Seeing Blue

Welcome back HJC readers. So far so good with all of us guest writers I'd say.

First up, I know it's been a slow offseason for jersey news. A few teams are ditching third jerseys but that's it. One little ray of hope though, Icethetics Jersey Watch reported last Tuesday that the Blackhawks may be bringing back their 2009 Winter Classic inspired jersey as shown in a video on the Blackhawks site. Why would the team have a new player wearing a jersey the team won't wear at his appearances? Hmmm...

Also, as mentioned yesterday, the PEI Rocket are holding a name change contest.

This weeks COTW nominees have been up for a couple days, so if you haven't voted yet go ahead and do that.

COTW Aug 20-26 vote (ends Thursday @ 11:59pm EST)

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Calgary Flames Concept (Troy Hedden)

There's too much going on here. The arm stripes don't go with the hem stripes. The logo has the red square around it and the glare effect from Icethetics on it. The numbers aren't aligned, with the jersey or eachother. Check out the TUTORIALS page and I bet this could look a lot better 4/10

Tampa Bay Lightning Concept (Darren H.)

I'm not a fan of is the lightning pattern, at least on the arms. The idea comes off as cheesy to me and is very rarely executed well enough for me to like it. I like it on the hem but not the arms. I don't like the wordmark and number on the front. It looks too much like a football or a basketball jersey. 6/10

Tamp Bay Lightning Concepts (Tristan P.)

The color scheme is ok but is overused. I prefer the scheme now, perhaps with some added black. These particular colors seem muted and the jersey doesn't pop. I team with the name "Lightning" should have jerseys that pop. Hem stripes would be nice as well. I do like the logo, but the logo seems plain when compared to their current logo which seems to have some movement. Basically, it's a good concept, I like where it's headed. But I like their current set more. 7/10

Washington Capitals Concept (D3troit1388)

It's nice to see the Capitals logo on a blue jersey. I feel that the team can go without one though, but if it were to happen, I would hope they'd use their "Weagle" instead of the wordmark logo. The wordmark looks odd to me in red. The striping pattern on this jersey seems to be boring and not really fit in with the team's current branding, but the sublimated stars in the stripes are a nice touch, but the shoulder stars are a bit much. 7/10

Ottawa Senators Concept (Dave C.)

Pretty nice Nike concept for the Sens. I really like the striping and the laurel leaves look great. The logo choice is awesome too. I like the execution with the laurel, they are pointing in the correct direction. One little execution note, part of the white outline on the logo is missing. 8/10

Columbus Blue Jackets Concept (Avi Stein)

The last of 4 concepts that include blue jerseys for today. In my opinion, there's only a few teams that should be using the double blue color scheme and it works for the Blue Jackets. The crest logo is ok, it lacks character to me though. Doesn't seem like it would be a sports logo. The shoulder logo is nice though. It'd be nice to see their current logo, or even the cannon logo on the front. Of course, if the main logo was used, I'd expect to see some red trim. 8/10

Chicago Blackhawks Throwbacks (Tyler Gross)

I know a lot of baseball teams that do this. The Brewers come to mind. It'd be nice if some hockey teams did it too. They're pretty historically accurate, but I'd ditch the circle and just use the vintage logo on its own and the words on the back of the neck are a bit much. Also that's the incorrect C that the Hawks put on their jerseys. Because the jerseys are so similar to the teams current jerseys I'd use "vintage white" as opposed to regular white. It'd look cool on the red jersey, and maybe it could work on the white, the Rangers pulled it off didn't they? 8/10