After losing the Colorado Eagles to the ECHL last season, the Central Hockey League is expanding back into the Centennial State in 2012 with the addition of the Denver Cutthroats.

The CHL made the announcement about an expansion team in Denver last month, but the team officially unveiled its name, colors and logo today. Interestingly, the new look was created by Denver-based Adrenalin, the same agency also responsible for the Colorado Avalanche and Phoenix Coyotes logos in the NHL.

So it's troubling to see them really miss the mark on this logo. But let's face it, this is a CHL team so I'm assuming they didn't exactly put their "best people" on it. They probably have bigger fish.

So it's a trout in a D with mountains and river rapids. Not a bad idea, but for some reason it ended up looking like it was drawn by an amateur for a logo contest you might find here on Icethetics.

That critique may have been a little harsh, so I'll balance it out. I love the color scheme. Nobody in hockey really uses that shade of green and I don't understand why not. I like that the blue is muted but not necessarily navy. And together with those two colors, the red accent really pops off the screen.

Here's some extra stuff from the team's press release:

“We wanted to be sure the logo included elements and colors that depict the state of Colorado and the city of Denver,” said Adrenalin President Dan Price. “The trout maintains a position between white mountain peaks and river rapids, and breaks through a forward moving ‘D’ — representative of Denver's progressive population.”

The Cutthroat Trout was named Colorado's state fish in 1994.

Jersey designs will probably be unveiled later this summer, but no specific mention was made in the press release.

For more about the team, check out their Facebook page, Twitter feed and official website.

Meantime, what do you think of the logo? Am I being too critical or does it deserve to be fileted? (Sorry, that was the last pun.)