Concept of the Year 2011

Well I've been promising it for a week now. Today you'll learn about Concept of the Year 2011!
Here's how it will work. All of the winners of COTW will be put against one another for that month. The winner of that vote moves on the represent that month in the "Quarterly Vote". The winner of the Quarterly Vote moves on to the semi-final against another Quarterly Vote winner. This continues until finally we get down to the top two concepts of 2011 (that will happen in January of 2012!!!) Click the image below for a complete view of the tournament brackets.
The winner of Concept of the Year 2011 will win an actual prize or prizes. It won't be some crap prize either, it'll actually be worth winning. It has yet to be determined what the prize will be.

With a prize on the line we have to establish a few rules. First, you are no longer allowed to nominate your own concept for COTW. If there are not enough nominations in a week I will still decide who the nominees will be. As far as my own concepts go, I will not put them in the nominees unless someone elects it in a comment, regardless of how good it is. Hopefully this way you people won't think I'm cheating. January's COTY voting already looks that way, but I promise I'm not. Monthly and quarterly voting will run for an entire week (ie. Friday - Friday) unlike the weekly votes, which run from Mondays - Thursdays.

So lets have some fun with this and good luck to everyone!

Last week's COTW winner was me with 41% of the votes. Go to the CONCEPT OF THE WEEK page to see the winning entry.

It's time to vote for the first monthly winner. Go to the COTY 2011 page to see the nominees. Voting is on the left side of the page and runs until Friday, February 11 @ 11:59pm EST

And here come the concepts!

I continued to get Tampa Bay Lightning "improvements" so I will post them today.

Tampa Bay Lightning concepts (by Connor)Nice use of the old "paintbrush" numbers!

Tampa Bay Lightning concepts (by WhiteLightning)This is exactly what I would have done with the Lightning. Except for that throwback, I think it's time to let that era go.

Tampa Bay Lightning concepts (by Brian)This was approximately version 18 of Brian's Tampa concepts (just kidding) but he did have quite a few versions before he settled on this.

Ottawa Senators concept (by Tex)This is a really great looking "fauxback" jersey! Could anyone complain if the Sens looked like this next season?

Atlanta Thrashers concept (by Charles)I would replace the grey with maroon, but I like the design. You don;t see too much variation on hem stripes these days.

Columbus Blue Jackets concept (by John)Here, John takes a different approach to the Jackets' 3rd jersey. Not bad striping but, a few too many stars for my liking.

Pittsburgh Penguins concept (by Jack)A gold version of the 2011 Winter Classic sweater. This actually looks good to me! Maybe I'd use black numbers though.

So, what do you think of the concepts? What do you think of COTY 2011? I'm interested to get some feedback and so are the concept artists!