Friday: Earn Your Stripes

With another Friday upon us, it appears as though I may have had my last opportunity to network with a Hockey professional for a while. I'll elaborate on that in a little while. In the meantime, Matt McElroy has a few things in store for us today. But that won't be before the following major announcement:

Indy Fuel voting closes S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y night!

Chicago Blackhawks

Submitted by: Matt McElroy

Generally I always favor where the color is. But in this case, the road white looks the better of the two (the vintage white both helps and is appropriate on both). That's primarily for one reason - numbering. As minor as it is, for me it seems to make a big difference under these circumstances switch the number outline on the home red to the jersey color and add black numbers. It seemingly would be dumb for the TV numbers to match them so make the outline white up there if you bring the black numbers. After that, remove the hem coloring on both in the set and your golden. While I'm not fond of the logo, most people wouldn't notice unless there was a press conference on the updated branding as there isn't much difference.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Submitted by: Matt McElroy

Gray is a color that the Jackets (among select others) could pull off (Though I can never see it happen in hockey ever!). This is somewhat of an example. While I get a sense of New York Strangers, well they are just that when they come to play in Columbus, there are still many Blue Jacket elements. Those are fairly obvious, thus no need to mention it. Adding some striping to the pants could help, at the same time I don't usually like plain paints when their main color is brighter. I do like the addition of red to help the case of making this logo a regular feature on a set and is much welcomed, despite the lack of shoulder patches.

Dave Andrews

Submitted by: Ricky (Me)

This was what I was alluding to earlier. I made a presentation before my final in his class Wednesday as a gesture of returning the favor for him providing me the one of the first freshly produced AHL media guides for the upcoming season (I was the only one to receive a copy) just before the season started. I had to research his jersey number, which wasn't a necessarily traditional goalie number. He never actually played a game with this team, he was pretty much their president. His real title was under legendary then Edmonton GM Glen Sather as Director of Minor League Operations. This is as historically accurate as possible to my ability, which I think is spot on. But I wanted to share this piece not necessarily for critique as I didn't come up with the idea, but rather as a timepiece to look back at a no longer existent  AHL team.

With that, I close out this installment of HCI. Want to see your concepts here? Simply email hockeyconceptideas@gmail.com and your concepts are up fairly quickly. That may change over time, but it won't happen until more concepts come in. So don't delay and send in your content today!

-Ricky