Monday - It's Here It's Here!!!!

Good day fellow people! What a glorious week it's been! Yes, the site was on a bit of a concept hiatus but it was for a good purpose! Congratulations again to Ryan on the birth of his second child! But something else happened last week, something we've been waiting months for!

Hockey is officially back!

And to celebrate I spoiled myself with a new baby of my own... Not a real baby of course, but a new hat!

I had been looking to pick up one of the draft hats from this year, but while picking up our IceHogs season tickets I spotted this bad boy in the team shop. I love getting AHL hats. I've never seen many people rep AHL teams. At least in my travels, which is odd as I've got the IceHogs and the Wolves right here in Northern Illinois... It's been all Blackhawks here for a few years.

Anyway, assuming all the draft hats fit this way, I highly recommend the draft hat from this year as a hat everyone should look into wearing. The fit is great and it looks great. As long as you can deal with the snapback you'll be fine.

Speaking of IceHogs, they used to play in the UHL before joining the AHL to become the Hawk's affiliate, you know who else was in the UHL? The Quad City Mallards! Before Milwaukee and Chicago became the Hogs' primary rivals, the Mallards and IceHogs used to have a huge rivalry. Since the Hogs promotion into the AHL, the Mallards became Flames affiliates for awhile and then eventually leaving the AHL.

Two seasons ago, my college team got to play in the Mallards' arena and use their locker room for a game, which was odd as we were the road team, but it was a hell of an experience and now they're offering one lucky designer a hell of an experience as well! Get in your designs for their jersey design contest!

COTY-September vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

COTW Sept 29-Oct 5 (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

Quad City Mallards Jersey Competition (ends October 31st)

And now onto the concepts!

Los Angeles Kings Concept - Mario A.

Mario finally ditches the wild designs that he's been known for around these parts. Finally nice to see stripes on a concept, but this is a Bruins set of jerseys recolored. It doesn't look bad, but it's nothing new at all. The execution is good, nothing to complain about there, but the creativity seems to be lacking when you just recolor existing jerseys and paste a logo on it.

Rating: 6/10

Pittsburgh Penguins Alternate Jersey Concept - Phil B.

Phil B recolors the Penguins' template to make it more unique. The striping on the arm is neat. The way the yellow is shaped, especially the points towards the top of the jersey, this looks like it'd be a good fit for a Stadium Series jersey. I don't know if I'd want to see something like this outside of that though... A little too "out there" for a team that doesn't need to do that.

Rating: 7/10


Cobalt Silver Kings Concept - (NHA) - J3

The jersey striping is nothing new, but the yoke is something. The logo looks better on the dark jersey, where the backgrounds are two different colors, white and silver, I wish the logo looked that way on the light jersey. I would really like the logo though if it wasn't a Kings logo gutted of its details and some letters put in it. I'd definitely work on a new unique crown shape because I'm not going to see the Silver Kings looking at this, I'll just see LA.

Rating: 7/10


New York Islanders Concept  - Jeremy R.

Jeremy makes a new set of Isles jerseys to coincide with the Islander's move to Brooklyn. The set revolves around the SS jersey with some tweaks, specifically to the arm stripng. I like the idea, the SS jersey was a nice change for the team. The arm striping is thickened now, which I'm ok with, but I'd complete the striping around the arm. I also don't like the blue side panels on the white jersey, I just dislike colored sides to begin with. The black version is a nice fit for their new Brooklyn home.

Rating: 7.5/10

Dallas Stars Concept - Colin M.

Colin rebrands the Stars again, but keeps the green and white scheme. The logo is essentially their old logo but with the A in Stars replacing the point of the star. The jerseys seem to be a similar to the Lightning's approach at a rebrand from a few years ago, plain and simple to look like an original 6 team. I think a little bit of black trim wouldn't hurt. The logo is ok, but I think it looks really dated.

Rating: 7.5/10

Grand Rapids Griffins Concept - Christian L.

The Griffin's contest may have inspired the Mallards to ask HJC to host their design contest, and why not? The Griffins contest inspired some great work. Part of it I loved was the amount of custom logos. We don't always see a ton of unique, custom logos here. I like the GR monogram but the other two logos don't seem to fit for me. There's two different griffins heads. I'd pick one and run with it. The main logo needs more contrast between the details, and it looks a lot like a chupacabra would look like...I think... I think I prefer the head in the shield, but I'd work on that some more and make it look more sleek. I can't help but see a griffin sticking its tongue out.

The jersey though is really nice. Work on getting those logos to fit together better and this is one hell of a concept.

Rating: 8/10

Haileybury Comets Concept (NHA) - J3

A good set of jerseys here, I really like the design going down the arms and hem, they fit the logo and brand being created here perfectly. Again though, the logo holds it back as I know that's a Magic logo. A custom logo along these lines would be great. Even the way it is now, it's got this classic vibe to it, kind of like a Red Wings logo.

Rating: 8/10

There you have it! The first offical Monday post during the season! Here's to a great season! Hopefully everyone's seasons go well, except Detroit, booooo Detroit!