by J. Franklin Campbell, webmaster for the Champions League

 

 

Winner of "Best Team Logo" ... Alpine-Rookies

 

 

The ICCF Champions League team tournament is now in its second season,
officially called "First Season" to distinguish it from the "Qualifying Season".
It is a relegation tournament, so teams that do poorly are relegated to the next lower
league in the next season while teams that do very well advance to a higher league
the following season. The Qualifying season sorted teams out into Leagues
"A", "B", "C", and "D" for the First (regular) Season. However, a "Fast Track" league
was also set up in the current season to allow new teams to qualify directly to the
higher leagues for the next season.
 

I got involved about half way through the qualifying season when the
webmaster of the Champions League web site Klaus Wrba suddenly was
unavailable to continue in that job. It became my job to take over his duties and
 to keep the web site and all the CL tables updated. I was already playing for
Team CC.COM,  a group of four people involved in developing and
maintaining the correspondence chess domain  http://correspondencechess.com.
That's a great thing about the Champions League ... it gave people an opportunity
to form teams will their friends, even across national boundaries. For instance,
our team had two from USA, one from Canada and one from Germany. Another
good example is  The Gambiteers Guild  consisting of players from Canada,
Denmark, Netherlands and the USA. My current team  Four Wise Arbiters
consists of players from England, Canada and USA. In this case we are all
ICCF International Arbiters giving us a common interest. Teams were free to
establish their own identities and many do, some with some specific common
element that binds them together, whether it's the love of gambits, membership
in a local OTB club or something else.
 

I personally felt quite excited about these opportunities to enjoy competition
with friends, quite independent of the desire to win games and high
placement for the next season. One thing I and others thought about were
appropriate team logos to represent our teams. I asked a friend and fellow
worker Tina Ciaramitaro, who is a professional graphics artist, to design a logo
for our team based on some sketchy ideas I had. The result was a very exciting logo
with a dragon breathing flames over a chess board field scattering the pieces.

How it all started

I determined that in the next season (the "First" season) I would make an effort
to promote the concept of having fun in this event. The idea of players banding
together across national boundaries and playing for the joy of it is a powerful one,
in my opinion. Some may play for titles and high ratings, even for championships,
but most of us can't challenge at the very highest levels. We can still enjoy the
Royal Game, though. Fun chess sites and team logos seemed a natural idea. In fact,
a number of teams did create team web sites and interesting team logos. My first
attempt during the qualifying season was to make a links page at the
Team CC.COM web site  listing all the team web sites I could find along
with displaying the existing team logos. I spent some time with Google
looking for web sites, and I actually found a couple that way! You can see this
early display of logos from the qualifying season at  Team CC.COM links page.
 

After being appointed webmaster of the Champions League web site for the
qualifying season I naturally extended this idea to the  official web site  for the
qualifying season and created a  links page  displaying the team logos there.
Of course, this is old stuff and some of the team web sites listed there have
vanished, but you can see my first efforts. The team logos/links were
divided into the leagues they qualified for in the following season.
 

The current season, unlike the qualifying season, is being sponsored.
The sponsor allocated a set amount of prize money for the expected number
of groups, but when the season started there were fewer groups than expected.
After consulting with the sponsor I was delighted that, instead of simply
moving a bit more money into the existing prize funds for winning certain
playing prizes, some of the prize money was put into two new categories,
"Best Team Web Site" and "Best Team Logo". Excellent! I want to thank the
sponsor for being willing to award teams for non-playing activities. Is this a first in
ICCF competition? See  Sponsor Awards Announcement  for the sponsor's viewpoint.


The deadline for submitting team logos for the competition was 31.12.2005.
An amazing 55 logos were submitted! All eligible team logos are shown
on the current  Logos/Links  page. The web sites won't be judged till after
30.06.2006 to allow the teams to provide additional content based on finished games.
The logos have already been judged and the award announced. Complete information
is shown below, or you can see  Winners of "Best Team Logo"  at the official web site.
You can also read the sponsor's  Best Team Logo Press Release.
 

I was determined to recognize the best team logos, though there was only a single
cash prize, so I asked the judges to choose the best two logos for each league.
After that the judges chose the best logo from the top pick for each league.
There were some excellent logos designed by the teams which showed both
originality and excellent artistic skills. All teams are to be congratulated on their
wonderful efforts and for participating in this fun competition.
 

My objectives in the judging was to set down some basic voting rules, select
an outstanding panel of judges, and then to tally the votes and announce the winners.
On the second count I think I did an excellent job ... the voting panel was a true all-star
selection. The five judges are shown with their photos below. The judges were:

 

• GM Tunc Hamarat (AUS), 16th World Champion

• SIM Josef Mrkvicka (CZE), Former ICCF President

• Hanon Russell (USA), Webmaster/Owner of Chess Cafe

• SIM John Knudsen (USA living in GER), Webmaster/Owner of Correspondencechess.com

• Clive Murden (AUS), Webmaster of CCLA (Australia)

 

My thanks go to these five judges for accepting this job and for handling their
judging duties in a professional and prompt manner. My thanks to the many
creative team members who were responsible for these great logos. If you're
planning to compete in a team event such as the Champions League I urge you
to consider creating a web site and/or a team logo to add to the fun. For now
check out the top logos from this event and get inspired!