Heritage Classic Eve Eve.

Hello HJC, welcome to another Friday!

This time last week, Canada had just defeated the USA in the Olympic semi-final, but had not yet done this:

photo: ca.sports.yahoo.com

Oh, the things that can happen in a week! From an aesthetic point of view, in the course of a week, these ugly sweaters have become very eye-catching, due to the addition of a gold disc on a blue ribbon around the neck.

By this time next week, I will have experienced the Heritage Classic, which will be perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing hockey game of the year (in my opinion). I am very excited to break out this bad boy: 

photo: Colin May

It has been hanging in my closet for about a month, and thankfully Henrik Sedin (the one whose name and number is on the back) is also off the shelf in time for the Classic. In a week's time I will have a wealth of photos and memories to share with you. You can also follow me on twitter, or instagram, and I will be sharing photos in real time on Sunday.

If you are going to be at the Heritage Classic, HJC regular Austin and I will be meeting at the Terry Fox Statue at 11:30am for a quick HJC get together. We are going to snap a pic, chat for a few minutes, and put faces to names from HJC. Either let me know, via twitter, or facebook, or whatever, and we will make sure we connect, or just show up. We will be there, and would love to connect.

Also in the course of a week, we will be well and truly underway on the Team Competition presentations. The presentations will be posted on the HJC Design Blog, and the schedule for those presentations can be seen here: http://www.hjcdesignblog.blogspot.ca/2014/02/pairs-competition-presentation-schedule.html

In case you are not familiar with our weekly patterns here at HJC, we crown a vote on the best concept every week, and Friday is the last day to vote on this. Check out the nominees here (there are a lot this week, which means we need a lot of votes!) and send your votes to: concepts@hockeyjerseyconcepts.com

COTW Feb 17-23 vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

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Here are this Friday's concepts:

Detroit Red Wings - Colin M.

Here is a concept from me, to get the ball rolling today. To be clear, I would not want to see these on the ice ever, I was just trying to be creative, and play off the "Motor City" moniker which Detroit has. I used a checkered flag pattern, and numbers in circles (similar to old-timey racecars), and tried to emphasize the wheel on the winged wheel logo. How'd I do?

Team Germany - Kyle N.

I think the black sweater is the best of the bunch here, and in general, I think the striping pattern is overall very strong here. I feel like the colour balance is the best on the black sweater. I am not a big fan of the red sweater for Germany. Both the red and yellow jerseys don't lend themselves to as good of a colour balance as the black sweater does (but the yellow works better for me than red). I would like to see a white version of the black sweater, and have the red jersey made into a yellow alternate jersey. 7/10.

Chicago Black Hawks - Literal Logo Series - Wings 98

Wings 98 tries his hand at logo design here, going a vey literal route for a Black Hawks logo. It is a black hawk. I like the series idea here, and the bravery in attacking logo design (it is very difficult, and I am not very good at it). Keep going with logo design, and you will get better. The sweater seems a bit too New Jersey Devils for me, and all in all it feels a bit cookie cutter.  the upper arms/shoulders look very cramped to me. the shoulder patch needs to be moved up a bit, and the numbers would look better if they were centred between the yoke and arm stripes. 6/10.

Columbus Blue Jackets - Caleb F.

Ok, first off, I can't endorse a mainly red jersey for the BLUE Jackets, but I will try to leave that aside when reviewing this sweater. I like the stripes above the TV numbers here, I haven't seen that done in this way before, but I like it. I am not sold on how much of a curve the red creates, I feel like it would work better if it were a bit more angular. I think white numbers would be a bit more legible here, and I would be please to see a shoulder patch on the other shoulder as well. 7.5/10.

Red Deer Rebels - WHL - Stephen T.

I like the simplicity of these sweaters. They remind me of the Sens sweaters from the 90's (some of my personal favourites!). I also really like the numbers in the striping, it is a really strong look here. I think some shoulder patches would really fill out the sweater, since the TV numbers are not on the upper arm. One big error on this one, the NHL shield should not be on this concept, since the Rebels play in the WHL. Some WHL branding would have really kicked this concept up a notch. 6.5/10.

Team Yugoskavia - Design a Country - Mike S.

My favourite part of these sweaters are the logos. I really like the shield, and having it integrated into the double headed hawk logo. Also very cool to have the checkerboard sublimated on the back of the sweater. The numbers also fit the logo very well. But to be honest, I am having checkerboard OVERLOAD. I like the subtlety of the sublimated pattern on the back, but all the other checkerboard patterns really feel like too much. 7.5/10.

Chicago Black Hawks - Caleb F.

These have a ton of potential. I really like the arched "CHICAGO" over the Tomahawk C logo, and the overall feel of the sweater. I think the logo could be a bit smaller, and the handles of the tomahawks should be the same width all the way through. The arched text is not very smooth, and I feel like it could be on less of a curve, and spaced a little better. I also would like to see a white outline on the yoke to match up with the hem/ arm stripes, and have shoulder patches on both sides of the yoke. but like I said, a lot of potential here. 7/10.

Team Canada - Kyle N.

I really like the red sweater here, it reminds me of my favourite soccer team (Arsenal), red with white sleeves, and looks good. I like the opposite colour arms on these sweaters, they go a long way to replicating the Canadian flag.I think having white maple leaves for the shoulder patches on the white sweater (so that it would be white on red) would look a lot better, and obviously, doing something better with the collar would make me like these sweaters a lot more appealing, but I get that these are being authentic to the Olympic jerseys. 7.5/10.

Tampa Bay Lightning - Colin M.

Here's another one from me. Basically, I adapted the All-Star game template for the Lightning. I wanted this to be the iconic victory striping design element pushed to the limit here, even in the logo. When doing this, I added a lighting bolt on the sleeves, and tried to integrate the first two incarnations of the Lightning identity into this sweater. Let me know how I did.

Tampa Bay Lightning - Steven G.

Steven tweaks the Lightning identity here, re-adding the victory stripes, and adding shoulder yokes. I really like the shape of the yokes here, they seem squared off, and rounded at the same time... very cool. I think the number font is a step down, I like the double outline they currently use. The lightning bolt on the pants also seems a little bit off to me, like cramped I guess. It would be cool if the same bolt from the logo were used on the pants. Overall a really solid look here. 8/10.

Buffalo Sabres - Tom V.

WOW this is a neat look for the Sabres. It evoke a civil war-type feeling for me. I really like the braided, or corded gold stripe on the home and road sweaters, very unique. I also really like the number font. The updated colour scheme with the vegas old and navy, and the updated logo are fantastic. The third jersey does fall short for me, although I love the gold striping "horn" detail on the helmet. Personally, I think in this clean, creative, modern set, a classic royal blue and gold sweater would round out the set better than an out there (but still very clean, creative, and aesthetically pleasing) Goat-Head third. But still huge props to Tom on this one. If the home and road didn't have the Goat-Head logo on the shoulders I would be giving them a 10, but with that detail, and the Goat-Head alternate, my overall score comes down a bit. still going to give a 9/10, and a COTW nom to this brilliant jersey set.

Well that does it for Friday's post. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to be working on your team competition entries, and t send your votes in for COTW. Enjoy your weekend. I am looking forward to mine in a big way. See you on the other side of the Heritage Classic!