BLOOMINGTON - Derek Booth said he always worried about the logo and crest on his jersey throughout a 13-year playing career. What hockey player wants to wear anything that doesn't convey a tough-guy image and makes him look like, well, a sissy?

Booth, coach of the new Bloomington PrairieThunder in the United Hockey League, doesn't see that as a problem after seeing his team's logos revealed Wednesday during a news conference at U.S. Cellular Coliseum.

The team's primary logo features a charging buffalo crashing its front hooves onto a sheet of ice. The word PrairieThunder covers the buffalo, with the "P" and "T" in the forms of lightning bolts. The logo incorporates the team colors of navy, silver, old gold and white and will be used at center ice.

"It looks real good. I like the colors. It's something that shows the aggressive style our team will play with this year," said Booth. "I think they've done a good job."

PrairieThunder general manager Jerry McBurney said about two dozen concepts were drawn up before the final logos were adopted.

Along with the primary logo, there are three other logos:

- A secondary logo which features the head of the buffalo seen on the primary logo. The secondary logo will appear as the crest on the front of the PrairieThunder jerseys.

- A word script logo with the words Bloomington PrairieThunder with lightning bolts shooting down from the oversized "P" and "T."

= A sleeve patch logo featuring "PT" for PrairieThunder set within a solid circle.

"We wanted to convey a powerful image in our logos," said McBurney. "We wanted to convey the power, ferocity, speed and relentless approach the team will play with during the season, and each of our logos represents that."

McBurney said the logo is unique to any professional sports team, major or minor leagues, and will be used in all the team's marketing campaigns.

"It has the power of the charging buffalo and the nonstop, right-ware motion of the letter and shooting puck," said McBurney. "Those are the elements of hockey - power and nonstop motion. We thought that tied in nicely.

"We went through a number of color combinations. This was our favorite as far as how it's going to show on the ice and how it's going to relate to merchandising and advertising and things like that."

The final team jersey design will come in about three weeks with logo merchandise available for sale in about a month, said McBurney.

"It's difficult to find something that's unique and distinctive. We felt with the logos we have something that will separate ourselves from the other teams in the league," said PrairieThunder owner John Butler.

"One of the main reasons is not just how it looks on jerseys, but how it sells with the community and fans. Our mascot will be a buffalo that can really expand some of our marketing opportunities."

Butler said the team already has sold more than 2,000 season tickets. The PrairieThunder's first home game at U.S. Cellular Coliseum will be on Oct. 14.