Thursday: Belated Anniversary

 Hello everyone!

***** Edit by Ryan *****

Hey what does Ryan think of the new Washington and Tampa Bay sweaters?
Glad you asked!
Go check out the HJC Design Blog for my thoughts.

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So I was planning this awesome post for my year-anniversary here at HJC, and assumed that I became a writer here a year ago this week.

Well.... I'm two weeks late.

Time has gone so quickly these last few months for me that I didn't even realize I missed my own HJC Anniversary.  So instead of the awesome speech I was going to do, I'll just keep it short and sweet.  Thank you to everyone in the HJC community for reading and critiquing my posts, and making me a part of such a strong group of jersey enthusiasts.  You guys are the reason I show up every Thursday, and hopefully will continue to write on the blog for many more Thursdays.

Next week, I'm going to do something cool to highlight my year at HJC, so make sure you check back next week for my surprise.

Uh oh, I'm getting sappy.  Let's talk about more awesome things, like concepts!

So (technically) bird is the word again at HJC, because we have another pro hockey team joining forces with us to create an awesome jersey competition.  The Quad City Mallards of the CeHL are looking for an alternate jersey that they will wear during one of their games. Win the competition and you get to see your design in action AND get an authentic copy of your own.  Need I say more?

Last note before I get to the post: In contrast to the last couple of weeks, the COTW vote is jammed packed with concepts to vote for.  That means you have no excuse to skip out on voting this week!

COTW Sept 22-28 vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

Quad City Mallards Competition (ends Oct. 31st @ 11:59 Eastern)

BONUS CONCEPT:  Unleash The Beast (Disney Competition) - Christian L.

Note:  So for those paying attention, you probably saw this concept on yesterday's post by Christian.  It's never fun to post your own concept, because you don't get the review you're looking for, so I'm bringing it along for the ride today to get the full review it deserves.


Yay: Out of all the Disney Competition entries, this is pretty much the most NHL ready jersey.  The colour scheme is true to the logo, very unique, and manages to look good despite being a double-brown and pink* colour combo. Come on, tell me any other team that could pull that off.  The font for the numbers fit the theme perfectly, and the stripe pattern, although pretty basic, looks flawless.  Even though this concept won by a technicality, this was easily my favourite concept in the mix.

Nay: I'm not a huge fan of the logo, but finding a better way to illustrate the Beast in a logo form would be difficult, and the logo is still better than a handful of NHL logos anyways.  For a perfect score, I'd love to see how the captain patch would be done, and maybe a few Disney-related shoulder patches.  Other than that, I have a really tough time finding things to critique negatively.

Overall: This concept is to hockey concepts as Lion King is to Disney movies.  Well done! 9.5/10







Montreal Canadiens Concept - Zack W.

Yay: Let's start our regularly scheduled concepts with this blast from the past from Zach.  Zach gives us his idea of a 105th Anniversary throwback for the Canadiens.  Honestly, with everything they did 5 years ago, do they need to do anything for their 105th? The design is a little spiced up from the actual jerseys this one references, and I like the addition of the chest stripe.

Nay: White pants? Yikes. I'd go with green pants and a white-red-white stripe pattern.  The hem stripes need to be much thicker to better match the arm and chest stripes.  The logo should be moved down a bit (and the chest stripe moved up a tiny bit) so the logo looks more centered. And if you're going to make an outline on the number, it should be thicker.  Lastly, no TV numbers hurts this concept.

Overall:  A nice refresher from the original, but needs some work.  5.8/10



 Carolina Hurricanes Concept - Phil B.

Yay:  "I have an idea, let's take everything cool about our identity, get rid of that, and rip off Team Canada." That is what someone on the Hurricanes design team probably said when designing their current jerseys.  Thankfully, Phil creates an alternate that not only brings back that lost identity, but shoves it right in our face and lets us know exactly who we're dealing with.  There can never be too many hurricane flags.

Nay:  Take Eiffel 65's greatest hit, change blue to red, and you have the theme song to this concept.  Everything is red, and it doesn't look that great. There needs to be some more white or black somewhere somehow. The equipment would be easy to change, and maybe having the hems and cuffs coloured differently as well.

Overall: "I'm red da ba dee da ba die" doesn't sound as good. 7.4/10




Nashville Predators Concept -  Michael G.

Yay:  Next up is a pair of concepts from Michael, staring with the Predators. I'm usually not a fan of this arm style, but it's a nice change to anything the Preds have been doing. The traditional striping pattern works well with the full-length blue arms.  The numbers, logos, shoulder patches, and collar design all are done really well, so execution is ALMOST perfect...

Nay:  ...except for one major goofup.  On the yellow jersey, the middle stripe is yellow on the front and white on the back.  Unless you were going for a Sabres-3rd type of design, I assume this was an accident. And if it was on purpose, it's never a great idea to do that without some sort of transition between the two colours.  But personally, I'd stick with the yellow middle stripe. Either works fine though.

Overall:  It's a shame, because if it wasn't for that error, I'd be tempted to give this my weekly nomination.  Good concept excluding the stripes.  7.8/10




 New Jersey Devils Concept - Michael G.

Yay: Michael's 2nd attempt is for the New Jersey Devils.  Designing anything for the Devils is difficult, but Michael gives us a valiant effort.  The stripes are a nice change that doesn't drift too far out of their comfort zone, so it's still a believable idea.  The hidden gem in this concept is the shoulder patch logos.  Took me a bit to figure out what it is, but I love it!

Nay: I'm not liking the font for the number.  It looks like it's stretched horizontally, and made way too wide. I also don't like how the number is black on the white jersey, I'd rather see red used there.  The names look a little small.  I think a black and white outline around the logo would look good on the black jersey.

Overall: Other than the fonts, I think this jersey looks really cool.  If the Devils ever wanted to look different, I'd be all for a design inspired by this.  8/10




 Carolina Hurricanes Concept - Justin S.

Yay:  Despite the Eiffel 65 reference earlier, this is easily the weirdest thing on today's post.  In a brave leap of faith, Justin experiments with having a different coloured jersey for the Hurricanes while keeping their logo the same. I think the jersey colours look nice, but that's probably because a good chunk of teams are using them.

Nay: I don't get it.  If there's some sort of connection between the team and the jersey design, I'd definitely like to know and offer another analysis on it.  But right now I'm just confused.  The arm stripes are fine design wise, but the hem, chest, and sock design are doing nothing for me.  The font is a tad on the boring side, and white text with yellow outline is hardly ever a good idea.  The collar might look nicer if it was yellow or white.

Overall: I don't like it.  Maybe I'm missing the point here, and if I am I apologize and will gladly discuss this jersey again, but I just don't get the design.  5 or TBD/10




New Jersey Devils Concept - Colin M.

Yay:  Michael isn't the only one to experiment with the Devils today.  Colin closes our post by bringing back the christmas colours in a very distinct fashion.  I love yoke and collar combination.  The added logo outline on the green jersey looks nice.  Individually, I love the white jersey, and would love to see it as an alternate jersey for the Devils at some point.

Nay: The green jersey...not so much. The different arm design and the unmatching hem and cuff really throw me off track.  The yoke doesn't look as good either, but could be fixed by switching white for green and adding white on the outside of that.  Basically, make the green jersey more like the white one, and you have yourself a winner.

Overall:  The concept would be "nom" worthy if it was only the white jersey.  Unfortunately, the green jersey holds it back.  8/10



Lots of good concepts today, but aside from the Beast concept, everything was just one or two things away from being a great concept.  For that reason (and because Christian's concept is already in the COTW vote this week), I wont be nominating a concept today. But if you disagree and think one of these deserve some COTW love, then go ahead and say so in the comments.

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be doing something(s) cool next week for my kinda-anniversary here at HJC, so I'm looking forward to doing that.  In the meantime, thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!