Armadillos in Germany, penguins in Central Asia, squid in the Middle East and flocks of many, much moosen all over the globe.

We recently counted them up and we have officially had 10 years of iGosian Mascots. And while each and every mascot has a special place in all of our hearts, the reality is that some of them were simply better than others.

Which led us to an interesting discussion at our recent iGo Staff retreat. We took a break from our high-level strategic plans to take over the world in order to rank the 10 mascots. The criteria? We chose to not define any. We simply ranked them based on personal preference. Here is what our current staff came up with (The commentary added may or may not reflect the views of all or any of our staff).

#10 – Penguin (2006) The penguin only received one vote in our iGosian-style election. The staff member voting for penguin chose to remain anonymous, but Ky Martin added, “You guys are stupid. The penguin was our best one ever. All those penguin movies came out right after we chose it, and then the whole city of Tokyo put penguins on their train tickets. We looked like geniuses.”

#9 – Giraffe (2008) The giraffe didn’t do much better than the penguin, and we blame this one on the shirt. White shirts, we learned, just aren’t that cool. In fact, this is one of our shirts that you don’t even see in thrift stores.

#8 – Moose (2010) The great mascot debate of 2010 will forever be remembered. It was the the first time we were completely divided as a staff, and the first time staff members were appointed to make speeches on behalf of their mascot preference. In the end the moose won by one vote over the owl, and HGPF needed to be embraced as we continued our staff meeting.

#7 – Owl (2011) The owl turned things around the next year, however and appears to have gotten the last laugh by edging out moose in the rankings. No doubt the owl would have finished even higher if it weren’t for the little fact that we later discovered owls are associated with curses and bad omens in middle eastern countries. #ourbad

#6 – Elephant (2012) There are so many things about elephants to admire and love. Unfortunately, at the time of this voting, we couldn’t think of most of them. We did like them a little, which is ironic, seeing as how elephants are so big.

#5 – Rhino (2014) Coming in at #5 is the great horned beast we know as a rhinoceros. The rhino obviously took advantage of the fact that it was fresh on our minds as last summer’s mascot. That, combined with the neon green mascot shirt (neon is so in right now), obviously led to the rhino cracking the top 5.

#4 – Duck (2013) The year of the duck was another one of those timely hits. Duck Dynasty blew up some beaver dams and exploded their way into American culture in 2012-13, and the iGosian mascot took full advantage to secure a #4 ranking. Not to mention that ducks eat for free at Subway.

And now The Top Three!

#3 – Octopus (2009) The biggest surprise from our rankings has to be the 3rd place finish for the octopus. After all, there was much debate back then and still some today as to whether or not 2009 was the year of the octopus or the squid. The traveling version only sported 4 tentacles which puts the whole oct part of octopus in question. Nevertheless, the octopus/squid/quadopus had a super soft shirt, some amazing pictures, and earned it’s #3 ranking.

#2 – Armadillo (2005) The first iGosian mascot narrowly missed finishing first as well. Being the official small animal of the Republic of Texas and being the first mascot in our history secures the armadillo its legendary status. Hardly anyone can find one of our armadillo shirts anymore, it has been 10 years since our teams travelled with one, and yet here it is nestled in safely at #2.

#1 – Goat (2007) Unfortunately for the armadillo as well as all the others, there is simply no competing with the goat shirt from 2007. It was green. It had a goat on it. And it simply said, “Goat.” It is hard to explain it, but that simple shirt made all the difference in the end. Goat. What else needs to be said?

Now it’s your turn. Disagree? Agree? How would you have ranked them and why?

And while you are at it, do you have any ideas/suggestions/guesses for 2015?

Join the conversation below.