They’re big, blue and ice-cold in Florida.
The Jacksonville Icemen are skating into year 10 with a new look.
Just in time for their 10th ECHL season beginning this fall, the hockey club rolled out a fresh logo before hundreds of fans in a July 16 presentation at the Community First Igloo.
Andy Kaufmann, chief executive officer of the Zawyer Sports and Entertainment organization that owns the Icemen, said the time was right for the move, preceded for weeks by a marketing campaign built around giant blue footprints.
“It’s been bugging me for years,” Kaufmann said. “We wanted to wait until our 10th year to come out and make this Jacksonville’s Icemen.”
The club’s previous logo was largely derived from the franchise’s earlier years in Evansville, Ind., emphasizing the I and N in the word Icemen. That made sense in Indiana, but not so much in the Sunshine State.
The new logo features a snarling blue yeti-like creature, hockey stick in hand, with a distinctly different ice-like font for the Icemen logo without the emphasis on the I and N. The color combination stands out as a somewhat brighter and bolder blue than the team’s prior color palette of navy blue, Columbia blue and white.
Kaufmann said the Icemen’s creative department under chief marketing officer Lauren Muni designed the new logo in-house.
“We had a little bit of a brainstorm session, and then her creative team got to work, and several iterations later, we got to this,” Kaufmann said. “We didn’t want it to be too different, and there’s obviously some similarities. We’re excited about it.”
Although the logo is changing, Kaufmann emphasized that popular canine mascot Fang is sticking around.
While rebrands are sometimes associated with struggling franchises searching for a new image and a new identity, the Icemen’s move is an exception.
Although the Kelly Cup trophy has eluded them thus far, the Icemen have established themselves as the league’s most consistent team in drawing large crowds and once again topped attendance in 2025-26, averaging 9,198 in the ECHL statistics. The club has increased its average crowd by more than 3,000 from its inaugural campaign in 2017-18.
In a Jacksonville market where others — the Rockets, Barons, Bullets, Lizard Kings and Barracudas — had fallen by the wayside across more than 40 years of professional hockey attempts, city sports and entertainment board executive director Alex Alston said he once felt skepticism that the Icemen would break through. Not anymore.
“It’s one of the few times in my life when I’ve been happy to be proven wrong,” Alston said.
The new design appeared to be an instant hit with fans, including dozens lining up to pick up Icemen-branded caps, shirts and more inside the Igloo.
Kaufmann said the club’s official game-day sweater designs are planned for release in about 6 to 10 weeks.
The Icemen are scheduled to open their 10th season on Oct. 17 at the Savannah Ghost Pirates, with the home opener at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on Oct. 31 against the Atlanta Gladiators.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Icemen roll out new look for hockey club’s 10th year
Reporting by Clayton Freeman, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Clayton Freeman, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union | USA TODAY Network
