A Masters Hockey survey asked participants to identify the values they considered to be most influential in motivating their continued participation. The findings were surprising and very interesting.
While competition is equally important for both international and social hockey players, the most highly valued components are those recognised to be the beating heart and soul of the global Hockey Family. The order of the most common labels were: Friendship, Ageless, Hockey Federation, Social, Respectfulness, Enjoyment, Hockey, Competition, Top Sport, Fun, Fairness, Honesty, Passion, Inclusion. All the other labels were less common.
This motivated the Logo designers to study a wide range of sports logos. They realised that none of these captured the values identified by WMH participants. Every sport using a stick or bat of some kind, seemed to include the organisation’s initials, a stick or bat or some other kind of equipment, and perhaps a national emblem. Few of the logos were particularly memorable or eye catching and many were more typical of the Western World than a reflection of WMH’s many cultures.
The values identified in the survey posed the question: how can any logo properly represent all these values? When investigating Art Themes from various cultures, it was discovered that the most common in design and message, had multiple overlapping shapes. The designers experimented with overlapping hockey sticks and balls. The interwoven sticks in a circle design proved to be the most popular, and the colours that best represented happiness, joy and positivity in must cultures, were red and white.
The design is fairly unique and it is memorable, even for those who really don’t like it! It has become the recognised symbol of WMH and Masters Hockey. The animated version of the logo, as can be seen on the website, highlights the WMH values and will allow commercial companies to see where their values and those of WMH values overlap, hopefully increasing their interest in sponsoring WMH. The Trademarks and Wordmarks are registered to protect the WMH Brand image and cannot be used legally, without WMH approval.