Tuesday: Wabbit Season (Duck Offseason)

Hi folks, welcome back to HJC for the Tuesday post. This offseason has had its ups and downs in terms of excitement, but for those of us in the jersey world, we got a nice news story last Saturday. Unfortunately, the news itself wasn't as nice as I was hoping for. For those you who've been living under a rock for the past three days, I'm referring to the Anaheim Ducks revealing their new third jersey for the upcoming season:

Source: Whittier Daily News

The team has been giving us a throwback vibe in the past few months, most notably with their 90's themed schedule announcement, (itself teased with the mascot Wild Wing opening up a time capsule). This made the return of the Disney era brand the among the worst-kept secrets in hockey design. I'm a huge fan of the Disney era, but I must admit, this jersey leaves me disappointed.

My first reaction to this was, since it's so close to the original jersey, why not just go all the way?

Source: Pinterest

The only significant differences are in the colors and yoke. I'm having a hard time finding justification why those changes needed to be made. Was it to pay homage to the original while creating a unique set? It's hardly different enough to justify that.

The colors also give me cause for concern. This is "black for black's sake" at its worse; the simple re-coloring is a weak way to blend eras. Even more troubling is the eggplant (purple) stripe. The dark shade is so close to the black, it's nearly indistinguishable. It ends up looking more like a mistake than a conscience decision. The orange sticks stand out awkwardly, without another orange element to ground it within the design. Similarly, the silver color makes an appearance as a callback to the 90's, but that has never been emphasized by the club, so why not recolor that out? They've recolored 80% of the jersey already, so again, why stop there?

My final thought, and this might be its worse offense, the webfoot D shoulder patch reminds me of an AHL jersey, when teams with a different color scheme than their parent club throw on the NHL logo "just because."

Final verdict, I'm grading it a D+. It's a great precedent to start with, but so maligned, it's a pale shadow of the real thing outside Plato's cave. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Back on the blog, the well is still dry around here, with 2 concepts today by Friday writer TC. I believe our concept artists are holding on to their designs for the Open, but as artists are gradually eliminated, we should see more concepts on here. If you're not in the Open (or, if you're like me and bracing yourself for an early exit) we need you now!

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TC M.- Kansas City Outlaws

I reviewed this concept on January 9th. Not sure how this got into today's batch, but as a note to our concept artist, be sure you have an organized file system to make sure concepts you've submitted are grouped together.

TC M.- University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish

TC's second today is for last year's national runner up, Notre Dame. TC avoids the football team like the plague, opting for a whole set of helmets, and even on the gold helmet there's a team logo. The weakest jersey in this set, I feel, is the blue one. The gold and blue are too dark to work as a two-color scheme, and could use a touch of white to give it some balance. The white jersey is much more successful with this, using blue to counter-balance the white, highlighted with gold stripes. The logo selection was done fair, though I'm a little hesitant to call it well. I would appreciate the crest logo being the interlocking ND that we're more familiar with, especially to match that in the shamrocks. The best jersey in this set is the alternate, I appreciate that TC dropped the blue instead of trying to cram every color in. My only complaint in this design is that the hem and sleeve stripes could have been a singles instead of doubles, since the rest of the design is simply gold in white outlines.

Grade: C+

That's it for today. Send us more concepts, and keep your stick on the ice.