Tuesday: Ben Again

After a one day hiatus, I'm back to lead us through another edition of the HJC Tuesday post. But what makes today's post exciting? We have SIX concepts today! All of us on the writing staff have been lamenting our lack of submissions recently, but you saw our need and stepped up big time. Thank you readers!

We've had no new entries into our Islanders competition as of Monday night. And don't forget to vote in our COTW poll. One need not be a Calvinist to participate, despite the predestined outcome.

**** Edit by Ryan ****

The winner of the COTW-October tie-breaker poll held on Saturday's post was Ryan (me).

Full Results

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Without further to do, let's get to those concepts!



FC Macbeth- NHL vs WHA All-Stars Game

FC starts us off with a "What If" in an NHL vs WHA showdown. You've made big improvements in your concepts FC, and this is your best to date. On the NHL uniform, you took an idea straight out of left field and made it work, possibly your only anime inspiration to do so. The plus symbols go well with the orthogonal pattern of the striping, and the color balance works well here. A major flaw, however, is that the number on the back is too illegible against the chest stripe. Moving on the WHA, the stripes are gorgeous here. I like how you took the idea from a former jersey, and blended it flawlessly to a more recent idea of the off color upper sleeve. The WHA and stars up the side give it a great level of detail to match the more complex striping, as well as all the detail with the pluses on the NHL jerseys. The only suggest I have for it is that the striping thickness between the hem and arms is consistent. I'm pleasantly surprised by how much better this one is.

Grade: B+

Jets96- Edmonton Oilers

Our first of two Jets' concepts today, he imagines his ideal Oilers road set. With the Oilers, it's best to stick to the tried and true (yoke, striping in threes, etc.) but I'm not a fan of how you've applied it. The biggest problem I have with this is the prominent orange yoke. What's going on here is three colors are all fighting for attention (blue pants, white jersey/socks, orange yoke) instead of complimenting each other. The pants don't fit the set here; the stripes are adjacent are flared out, while the jersey and sock stripes aren't. A helmet would have been nice to include to complete the full set. The execution is flawless, as I've known to expect from you.

Grade: C-

Jets96- Toronto Maple Leafs

We travel across the Canadian plains and into Ontario for Jets' second of the day, a Leafs specialty uniform. The logo choices were good, it fits a more throwback style, as do the stripes. One way to improve the stripes would have been to make the yoke and pants stripe in some sort of dual pattern to match the rest. While the yoke didn't work on the last one, it's much more fitting here, especially with a blue helmet. While it's more common to go with a white helmet for a white jersey, a blue yoke looks more in place with a blue helmet, and helps to complete the look.

Grade: B

Joe D.- Washington Capitals

Moving south to the good 'ol U S of A, Joe sends in a home or alternate look for the Caps. It's a good looking set; the Weagle was a good logo choice, the stripes are a good hockey pattern, and the color balance is excellent. However, it does make it a bit boring. Swap out the colors and logo, and this set could work for just about any team. With a jersey so symmetrical, a shoulder patch on only one side is not fitting, especially when since a wordmark that small is impossible to read unless you're on the ice.. It would be best left omitted altogether.

Grade: C+

Lucas D.- 2018 Stadium Series

Lucas is looking ahead to March 3rd for the Stadium Series in Annapolis. What we basically have here is one design in two color schemes. Neither team has anything unique. The Caps is too boring with nothing on the hem, while Toronto's hem suffers similarly with its hem blending into the pants. The chest stripes do look good, but it's disappointing that both teams have it. No stripes for the pants comes across as boring and unfinished, especially with no logo for the Caps. As for the blank socks for Toronto, I'm unsure if that was intentional, but it certainly doesn't look good. Since this is a Stadium Series, it would have probably been best to use oversize numbers.

Grade: C-

Noah K.- Coney Mall Racers

Noah K. wraps us up for the day with a fictional team based on a roller coaster. I had to do a background on this, but the Racer is a roller coaster in Kings Island, Ohio, with two trains, red and blue, running side by side, hence the name. It was even on an episode of The Brady Bunch. I assume this is part of a series where all the road jerseys are white, otherwise, the white jersey should be blue, like the coaster. For the striping, you took the racer theme and ran with it beautifully. The dual stripes work really well throughout this design. My only criticism of it is that you couldn't take that kind of approach to the yoke, where it's just a single block. What I like most about this concept is that crest. There aren't enough text or wordmark crests in hockey, and this is tremendous. I like how you matched the font from the script Racer logo, and the arching Coney Mall fits so well. The off color helmets to match the yoke were the right choice here. The white socks for the red set are a no go; rarely will a different sock color to a jersey look good, and this isn't an exception.

Grade: A-, and my COTW nomination

That'll do it for Tuesday. Keep up the good work with concept submissions, not only did you respond with more, but you responded with good ones, too! Keep on designing, and keep your stick on the ice.