Wednesday: ECHL's Pearls

If you are reading this, I'm already in North/Central New Jersey on a business trip, so this was done Tuesday night. Therefore let's get straight to the....

NEWS: The ECHL is celebrating their 30th Anniversary. And of course with that comes an anniversary logo. Full press release is here.

Here is the logo:

Clean, bold and arguably a better logo than the regular league logo. Nothing stands out too much, which is a good and bad thing, because there's nothing crazy but nothing notable.

Rating: 85%


HJC OPEN: Quarterfinals are now on with a vote for you

REMINDERS:

 HJC Open Quarter Final vote (ends Friday @ noon ET) 

 COTW-June vote (ends Friday @ noon ET) 

 COTW June 30th - July 6th vote (ends Friday @ noon ET) 

ON TO THE CONCEPTS!

Anthony C: Buffalo Sabres Concept

With this concept we get a fauxback look for the sabres, back to the original collars and logo (despite a red buffalo eye that sorely sticks out), along with two stripes, one of the secondary and tertiary colors, separated by the base jersey color. Clean and gorgeous. The stand-alone buffalo logo looks great as an alternate. Pant stripes should be separated.

Rating: 94%


Anthony C: Calgary Flames Concept

So red, black and white is a good color scheme. Clean, simple and effective. But the one thing that separates the Flames from, say the Blackhawks, Devils and Hurricanes is the yellow that adds to the volume of their jerseys and their whole identity, since yellow is another color associated with heat and fire, though orange is too. And while this is a decent jersey, I can't see it working for Calgary, but I will give you bonus credit for potentially inspiring a competition once the Open is over. Ryan, how about a Subtract a Color comp? Good luck creating a Wings, Leafs or Bolts jersey for that, HA!

Rating: 84%


Anthony C: Pittsburgh Penguins Concept

I love eveything about this except for the lack of socks, lack of logos on equipment and the inclusion of the 50th Anniversary logo when, in fact, this is year 51 of the Penguins and they now have 5 cups (ugh). Otherwise this is genius. Clearly based on the Stadium Series jerseys, Anthony expands upon that idea to add flavor to the jersey as well as a matching white that has yellow dominant as a secondary color instead of keeping the same sleeves as the yellow jersey.

Rating: 87%


Jets96: Billings Bighorns (WHL-defunct) Concept

Jets revives both an old concept of his and an old WHL club from Montana, where there are more cows than both hockey fans and residents combined. Ok, maybe not but regardless this team existed  for 5 years before moving to Nanaimo to become the Islanders for a year, then New Westminster to become the Bruins for 5 years and finally to Kennewick, WA to become today's Tri-City Americans. Jets' concept from 6 years ago wasn't great, and now gets a pretty bland Edge treatment from Reebok. Numbers are low and the jersey is generic and boring. The socks and the rest of the equipment are awkward considering the lack of blue on the jersey itself.

Rating: 65%


Kevin D: Toronto Maple Leafs Concept

I looked up the website listed here, which is Kevin's own gallery of concepts. I guess that will suffice for ID, but I'd put an actual name on that if I were you. As for the jerseys, remove the TML script and add the 1967 Leafs logo and you have their alternate from before the 2016 rebrand. Get creative. The changes here are not good enough.

Rating: 35%


Lucas D: Anaheim Ducks Concept

A common theme we see here is to try and bring back some aspect of the Mighty Ducks Branding, which is either the logo recolored to today's color scheme, a logo they use currently as an alternate, or their current logos and jersey patterns in the classic eggplant and jade, which is what Lucas brings us today. I'm not fully sold on it, because of how prevalent the white is instead of the jade. It's a tough position to be in, because I don't know what alterations should be made to make it better, even though alterations are needed. maybe swapping the white and jade in the striping but that creates a color imbalance with the logo. Does it matter enough for that?

Rating: 73%


Noah B: Detroit Red Wings Concept

This concept improves on the Stadium Series jerseys worn against Colorado. The sash gets an extra thin stripe alongside it, matching the theme of the D logo. The sleeves also look ten times better than the Stadium Series counterparts, with numbers in the sleeves. Arched nameplates would be cool.

Rating: 97%


The WINNER of my Concept of the week nomination is:

 NOAH B 

 DETROIT RED WINGS CONCEPT 

And that will do it for me this week. As this long offseason drags on, I'm going to use this time to plan some away days for this season. Vegas is not one of them. I'd love to do Carolina since my trip was snowed out last year. Maybe I'll drive, since I drove to North Carolina a week and a half ago for soccer (NC Courage vs Sky Blue FC). At the same time, between gas and tolls, it may be cheaper to fly. I'll figure it out and let you know if you ever want to come and meet up with me at a game this year.