Thursday: Pairs Eve

Afternoon, all.

It's 4:30 (or later) on Thursday, June 21st which means there's less than 24 hours to get your Pairs Contest entry in. The Pairs Competition has always been one of my favorite competitions on the site just to see how two artists can combine their craft to create a cohesive look and I'm happy to finally participate this year. I know my partner and I are still working on our looks and you probably as well, but make sure your work does not go to waste and you get everything in before tomorrow's noon deadline.

As you may have noticed earlier this week, there was no Monday post. Fear not, my jersey-loving friends, we've still got 6 days of concepts for you this week. Be sure to check in this Saturday for the first Saturday concept post in my HJC tenure.

As usual don't forget the weekly COTW Vote and Jersey Nerds Podcast and be sure to keep stuffing that Mailbag. We can only take so many questions from Tony Littleman in one podcast, ladies and gents.

REMINDERS:

 COTW June 8-14 vote (ends Friday @ noon ET) 

 Pairs Competition entries (due Friday @ noon ET) 

 Jersey Nerds Podcast (new episode every Monday!) 

On to the concepts!

_____________________________________________________________________________

Anthony C.- Navy

Anthony gives us a Sweden-esque color swap here for the United States Naval Academy. Let's start with the positives. I love the chest stripe treatment here, the outline on the chest logo is just thick enough to keep it distinct while still a part of the striping and the angled pattern on the back works wonderfully, especially against the 7. The beauty extends to the arms where Anthony takes a leap of faith and breaks tradition by extending the bottom stripe down to the cuff. It really pays off here by giving a good amount of contrasting color to a look that would be too plain without it. My one detraction here is in the color choice, Navy currently adopts a beautiful Navy and Gold color pallete, yet here we see yellow take the place of the more distinct gold, which is a major downgrade in my book. Otherwise wonderful work here by Anthony.

Overall Rating: 9.0/10

All that glitter's is gold. Unfortunately, all that glitters is yellow in this case.

Burkus Circus.- Montreal Canadiens Alternate

While I think a faux-back (or even a throwback) would be a great avenue for Montreal to travel down for an alternate, I think this look is a turn down the wrong side street. At it's core this look is just the Canadiens' home sans white and that's not enough to have staying in a franchise that's kept the same look for more than a century now. Logo choice leaves a bit to be desired as well, I think either the C from the blue or CA logo from Montreal's Centennial jerseys would serve you better here. Pants could also use a simple red stripe to tie in better.

  

Overall Rating: 5.0/10

It's certainly hard to insert a look into a set that's lasted for decades on decades, but a basic simplification isn't the path to take.

Jay S.- Augsburger Panthers (DEL)

Jay takes us to Europe with a look for the Augsburger Panthers of the DEL. For whatever reason I've always been a big proponent of the Northwestern stripe and love seeing it here adapted even on the yoke. The yoke is very well handled on the white sweater where it would've been easy to match the rest of the striping by making the yoke red with a thin green stripe on it's exterior, but Jay takes a step in other direction for the sake of color balance and it works quite nicely. I can't help but harp on the logo choice here as the Panther head logo seen on the shoulder seems much more fitting as a chest logo whereas the chest logo could easily find a home on the shoulders. My one big issue with this set is the blue helmet which, although it appears to be a calling card of the Panthers, could easily be fixed here. That's the purpose of a concept after all; to right those jersey wrongs, no matter how readily accepted they've become. Also, this is the first time I've seen this template (or even Jay as far as I recall) on this site, so props for freshening up the blog with that.

  

Overall Rating: 8.75/10

A newcomer (as far as I know) with a new look for a new (to the site for the most part) team that really gets the job done

That's all for today folks. 

Anthony takes home this week's COTW NOMINATION for his NAVY CONCEPT.

We'll see you all next week!

Got Questions? Send 'em our way by stuffing the HJC Mailbag.