If I was the GM a new expansion franchise, then I know exactly what my new team would be. The team would be placed in Ottawa, Ontario, a city that the SHL hasn’t had a team in yet and quite frankly should have one. Ottawa is one of the biggest cities in Canada and despite being a government city, has a strong fan base for hockey. The team would be named the Gladiators, because gladiators were both badass and excellent athletes. Plus the logo could easily be really badass if done correctly. With two different logos for their regular and alternative jerseys, one would be a stylised gladiator helmet, the other a stylized round gladiator shield. The team colours would be gold, red and black. As a look, I’d want to project a dark, aggressive style to the team so that even if we had a team full of all skill, no toughness players, we’d at least look the part and psych out our opponents.
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Written task (150 words min.): If you were the GM of an expansion franchise, what would your new team be? Where would you place it? What's the team name? Why there? Why that name? Describe your branding, goal song, colors, etc.
If I was the GM of a new expansion franchise, I would definitely want to bring a team to my hometown of Montreal. Montreal has had a few hockey teams names in their lifetime and I think I would use one of them for the site. I would call them the Montreal Maroons. I've always liked the name I felt it had a pretty good ring to it. I know there was a team on the site called the Montreal Impact but I didn't want to use their name. I'd place it somewhere in downtown Montreal, definitely somewhere near a metro station so that it's pretty accessible for everyone. The only reason I'd but it in Montreal is because its my hometown to be completely honest and if I'd have the power to put a team there I'd do it. The name is sort of a tribute to the old Maroons. The colors would definitely be maroon but it needs to be nice.
My idea for an expansion team for the Simulation Hockey League would be a team based out of Nashville to create the Nashville Catfish. Why? Because I have absolutely no idea. Putting me in charge of an expansion team would be a ridiculous idea that should get anyone who made the decision fired. I am in no way shape or form able to lead a team of any kind at this moment, so my idea is to take an area that I'm pretty sure is missing any sort of Simulation Hockey League presence, give a random city in the area a random team that seems accurate, and then let it happen. I'd probably give them some sort of yellow and blue color scheme because I'm entirely unoriginal and have no idea how to handle this, and then ask my buddies who've gotten logos done where they got theirs from. At that point I'd probably wake up, be thankful that was all a dream, then go on doing what I'm happiest doing.
If I were put in charge of an expansion team with all of the control I could ask, I would probably just try to go for the craziest option in every place. The name can't be limited to the city, it has to be nuts. Probably The Fighting Mongooses. Like a horrible high school team. If I had my choice of city I would probably put it in the worst spot available, like a place in Pennsylvania that no one's ever heard of. If they made me pick a real city, I'd probably do Pittsburgh, but if I have full reign, it's going in a little dump like Erie. Maybe I could put it in Easton and get a real good equipment deal for the team. Yes. The Easton Fighting Mongooses. The colors have to be unique. I'm thinking Orange as the primary uniform color. I would use royalty free music for the goal song. The Entertainer (1902) would do nicely.
So to recap. The Easton Fighting Mongooses, orange primary color, The Entertainer as a goal song, and every player must use Easton gear. I think I've built an owner's dream team. The only question now is why am I not in charge of the next expansion?
If I were put in charge of a new expansion team, I'd have went with a team in my home town of San Diego. Naturally, I'd love to bring back to life the San Diego Trash Pandas, of the Simulation Lacrosse League, but the Simulation Hockey League wouldn't really allow that sort of chaotic branding. So I would probably try to make it thematic with the city of San Diego. The San Diego Suds is a name that comes to mind. This would relate to the vibrant and rampant beer industry that is in San Diego. Suds are a nickname for beer and I am a big beer enthusiast. The Suds, would again probably be a name frowned upon in the Simulation Hockey League, so let's look at some other ideas. San Diego is also really known for its military community. They had a brief football team here called the Fleet, which I've always thought was a good name for a San Diego team. So in the end, I would probably go with the San Diego Fleet. This might be an issue, since the Simulation Major Junior Hockey League has a team called the Armada already. Other than that, however I think it's a really good fit for the Simulation Hockey League and the city of San Diego.
If i had the chance to GM an expansion team (that i would never accept because being a GM sucks), i would make it the return of the Portland Admirals. Together with Los Angeles Panthers they had the best color scheme in the entire leagues history, as well as a cool identity to go with it. I would make sure that the franchise would get the respect it deserves, and not be moved to fucking San Francisco to become some stupid franchise like the Pride. Anyways, Portland Admirals is for sure the superior boat franchise, i don't really see any competition. Imagine what the identity could've done if it weren't for that stupid tampering punishment that was harsher than fuck. So anyway, there isn't much i'd change about the Admirals image tbh, the uniforms were sick and the logo, albeit partly stolen or at the very least heavily inspired by a real team, it would take a kick-ass logo to make me want to change it.
Honestly, I'm pretty uncreative and bad at coming up with stuff like this. So I guess I'll go with a team in Kingston, Ontario. Mostly because I just like the city, and also partly because I think we could use more Canadian teams in the big leagues. As for branding, I guess I could just rip off the branding of the current Kingston Frontenacs, the real life OHL team. Color scheme would be the black and gold of the real life Frontenacs, and would more or less mirror them in every way. Ideally, I would have rather had a team be in Boston as the Bruins are my IRL favorite team, but alas we already have New England. The real reason I picked Kingston, and why I like the city in general, is that it holds a lot of sentimental value for me. It was the place I met my boyfriend at for the first time and for that reason the city is very special to me.
I love the opportunity to create a new expansion. My new team would obviously be a hockey team. I would love to create a team based in Nashville. The name of my expansion team in Nashville would be called the Nighthawks. I would put the team in Nashville because I think it is a fantastic city and with an NHL team already there, I am sure they can handle a team. I would call them the Nighthawks mainly because I think it would be a cool name, also batman themed. Our colors would be Black and Blue with a Red trim. I think it would look really cool and frightening at the same time. I would probably use When Everything Means Nothing by Fit For A King as my goal song no real reason I just think it would work nicely as a goal song. But I would probably let players pick an individual goal song.
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For me the easy answer for an expansion team would be the big obvious locations that are still available like Washington, Philadelphia and Montreal. I'm also happy that Seattle seems to be getting one of the expansion teams as it's a location I like and I was sad to see the original Seattle team go. I'm also a fan of the idea that the SMJHL should have smaller teams so that some of those locations would be available for the SHL like Vancouver, St Louis, Colorado, Detroit, but moving those teams now would be problematic with all their history. Finally I also like the idea of having teams out of North America and is where I would like to put a team but that probably wouldn't be allowed since having just one team out of North America would be weird but you have to start somewhere and someone would have to be the first. Also go Uganda Unicorns.
The Arizona Thunderbirds. Originally I thought of the Arizona Phoenix, but that's a little too on the nose I feel. The thunderbirds would use a deep orange and cyan as colors, as well as a brown and creme for accents. Those colors are not used much in the league and would really stand out against the other teams. Their logo would draw inspiration from Southwestern native american art, with depictions of birds with long feathers and intricate designs. This team would draft to contend now, as drafting for the future doesn't always work out, look at Chicago, it took them this long to contend and they still are just squeaking into the playoffs. The Thunderbirds would fit nicely in the Southwest division, maybe bumping NOLA to the east where they belong. In a division like that I see no reason they couldn't storm to the playoffs and make a cup run, especially with clutch Cain in net.
I'd love to put an expansion team in Detroit but considering there's already a SMJHL team there I'd take my team to Seattle. With the NHL just expanding there I think it's a great time to expand there as well. The nickname I would go with would be the Seattle Rainiers, named after the beautiful mountains around Seattle but it's the name of a local popular brewery. The logo would probably be along the lines of the logo you'd see from the Colorado Avs but obviously different. I don't really know how the logo would look like that's why I don't work in marketing or advertising. The colors would feature green as it's a staple of most Seattle sports teams both past and present, the other colors would probably be blue and white. Since this is Seattle there are a lot of grunge rock songs/bands to choose from and I'd go with Would by Seattle's own Alice In Chains.
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1st SHL Goal - S52 Game 1 vs Tampa 3. New England Wolfpack , Jakub Bruchevski 1 (Eko Van Otter 1, Delver Fudgeson 2) at 8:10
When considering an expansion team, I would base it around my real life first, then make it fit into the SHL world. The two areas that I call home are Boston and Seattle, which kind of makes that tricky. With the Wolfpack covering New England, there really isn't any option to do with that here. With Seattle, it could seem kind of cliche to launch a new expansion franchise at the same time as the NHL, but I would maybe take a mirror approach to the Wolfpack and make a Pacific Northwest or Cascadia team. It's less than ideal that a PNW SHL team would overlap the Vancouver and Kelowna teams in the J, however the precedent is there with New England covering Maine. The difference here being that New England came first in that situation.
For branding, I would go full send into a Sasquatch / Bigfoot team because I love campy cryptid shit. My first thought was for a Park Ranger type branding, but I didn't want to fall too close to the NHL Rangers. A Sasquatch branding would be big on greens and browns with maybe white or yellow to round it out. I'm not big on the design aspect, so I don't really know how to finish off the main green / brown that I want.
The arena would naturally be like a very dense forest vibe and similar to the Climate Pledge Arena in real life, it would have to be environmentally focused to fit with the branding. Goal song would need to evoke the feeling of spotting Bigfoot in the forest, I'm thinking something very banjo forward but also heavy drumming.
My expansion team would be the Stockholm Scorpions. I have long supported the idea of a European team, finally expanding our league’s reach outside of North America. It would be reflective of a more inclusive and international community. And what a better place to put the first European team than in the capital of Sweden? As the Swedish Federation Head, “why sweden” should be pretty obvious; I’ve become quite attached to the country and the people. I like alliterative names, so I just tried to come up with something that met that criteria and also sounded cool. Scorpions was the best bet in that department, and leaves the door open for a variety of color schemes and some cool logos. I am thinking orange and blue for that color scheme; this would tie in the fire of a scorpion with the blue of the ocean and the Swedish national colors. They are also complementary colors so it would be aesthetically pleasing if designed correctly. And my goal song is “We Will Rock You” by Queen. Never hurts to keep it simple and go with a beloved classic.