Login

jtam · 06-04-2021, 02:44 AM

Ready to be Graded - 1604 words
I was fascinated by this question in the Championship Week that I actually sat down and thought about it in a 15 minute brainstorming session. I will be very transparent and up front that I pursued this exercise to somehow make the Steelhawks win this because me sad Texas shot the Steelhawks. So, there is inherent bias in this media piece. You can make an argument that a Steelhawk can be crushed by a Dragon, or melted by its fire, or hunted by magnets devised by a crime syndicate, or shot out of the sky with rockets fired from a Platoon. Perfectly fine arguments. I just wanted flush out some random thoughts I had about this exercise that I could not fit into 150 words.

Let us recap what the 18 SHL Teams are:
Atlanta Inferno
Baltimore Platoon
Buffalo Stampede
Chicago Syndicate
Hamilton Steelhawks
Manhattan Rage
New England Wolfpack
Tampa Bay Barracuda
Toronto North Stars

Calgary Dragons
Edmonton Blizzard
Los Angeles Panthers
Minnesota Monarchs
New Orleans Specters
San Francisco Pride
Seattle Argonauts
Texas Renegades
Winnipeg Aurora

I also did not include the expansion teams (Montreal Patriots and Philadelphia Forge), as they'd fall under Humans, and the other is an inanimate object that doesn't really do anything unless manned by a human.

I will lump together a few of the logos into groups that are somewhat similar.

Humans:
Baltimore Platoon – When I think platoon, I think of military units. A platoon of soldiers.
Chicago Syndicate – The Mob, The Mafia. A Crime Syndicate, though I do get a 1920s or 1960s vibe when you talk about a crime syndicate.
Minnesota Monarchs – While there are still monarchies in the world today, they definitely feel a bit like they are merely figureheads, and for show only. We can go medieval but going back in time to old technology seems like a bad direction to take.
Seattle Argonauts – Boatmen. They will hunt the Barracuda well.
Texas Renegade – The newly crowned Champions. Unfortunately, the name invokes a sense of old Western movies, with 6 shooters. Not sure their lack of technology will help them in this fight.

Animals:
Buffalo Stampede – I am going to assume it is a stampede of buffalo.
Manhattan Rage - I struggled to find a proxy for “Rage”, as it is an abstract term. I could not exactly figure it out, so I went with their logo, which is a Bull.
New England Wolfpack – Quite simply, a pack of wolves.
Tampa Bay Barracuda – Bitey fish in the sea.
Edmonton Blizzard - I also struggled to find a proxy for “Blizzard” as it is more of a weather system, than anything else, but their logo is a wolf (I think)
Los Angeles Panthers – Panthers. Not sure if they come from Wakanda and have their technology, but I will lean towards no.
San Francisco Pride – A pride of Lions.

Mythical Creatures:
Hamilton Steelhawks – Hawks made of Steel. Are they robotic? Can their heft allow them to actually fly? Is it literally a gargoyle that cannot move? What are they?
Calgary Dragons – Dragons. Always hunted in medieval literature. Murdered by pointy sticks sometimes. Or by wizards. But they tend to always be defeated.
New Orleans Specters – Spooby Ghosts. More on them later.

Abstract Entities:
Atlanta Inferno – The first of the abstract entities. An Inferno is just a lot of fire. Which can do a lot of damage and kill a lot of things. Can be contained though. Looking at the state of wild forest fire infernos, takes a lot to stop.
Winnipeg Aurora - Solar Wind disturbances to the Magnetosphere that produces lots of pretty lights
Toronto North Stars – How are we using stars in this sense? See below.

With the groupings out of the way, I will begin my brain dump of ideas.

First of all, is this a tournament of 1v1? Because matchups do play a big part in this. Is this a battle royale melee? Do the abstract entities, can they move into the battlefield? Because if that is the case, the North Stars immediately win by pretty much engulfing the battlefield, destroying everything. Can the abstract entities move? Or will Polaris stay where it is, and thus unable to affect the battlefield? Is it last entity standing wins? Can Steelhawks die of old age? Do they eat? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Disregarding everything I just said and just looking at this objectively, I have these thoughts.

Right off the bat, I am eliminating anything that is not Mythical or an Abstract Entity. Humans and animals can be easily killed / eliminated. Most forms of literature or entertainment depicts humans and animals against each other and … easily killed. Even if you have a lot of them, say a stampede of them, or a crime syndicate, or a bunch of kings, or a bunch of underwater fish, they are easily vanquished by any of the mythical creatures or abstract entities. I will interject here about Steelhawks. I see them as high-flying maneuverable metal missiles that can dive bomb and dodge, with flying giving them a big advantage in combat.

Eliminated: Baltimore, Chicago, Minnesota, Seattle, Texas, Buffalo, Manhattan, New England, Tampa Bay, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Francisco.

Remaining: Calgary Dragons, Hamilton Steelhawks, New Orleans Specters, Atlanta Inferno, Winnipeg Aurora, Toronto North Stars

The next logo I would eliminate here is the Dragons. Dragons are formidable and can decimate everything with their jaws and their fire breath. They would give the Steelhawks a massive tough fight. But I am forever haunted by the fact that Dragons were defeated in Game of Thrones by a dude with a pointy stick. Now, imagine all the divebombing Steelhawks, which can become maneuverable dragon seeking sticks that can dodge. I will give Steelhawks the edge (yes. Bias.)

Eliminated: Baltimore, Chicago, Minnesota, Seattle, Texas, Buffalo, Manhattan, New England, Tampa Bay, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Calgary

Remaining: Hamilton Steelhawks, New Orleans Specters, Atlanta Inferno, Winnipeg Aurora, Toronto North Stars

Here is where things become super hypothetical. Who knows what can happen here. In a matchup of these remaining 5 logos, two of these entities do not actually do anything by themselves.

Specters (I will proxy them as “Ghosts”) have an incorporeal form and cannot do anything themselves unless they “take-over” or possess something else, thus in essence, they themselves are not doing anything, their possessed objects are the things that are actually doing something. If they cannot “take-over” or possess anything, they cannot do anything. They are eliminated.

Auroras are literally colorful lights in the sky that are caused by solar winds from big star of fire (usually the sun in our solar system). They do not exactly do anything but look pretty and have no offensive capabilities. If you extend their powers to magnetism, I guess they may affect the Steelhawks by causing them to stick to each other (or crush them like Magneto). But as Auroras themselves do not have possession of magnetic powers, they are eliminated as they cannot do damage.

This leaves the Steelhawks against two entities of fire. I’ll discuss the Inferno first. An inferno can be of a large magnitude, but one can does not compare an inferno (which we can have on Earth), with the size and scale of a star. As Polaris, the north star, is 46 times larger than the sun, I can safely assume that the North Stars will engulf the Inferno. While Steelhawks can become metal missiles that can decimate anything in its path (and be able to maneuver around and fly), they cannot match themselves against a literal ball of super-hot fire and will melt. That is unless the Toronto North Stars are more of the “celebrity stars from Canada”, then they fall into the human category, or worse yet, they are literally the Leafs, as their logo seems to depict, where anything with the number 3-1 puts them into a catatonic shock and unable to do anything.

So in the end, I would say the Toronto North Stars win this battle royale, unless the caveats I mentioned earlier are true. And once again, even in this mythical battle of SHL Team logos, you cannot escape the Great Lakes.