San Jose Barracuda unveil revised logo, uniforms
/San Jose Barracuda, 2018—
The AHL's San Jose Barracuda unveiled their new logo and uniforms on Friday night at the San Jose Sharks Prospects Scrimmage. If it looks very familiar, you're not crazy. The new look is a revision of their existed branding without one key feature — the Barracuda Networks logo.
When the Barracuda franchise arrived in San Jose in 2015 as part of the AHL's California expansion, they entered a unique corporate partnership with the network security company. That partnership included having the Barracuda Networks logo embedded into the team logo and uniform.
San Jose Barracuda, 2015—2018
In case you're not familiar with the company, here's a look at their logo.
Barracuda Networks logo
You can clearly see the same toothy shape behind the fish in the team's logo. Take a closer look at the barracuda's teeth and you'll see it repeated.
So it seems the "revolutionary multi-year presenting partnership" announced in 2015 has ended. That's that only reason I can think the team would've bothered to introduce a new logo going into their fourth season. It was probably confusing anyway. "Welcome to the ice... your Barracuda... presented by Barracuda..." Hm.
Anyway, the team has always had a secondary version of their logo with a prominent "SJ" as the base. But dropping the Barracuda Networks logo wasn't the only change. You'll probably need to see them side by side to notice.
First, the whole fish was moved to the right and angled slightly so the tail follows the curvature of the "S" and wraps behind the "J," which now comes to a sharp point at the bottom. The dorsal fin on the barracuda has been exaggerated and so have his "hands" and their position on the stick. But most notably, he's been to the dentist and had his bottom teeth fixed.
And here are the sweaters.
San Jose Barracuda jerseys, 2018—
The design remains the same apart from the new logo — which is disappointing considering a certain missing stripe. Summed up in a single tweet:
Regardless of any of that, I'd call this an overall upgrade. The corporate logo was well integrated into the team's branding three years ago. But personally, I still prefer advertising stay off of hockey sweaters. That's a big ask in the minors so I'll take what I can get.