Awesome, more stories from Torland! I can't wait to see what youth hockey brings to the game. 

For our first stop on this regional tour we are heading to Certonrack, where the oldest organized youth team in Galapetra is located.

Team: Certonrack Reapers
Location: Certonrack, GP
Founded: 1953
Rink: Cove Community Center
Owner: Glen Thurman
Sponsor: Thacker Oil Company 

1953-1957
Certonrack is where the wheat fields meet the oil rigs, resulting in a hard working community that reflects their tough nature in everything they do, hockey not being an exception. Since the early 30s Certonrack has had some form of youth team that has dominated where they decided to play their exhibition games week to week, traveling to the fiercest competition available. After over 20 years of developing some of the best Torland talent, Certonrack Youth Hockey turned into the Certonrack Reapers when Doug Faulkner became their first owner and sponsor, implementing a structured program that enhanced development and gave scouts of Indy league teams in the area a consistent lineup to show off for months at a time.  

1957-1963
With all the success of youth production out of the city, it seemed as if the Reapers were untouchable, but in 1975 the youth players of Certonrack flew too close to the sun, resulting in a 6 year skid for the program. While younger players saw the success of older teams in the organization, progressing more than half of their rosters on to higher levels, it built a sense of arrogance and entitlement by the youth who now thought it was their right to play in Independent leagues and commit to colleges as soon as they put on a Reapers jersey, no matter what age they were. This  arrogance pushed players to leave before being fully developed, costing the program, the players and Faulkner. 

1963-Present 
At the end of the 1963 season, Faulkner was forced to sell the Reapers to Glen Thurman of the Thacker Oil Company to save the team from total collapse. Immediately the program was revitalized, establishing a zero tolerance approach to poor attitude by cutting the worst offenders no matter what skill qualities they had. This was followed by what Thurman called, “the Certonrack laws”, which returned the program to a hardworking, no nonsense development strategy that was meant to prep players for success in the Indy leagues and the THL as time progressed. Today, Certonrack is back on top of the youth pyramid, being the second team invited to the new top flight. Expect them to perform early and often, seeking compensation for the years lost to kids that were not committed to the process. 

Identity


Name and Logo
Although the town is known more for oil, the Reapers have been a team with an identity based around wheat since they were founded by an agricultural equipment business owner. Given the original owner’s occupation, it was only fitting that the team was named after the equipment used for harvesting crops. The Reaper was meant to be used as a double meaning, with a nod to the agriculture community, but using the Grim Reaper with wheat detailing as their logo. When the ownership switched over, Grim and his wheat were dropped for a simplified block letter “C” accompanied by an oil drop with a “R” centered inside. While this logo did produce a classic look that many of the youth were proud to wear, it caused confusion in a proud city who did not understand why the team would be called the Reapers if they were not going to acknowledge the storied name. This led to their current logo, which merges both eras, giving back “Wheaty” Grim who was now wearing a hood in the shape of an oil drop. 

 Primary Jersey
The jersey worn utilizes the black, representing oil, and yellow, representing wheat, that the club is known for, but drops the Torland cream and replaces it with white for a clean start in the new league. They are also a club who uses the unique vertical stripe from sleeve to neck, meant to represent, “upward growth”.  

Clash Jersey (You read correctly)
The alternate jersey, used when the team runs into a clash, or when they are the home team and feel like changing it up, is a callback to the very popular, but highly criticized look from when Thurman bought the club and replaced wheat with oil. The cream version was the lucky winner of the options because there was a need for a lighter contrast to their black primary jersey. Also proving that the program was not willing to leave their country’s cream tradition behind.  

Last edited by Thehealthiestscratch (11/09/2019 2:08 pm)

Section30 wrote:

Looking forward to this series, the Reapers look great. I love the idea of having a primary/clash similar to soccer for a youth league.

 
Thanks! The thought was that there was so many teams and so little time to construct the league that there were bigger fish to fry. Also, seems like it be more fun for the players as long as it didn’t hurt play.

Next, we head south towards Portarra, where the Cooley Bay Blur call home despite their lack of players from the actual city. 

Team: Cooley Bay Blur
Location: Portarra, GP
Founded: 1963
Rink: Honey Whale Athletic Complex - "Marina Blue" Surface
Owner: Jonathan Dover
Sponsor: Big Louie Whale Tours 

1963-1970
Cooley Bay opened up shop in the year of 1963 with the goal of attracting the talent of youth who did not exactly live close enough to the bigger city to justify a long drive to compete at higher levels. Portarra is not their first location, originally calling Kurtos, a smaller city split between Portarra and Rosran, their home for the first 7 years of existence. During this time, the Blur were a highly competitive team that was very popular with kids who wanted to create their own identity outside of the bigger teams up north, and they accomplished doing so. As it turns out, the Portarra teams were hyper focused on their city, letting genuine talent slip through the cracks right into Cooley Bay’s hands. The organization was truly the first talent seekers in youth hockey, going out of their way to create a dominant team. Once established, Cooley Bay hit a peak in the late 60s when they won the highest level tournament in the region at both the 17u and 15u levels, giving them rights to claim themselves as the best, even though it was unofficial. Difficult decisions followed this success when owner Jonathan Dover had to realize that their club had grown big, but their facilities were in a rapid decline. To keep the team, Dover took an offer to be housed at a newly built rink located in Portarra. This went against the foundations of the organization, but Dover was backed into a corner and had come too far to lose what he built. 

1970-Present
The move to Portarra was not welcome by the families of the Blur organization, giving them fair reason to abandon the club in search of closer or better options. Despite recent dominance, Cooley Bay was now a small fish in a very large pond that held some of the biggest fish (or maybe whales would be more appropriate) in Galapetra. Cooley Bay is now on the path to rebuilding, having outside talent be their primary focus but altering their approach by implementing more vigorous scouting from all areas in between Kurtos and Taiver, a city west of Portarra that also produces exceptional talent. Cooley Bay is a sleeping giant so not much is expected to come from them out of the gate, but the club has a history of rising to the occasion.
 
Identity 



Name and Logo
The Blur have a flashy name for the time that roots back to the owner’s youth when he use to race speed boats semi professionally in the Cooley Bay prior to his whale watching business gaining traction. The name is paired with an underwhelming, but charming, logo that has stuck since their founding in 1963. Depicted is the glowing moon looking over a calm Cooley Bay night, showing that the team claims stake in the entire region, instead of just one city. Unlike the logo, the Blur have had a color change since the move from down south, always having blue but switching out their orange and white for a silver color that is meant to bleed with the blue to create a blur effect for the logo and uniform. 

Primary Jersey
For the jersey, the team has simply taken inspiration from the waves in their logo to create an inconsistent three stripe look that is unique to the team. To get away from the bland reputation that has been built due to them only using blue and silver in their uniform, the Cooley Bay team shows some innovation by using their striping in the team's numbers on the back, and by going with silver pants, gloves and helmet that stand out on the ice. 

Clash Jersey
This jersey is simply the reverse of their main uniform, but keeps the silver pants, gloves and helmet because buying multiple would be very expensive for the families. Many of the parents are unsure of the all silver look, but the kids love the monochrome helmet/jersey/gloves/pants/socks style, giving extra push to tryout for the team. 

(I also apologize if some of these first few do not seem very refined. Personally, it is fairly easy to tell which logos had been done earlier in the process, and I plan to focus on revamping them when things get going.)

Last edited by Thehealthiestscratch (11/06/2019 10:23 pm)

So far, Cooley Bay Blur is my favourite team clever work on the logo and the jerseys. The colours work well together. I hope to see more that can top the Blur off my favourite list.