The hockey team currently based in Pelham, Alabama, is the fifth version of the Birmingham Bulls whose history dates back to 1976. The present franchise was established in 2017 to represent the Southern Professional Hockey League.
Birmingham Bulls is a franchise with quite a complicated history, which can be split into three periods. The first professional ice hockey club under this name was established in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1976, and operated until 1981, playing in the World Hockey Association for three seasons, and in the Central Hockey League — for two.
The second life was given to the club in 1990 when the ice hockey club was established under the same name in the same city. It was the East Coast Hockey League period, which lasted up to 2001, when the club moved to Atlantic City, changing its name to the Atlantic City Broadwalk Bullies, leaving Birmingham without a hockey team again.
The owner of the franchise from the 1990s, Art Clarkson, started thinking of the new Birmingham Bulls team in the middle of the 2010s, and it resulted in the creation of the club in 2017. Currently, the Bulls play in the Southern Professional Hockey League and are considered to be one of its strongest members.
In terms of visual identity when the Bulls unveiled their emblem on the threshold of the 2017-2018 season, fans felt nostalgia. No wonder, the team used the logo of the Birmingham Bulls that played from 1992 to 1998.
A bull is a symbol of strength, so sports teams often incorporate it in their logos. The Birmingham Bulls logo is one of the most unique depictions. It shows a head of a fierce-looking bull set above an old style goalie mask. The bull doesn’t look like a real animal, but it isn’t cartoonish either.
The new team added the wordmark “Birmingham Bulls” to the old Birmingham Bulls logo. It is below the bull emblem. The wordmark is in the uppercase letters. The typeface is sans serif. The letter “U” in “BULLS” stylized to look like a bull’s horns has become a symbol in itself.
The Bulls official colors are represented in the logo in full. The bull is black, the horns are grey, while the bull’s eyes and the hockey mask are white. Everything is outlined in red.