I have a certain affinity for farm teams..  Of course farm clubs in both hockey and baseball are vital to the development of younger players while giving older players an arms-length shot at making the big leagues.  But for me, it’s small towns being associated with the big leagues.  Edmonton for a long while had the Triple-A Trappers ballclub that was wildly successful and popular before the PCL ripped that away from us (but that’s another blog for another day) but while they were here we saw the likes of Wally Joyner and Miguel Tejada and my personal favorite Fernando Valenzuela pass by town.

The other thing I get a kick out of with farm clubs is the logo and color changes they undergo to sometimes reflect their parent franchise.

The Trappers for instance wore red and white during their days with the Angels and White Sox (who back then also had a red white and blue scheme) and then switched to teal and silver when they became the affiliate of the Florida Marlins and then to green and gold when the Oakland A’s came calling.  Many farm clubs do that… and even go as far as to not only adopt the colors and variation of the logo but just name themselves after their parent club if it looks like the ‘relationship’ will be a long term one.  (Say for instance the Iowa Cubs… or the Pawtucket Red Sox… or Providence Bruins)

As was the case for the Dallas Stars affiliate for the last two years…  The Iowa Stars.

It was slated to be a long term deal the Stars having their farm club in Des Moines, but as fate would have it the Stars after two years realized there was a chance to bring a new AHL team into Texas.. closer to home in nearby Cedar Park staring in 2009.  That left the Iowa club high and dry for this season, but not for long as the Anaheim Ducks came calling and became the parent club for the AHL team.

This time though the management group running the Iowa AHLers were going to go with a totally separate look for their team.

Oink, Oink?!

Oink, Oink?!

Fair enough…  But as you can see to the left, what they trotted out is HORRIBLE!!  The name… the logo… the colors…  Hello Iowa Chops?  Yeah… the London 1012 Olympic logo just called and said you look disgusting!

I don’t know what the AHL policy is…  But I do know that the NBA and NHL have marketing firms that cover these sorts of issues.  An ownership group is pretty much free to name their team whatever they want and give it any kind of logo they want… but they still have to run it by the league to make sure that they themselves will approve lest the entire league look silly for allowing such garbage.

Does the AHL not have such a thing?  Did anyone in the AHL front office not step in and go “Uhh… can’t you guys go with a more traditional, non-foolish sounding name?”  Hell… after spending 30 seconds on Iowa’s Wikipedia page, I can even suggest a better name:  The Iowa Oaks (after the state tree)

But Iowa Chops?  HORRIBLE!!

I feel bad for the hockey fans of Des Moines.  Getting the Ducks as a parent club was bad enough…  this is just kicking them while they are down!