The SPHL franchise in Macon, Georgia, is ready to unleash Mayhem on the rest of the league with a new suite of logos unveiled on Thursday, August 1.
The Macon Mayhem unveiled the new logos Thursday evening at an event for season ticket holders and local media at the Macon Centreplex. They were designed by Jason Villanti of Redpin Design in Boca Raton, Florida, and retain some of the elements of the Mayhem’s previous brand while dropping navy blue and adding black to the team’s color palette.
The new primary logo depicts a snarling Viking with a red beard and eyebrows wearing a shiny silver horned helmet; an M is incorporated into the beard near the chin. Underneath is an appropriately chaotic “MAYHEM” wordmark with notches in the white letters and “MACON” written in red inside the black drop shadow. “Ice blue” shows up in the outlines around the Viking head and the wordmark, as well as in the Viking’s eyes and highlights on his helmet.
“I was thrilled when the club reached out and asked us to work together with them to create a fresh new look for Macon,” Villanti said in a press release. “It was our intent from the jump to re-imagine something new while recognizing and paying homage to the Mayhem’s past.”
The new logo matches up thematically with the Mayhem’s previous primary logo, which also depicted a Viking character. The old Viking had two Ms on his helmet and he held a rough wooden hockey stick with a puck bouncing off it.
New secondary logos include the Viking’s head on its own and the “MAYHEM” wordmark on its own.
“We worked on this new face of the franchise for hours on end,” Mayhem owner and chief executive officer Chuck Norris said in the press release. “Jason and I were meticulous in making sure we created a fresh and intimidating look for the franchise to relate itself with, while also retaining the Mayhem identity that the fanbase has grown attached to.”
The SPHL is an independent minor league that started in 2004 when the South East Hockey League and the World Hockey Association 2 disbanded and the surviving teams, plus two expansion teams, formed the new league. It currently has 10 teams in Alabama, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Virginia.
The Mayhem started out on the other side of Georgia as the Augusta RiverHawks in 2010. The RiverHawks suspended operations in 2013 due to an ice system failure at their arena; they relocated to Macon for the 2015-16 season and won the SPHL President’s Cup in 2017. They recently announced a five-year extension of their lease with the Macon Centreplex.
The city had previously been home to the Macon Trax, which played in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League, the WHA2 and the SPHL from 2002 to 2005.
The Mayhem open their 2024-25 SPHL regular season with three straight home games. They host the Birmingham Bulls on Saturday, October 19, and then the Fayetteville Marksmen for two games on October 25 and 26.
