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NHLToL 2017: Back to Our Roots

This is it! It's May 9, 2017.

Today marks 10 years since the launch of Icethetics — only back then it was known as the NHL Tournament of Logos. I set out in 2007 to determine which NHL team had the best logo based on a popular vote. That simple blog eventually led to the site you see today.

To celebrate the site's milestone 10th anniversary, we're going back to our roots with NHLToL 2017. This is the logo tournament to end all logo tournaments. We'll begin with a field of 93 active NHL logos and — over the course of 10 weeks — narrow it down to just one.

We'll start small and ramp up. The first step is to knock out some of the logo variations that exist around the league — for instance, the royal Blue Note vs. the navy Blue Note. So let's begin there. After this first batch of polls, you'll find an explanation of how this tournament will work.


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How the New Tournament Works

The main event will be a single-elimination bracket of 32 logos. With 31 teams active as of this year, you may be wondering where the 32nd logo comes in. It occurs to me we've never included the NHL shield in any of our past tournaments. Why should it be left out?

To get from 93 to 32, we're beginning with the variations — logos that are the same apart from some minor color or text transpositions. If we're going to do this tournament right, I need to put up every active version of every logo and let the voters decide which one is best.

Obviously there are more the 10 sets seen above. This is just the first batch. Round 2 polls run this weekend and will take care of the other half of the variation sets.

Once we're down to two or three logos per team, we'll have one last preliminary round of voting to decide each club's best mark. Those logos will then enter a 3-week round robin tournament to determine where every logo falls in the bracket.

The bracket is the final word.

If you'd like to see all 93 logos included in this year's tournament, look no further.