city. Even if they don’t have too much time to spend outside of the arena. They will do their best to visit the most of it, but they will continue once they are coming back to that city. I think, in my opinion, it’s the best way to pass the time, to make a refresh of the mind, to get curious, to learn something new and having fun of course. Travelling city to city is the best way to know well the world around you.
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - oknom - 03-02-2025
Man its tough already being in one of the few warm weather cities for SHL teams. California just isn’t that appealing when you already have access to beaches on the Gulf of Mexico! That being said, I do think Los Angeles gives the best alternatives for an extended stay. Nowhere else in the league can you experience Hollywood parties and extravagance. You will need to know some people to get into the best parties though, so its always a good idea to have a friend on the Panthers. Good thing Teemu Salami and Dunkler go back to their Detroit playing days!
Dunkler also enjoys the occasional long stay in New Orleans and Baltimore. Baltimore itself is OK, but its really about getting into DC to experience the monuments, museums, and history. But don’t sleep on the Baltimore crab cakes and mambo sauce. New Orleans also is a fun stay for the cajun cuisine, but the atmosphere is also very unique. Beware the late February road trip to NOLA, and early curfews during Mardi Gras!
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - ThePyroAlpaca - 03-02-2025
![[Image: fcGcKmE.jpeg]](https://i.imgur.com/fcGcKmE.jpeg)
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Toast - 03-02-2025
PBE
RE: S81 PT #2: Place To Be - Shylo_Moxii - 03-02-2025
Option 2
I think as far as Expansion, we need to expand into Europe. Making teams in Europe would further SHL’s gain. The markets such as Stockholm, Helsinki, Moscow, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Amsterdam, etc would be peak form of the league. Yes more travel time, but overall. I think it would make a lot of fans international and we can grow from an inner-league perspective, but at a large Forum scale. I think Europe is just a great place for any type of storylines that people can run with.
I would believe that we have a decent amount of teams in Cities in North America. Especially adding in all of the SMJHL teams. You can probably add teams in some places that have never gotten teams before, but you know that’s precisely the point of going to Europe is using cities that just have never been thought about before.