Minor League Mistakes

Those of you who read my Autograph Blog know that I recently visited all 30 American Hockey League websites, looking for each team’s player roster.

For the record, I am a professional web designer and graphic designer. I would love to be the webmaster of a pro hockey website. I think that mistakes or poor design on a professional website show laziness or lack of interest on the part of the webmaster / web team.

Thus, I feel the need to point out some of the more amusing mistakes I found on a few of these sites.

Mistake #1 – Distorted Images

Nathan Oystrick looks fat. In fact, every Peoria Rivermen player looks fat because their headshot photos are distorted.

Without getting into boring technical solutions, the picture needs to be taller, like this:

See? Much better? And it would only take them 5 minutes total to fix this problem for all the player pages. 

Mistake #2 – Incorrect Data 

Allegedly, the Syracuse Crunch have a center on their roster named COMING SOON. He has a page on the site, too.

Though COMING SOON’s height and weight are unknown, he was born July 06, 2010. I tell ya, these prospects keep getting younger and younger.

But he must be good because he is the first player listed under Forwards:

Even worse are the stats for goaltender Timo Pielmeier:

C’mon, guys–fix your database! Because I really want to know how well he did with the Cologne Sharks!

But this third one really takes the cake…

Mistake #3 – Bad Graphic Design

Amputee cheerleaders! Yes, the New England Patriot Cheerleaders–and their phantom limbs–will be at the Worcester Sharks game on Saturday. This image is currently on the Sharks’ home page:

Why do the cheerleaders fade out below the knee? To make room for the text, of course. But it looks stupid. When it comes to design, you try until you get it right…or don’t try at all.

In Other News…

• I will not be on The War Room this Wednesday (11/3), but will return to the show next Wednesday (11/10).
• This month is allegedly National Blog Posting Month. So, I’m going to try and update this site and my autograph site every day.