Tuesday: Oh baby!

First of all, as I mentioned in the Weekend Update, Congrats to Ryan (our glorious admin) and his wife to the new addition to his now family of four. Of course you don't want to have to worry about a blog when your wife is in labor or with her new baby, so I don't have any concepts for today's post. BUT, life goes on! Instead of concepts, I'm going to review some new NHL jerseys. (All photos credit shop.nhl.com) Before that, lets get to any concept artist's dream, having their jersey design(s) worn on professional ice.

Photo Credit icemen.yuku.com

           The Evansville Icemen (ECHL) in September of 2013 decided that they were going to retire their baby blue Penguins jerseys in favor of an original design. They then approached me (I am the assistant equipment manager, so I had a half-in) having seen my old concept blog for me to design the jerseys. Of course other people in the organization had influence as well, but I was the main designer on the project.

           We had to make the initial appeal to the league back in September of 2013 to change our jerseys, and then we had to get the designs approved by both the league and Reebok/CCM. We then ordered our new gear (Black helmets with the Black and Blue jerseys, and White helmets with the white, Black pants with the Icemen logo, Black gloves) which I also had a part in choosing. 

           My influence for the design on the main 2 jerseys was going from classic to modern. The swooshy and curvy striping is a tribute to the Ohio River, and the hem striping is a look back on the old jerseys, which had very straight, proper striping. For the alternate, The "Evansville" down the front has special meaning for the fans here, as the team wore a similar (white) version as their home jersey when they won the team's first championship at 1200 seat Swonder Ice Arena. The team actually pre-dates the Ford Center by 3 years, as they played at their (now) practice rink during construction of the 9400 seat state of the art Ford Center.

         Sorry for rambling, but it's pretty big for me to have 3 of my jersey designs worn on ECHL ice. You can have one of yours worn by a pro team as well by entering your jerseys into the Mallards Comp.

___________________________________________________________

Anaheim Ducks (Away)

Good: The plethora of orange. They are in Orange County after all and it's not tacky like the randomly placed orange in the Sharks jerseys. I also like the font (nothing new) and the Stadium Series style collar ties.

Bad: No hem stripes. The black yoke is a perfect opportunity for a Mainly black hem stripe, which would balance the colors. The HUGE logo might just be because it's a replica, will be interesting to see on the ice.

B+

Tampa Bay Lightning (3rd)

Good: The template is good. It's a segway between the Kings and the Blue Jackets, which are a couple of my favorite [current] NHL sets. I like the wordmark on the front...

Bad: ... but can't it say Lightning on the front? If not, use the white version of the primary, which would probably look better. The jersey looks like they were coloring it in on MS paint, and accidentally hit undo after clicking with the blue paint bucket. I would've rather them leave blue out all together. It would've been the only current Black/White jersey used in the NHL.

D+

Saint Louis Blues (Away)

Good: The hem stripes. Yay no more piping... I love the "hanger effect" on the inside of the collar. The yoke and yoke stripes are spectacular. Pretty much everything about this jersey is good. The font still works even with the change in design.

Bad: Y you no shoulder patch?

A





Hey, if your bummed out that you didn't win the Grand Rapids Griffins contest, You can enter this one to have another shot of having your design on the ice. Also, send in concepts and hopefully we will be back to normal in a couple weeks.

Follow me on Instagram here for some wacky pics, but more importantly, insiders pics of Icemen stuff! 

-Caden