Ducks Cannot Mask Enthusiasm for Crest

Mike Solomon noticed the Mighty Ducks’ merchandise display the moment he walked into the South Coast Plaza Disney Store Monday morning. It took about 1.3 seconds for the 52-year-old Anaheim resident to grab a sweat shirt bearing the hockey team’s snappy new logo off the rack.

“It looks mean, it looks tough,” Solomon said of the crest, which features a goalie mask shaped like a duck’s bill. “I think every kid in California will love it.”

Not everyone was thrilled in March when Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner decided to name his expansion team after the peewee hockey team from the Disney movie bearing the same name.

Too wimpy a name for the hard-hitting NHL, some said. Too commercial for hockey purists.

But the Ducks’ logo, which was unveiled along with the team colors and uniforms at an Anaheim Arena news conference Monday, seems to counteract those sentiments.

With its darkened eyes and furrowed eyebrows, there appears to be a scowl on the white, duck-shaped goalie’s mask, and the two crossed yellow hockey sticks going through the crest give it a skull-and-crossbones feel.

The face mask and sticks are enclosed by a black circle, which resembles a hockey puck, and the crest is enclosed within a jade green triangular background. The only hint of Disney is the shape of the duck’s bill, which resembles that of Donald or Daffy but doesn’t really remind you of the Disney characters.

“It looks tougher than I anticipated, and it really offsets the cartoonish thing of the movie,” said Tim Jones, a 30-year-old mortgage banker and hockey fan from Laguna Niguel. “It’s definitely not Donald Duck. It’s more like Donald Duck on Quaaludes. And you’ve got to admit--it’s better than the Kings’ logo.”

The Ducks’ crest, designed by Tony Cipriano, an artist who works for the Walt Disney feature animation department in Florida, and Fred Tio, part of Disney’s creative print services, was one of some 500-700 ideas submitted by Disney employees since Anaheim was awarded an NHL expansion team in December.

“We wanted something Disney-esque but not hockey mean,” Eisner said. “We didn’t want it too light or silly or too violent. And goalies are the unsung heroes of hockey--my son is a goalie--so we wanted a goalie’s mask on it.”

Eisner said the tough look on the goalie’s mask was actually toned down from a previous working design.

“He’s much more friendly than he was six weeks ago,” Eisner said. “We sort of Goofy-ized Jason (of Friday the 13th fame).”

The team colors are predominantly jade, or teal, green and dark purple, with the uniforms enhanced by silver, slanted striping.

Home sweaters will be white, with purple and black V-neck collars and green, silver and purple striped sleeves; road sweaters will be purple with black and white-trimmed collars and green, white and silver striped sleeves. Pants will be purple with green and white striping.

“We didn’t have as much problems with the logo as we did with the colors, which were the subject of hearty debate,” said Tony Tavares, president of Disney Sports Enterprises. “These colors were proposed early on, then we backed away from them, then we came back to them.

“But I think these colors are alive, and the slant on the bottom (of the sweaters) is different. This is not something I’d be embarrassed to wear.”

Duck General Manager Jack Ferreira said the original color scheme was purple and gold, “but that looked like an Easter egg, so we eliminated the gold and replaced it with silver. We wanted something totally different, totally unconventional.”

Monday’s press conference coincided with a major merchandising push, as a wide array of T-shirts and other Duck paraphernalia went on sale at area Disney stores, Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Orlando.

Eisner said a purple hat with a green bill and Duck crest was particularly popular around the office Monday.

“Every Disney executive wanted a hat, but we had only eight of them,” Eisner said. “It was like a mad scramble.”

Eisner planned to bring another batch of hats to Monday night’s Kings-Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup playoff game at the Forum and pass them out to various celebrities.

“I called (King owner) Bruce McNall and asked if he’d be upset, and he said no,” Eisner said. “I’m going to try to get every star at the game--Goldie Hawn, Michelle Pfeiffer--to wear one. I’d love to see one on Ronald Reagan.”