Tuesday: Sub-in the Admin

Hello HJC readers! It's-a-me, Ryan. Caden isn't able to do the post today, so I'm jumping in for him.

I was going to wait until the new year to start a new competition, but I had it waiting in my back pocket so I figured I'd start it now. Plus, the first phase is a logo competition, so you now have just under two weeks to put something together.

The competition? A 2016 World Cup of Hockey competition! Click the banner at the top of the page for all of the details.

With only two COTW votes remaining in the 2014 COTW calendar it starts to become very important to place your votes. What a letdown it would be to see a concept advance with only 2 or 3 votes. So email in your COTW vote and make these concepts earn it!

COTW Dec 21-27 vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

World Cup logos (due Friday, January 9 @ 11:59pm Eastern)

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I mentioned it a while back, but the Quad City Mallards will be using a jersey designed by me for their January 31st "Original 6" themed game against the Brampton Beast (who would have guessed that?).

It all started with my entry into the Mallards' jersey competition.

The team liked it enough to pull it out of the competition and use it for their Original 6 game. They wanted a black version though. So I put together four black variations for them. One of the designs below will be used for that game.

I'll reveal the chosen jersey before January 31 (or if the Mallards do first)

I've got my plane tickets and I'm headed out to Moline, Illinois that weekend to take in the game and see the jersey in action. Of course there will be a blog post or two about it.

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That's enough about me, lets get to the concepts... 

Berlin vs Los Angeles (Sister Cities) by Stephen T.

Stephen informs us that these two cities are "sister cities", so a game between them is a cool idea. I like the diamonds cut into the stripes on the back hem and under the yoke on the Berlin jersey. I think doing it again on the arms is not needed. I don't love the Kings jersey, but I do like how Stephen sticks to the primary colour scheme of black and silver and then adds the purple nicely. I would make the LA arm stripes not as broad, so that the TV numbers don't look squeezed in there.
7.5/10

Buffalo Sabres by Grant G.

This is Grant's 1st concept, so we always welcome that! As with almost every 1st concept, this one needs some work. The thing that jumps right out at me is the blue in the logo is not the same as the blue used on the jersey. The same can be said for the yellow. This is also a problem on the NOB, which looks to be taken from somewhere else. Keep this one up in the attic Grant and re-visit it after your skills improve. Take another stab at it in June or July.
4/10

Waterloo Wolverines (This Is Road Hockey) by Mario A.

"This is Road Hockey" is an old mockumentary and Mario has come up with jerseys for a team from the movie. I have not seen the movie, so it's hard to make a connection here, but the colours are cool. The font for the name and NOB work well with the logo. There's a double outline on the logo, so it would have been nice to see that on the numbers as well.
7/10

Waterloo Wolverines 3rd jersey by Mario A.

This just screams bad movie sequel to me. It's a recoloured Thrashers jersey, which looks like it was just rushed out to get your concept numbers up on the blog, in my opinion. I also don't understand the mask. Why would the goalie for the Wolverines have an eagle or griffin on his mask?
5/10

Stanford University by Jake D.

For such a historical school, the red jersey on the bottom is very appropriate. I understand the tree logo and the use of green on the white concept, but it still ends up looking like a Christmas specialty jersey. Also, where's the big S logo? In my opinion it has to be on there somewhere. I would like to see one element (other than colours) tie these jerseys together into a set. The execution is fairly good, except for the pixelization of the names and numbers. However, that comes with the package when you use the already laid out font images on the TEMPLATES page rather than installing the fonts on your computer.
7/10

Chicago Blackhawks by Zach W.

The best thing about this concept is the C logo on the pants. Execution wise, why did the stitching disappear on the pants around that logo? If it were up to me, the stripes on the pants don't have a gap between them so neither would the stripes on the jersey. After that, the jersey doesn't intrigue me. It's not bad, but I just want to move on. Maybe to add a little more character you could have made the secondary logos on the jersey bigger and moved the TV numbers up on to the yokes?
7/10

Chicago Blackhawks by David K.

David bases this fauxback on the Hawks' jerseys from 1926-1934 (thank you NHLuniforms.com). This is like having a black and white movie in colour all of a sudden. This is well executed and a nice jersey. For those that suggest the actual Hawks Winter Classic jersey is boring, this is a good alternative. I would suggest adding a "stitching outline" on the numbers and NOB. The same way you have done it with the logos on the arms.
8/10

Washington Capitals by David K.

And to complete the set, David shows us his idea for the Capitals for Thursday's game. The basic broad stripes just don't match well with the vintage type logo in my opinion. I also don't think that the unused logo on the shoulder work with the primary. Again, execution is very nice, but this template does come with a collar that doesn't have stitching when using a single colour. I really like the pants. A jersey based on those would be cool.
7.5/10

Is anyone outside of Washington or Chicago pumped up about this game? For all of the previous games I've had a reason to watch. It's mainly because I wanted to see what the stadium would look like, except for 2011 when it was to see Crosby versus Ovechkin. This season's game just doesn't have that kind of appeal. I don't care what the ballpark will look like because there's nothing special about it and Toews versus Ovechkin...Toews wins everytime. Not interested. Thoughts?