Friday: Exactly As Expected

TGIF, Welcome to the Friday post!

With game 1 in the books of this year's SCF, another inexperienced team learns the valuable lesson of NEVER SIT BACK ON A LEAD! We see this a fair amount in game 1s, where a team jumps out to an early lead but thinks they can play conservatively and wind down the clock. That almost never works in the regular season, let alone the most important series of the year. Teams like Chicago will do anything to steal a win, even with 5 minutes left in the 3rd period, so with a 1-0 lead, it was unlikely Tampa was going to win with that strategy. Does this mean they'll win game 2? I don't know. With some teams, it takes one game to learn their lesson, for some it takes one failed trip to the Cup Final to do so, so we'll see.

Photo from Prince George Cougars Official Facebook Page

In logo/jersey news, the Prince George Cougars unveiled their new logo and semi new jerseys, which Brendan reviewed yesterday. I agree with him on almost everything so no point repeating myself, but the jerseys did disappoint me. It's true the Pens template doesn't look that bad, but with a logo that contains almost no black and more gold, the opportunity was there to go with a new look, but hey, this appears to be the year of "cost-cutting" in minor and junior hockey.

Also, that logo totally looks like the Thundercats logo, Thundercats on ice...that sounds like a South Park sort of joke. Oh well...

Voting do it!

COTW May 24-30 vote (ends Friday @ 11:59pm Eastern)

HJC Open Logo Comp (ends Tuesday, June 9 @ noon Eastern)

Let's look at some of the HJC Open logo entries that have come in since last post: 

Ryan HJC.)

Chris W.)

Christian L.)

On to today's 7 concepts!

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Minnesota Timberwolves Concepts (By: Taylor R.)

+ I give Taylor full credit on using elements from the NBA jerseys as the basis for his concepts, not an easy thing to do. In this case, the trees look amazing on the arms

+ The pants looks amazing 

+ Numbers and logo choices are excellent 

+ Great execution as expected from Taylor

- Black helmet would look better on the blue jersey

- Would prefer a small hem stripe to the pipping 

Rating: 9/10

San Jose Barracuda Concept (By: J3)

+ Well, if anyone said the Cudas were boring...this would fix that

+ The arms and sides look like a sleeve tattoo you see on some 50 year old guy on a biker show on Discovery, but don't get me wrong, it looks great on the jersey 

+ The pants and chest curves look like teeth 

+ Solid execution 

- Logo is too small on the front

- The jersey needs some sort of normal striping on the jersey to balance the tattoo stripes, the hem would be the best with something like the socks and go without the panels

Rating: 8.25/10

Chicago Blackhawks Concepts (By: Ben M.)

+ If the NHL does go to Nike, this is how Chicago should be designed

+ I don't know what it is about the arm stripes, but they look really cool angled on the red jersey

+ Making the '09 Winter Classic jersey with white instead of creme, it looks much better, I like a lot more than a rehash in vintage bleh 

+ Good execution

- Wish I could see the back of the jerseys 

- Logo on the alternate is way too small 

Rating: 8/10

Sam Jose Sharks Concepts (By: Jack G.)

+ San Jose did a decent job making their jerseys lighter, colour wise, Jack furthers that process with more colours
+ Love the amount to orange and white on the home and road, black is barely on the jerseys but just enough you notice
+ ORANGE ALTERNATE!
+ Good execution

- Hmm..that striping pattern looks familiar, at least on the home and road. I don't mind the striping is Jets inspired but adding something to make the pattern more original would make that less noticeable
- Rule of thumb, it's very rare one shoulder patch would look good, always go with two

Rating: 8.5/10

Alaska Aces Concepts (By: Brooks F.)

+ One thing I'll always give Brooks full points for is unique striping patterns
+ Good logo choices, the half primary logo always looked weird and how could anyone not use the slashing A puck logo as a holster patch?
+ Colours are well balanced on the blue jersey for sure

- Don't to stop the stitching at the hem
- The blue jersey would look better with the blue and black inverted
- The pants would look better with a white stripe, and making the collar insert green or adding a very small green hi light stripe would add green that's on the logo

Rating: 7.5/10

Halifax Highlanders Concepts (By: Ryan C.)

+ In Goon, the Highlanders and decent Syracuse esque jerseys but with a late 90's Philly Phantoms colour scheme, this is an improvement
+ The darker blue and bronze go very well together, but still has a minor league feel to it
+ Good execution
+ Solid colour balancing

-  The 69 are too close to each other, especially on the back, they almost interlock
- The neck on the blue jersey would look less dark with some white.. collar insert perhaps?

Rating: 8.75/10

New York Islanders Concept (By: Jarrett T.)

+ With the plethora of black Islanders concepts, based on what Jay-Z did to the once colourful NJ Nets (which isn't going to happen to the Islanders, just a new alternate), but this is the first one I've seen to have blue, nice connection to their new arena
+ The blue really pops and works with the very simple striping
+ The Islanders logo looks great in the blue
+ Good execution

- A black inner outline around the white on the primary and the numbers would look fantastic
- Again, a coloured collar insert would look great
- More a preference thing, but the shoulder shape on the current Islanders alternate would look fantastic

Rating: 8.25/10

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That's the post!

Don't forget to get your COTW votes in and your HJC Open logo entries in 

Go Blackhawks Go

Have an awesome weekend!