Luongo Wears Captain's 'C'

I've gotten a ton of emails about this over the past week. Vancouver Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo was named captain of his club a week ago. Well that's big news by itself but here's the catch. Goalies aren't permitted to wear the "C" on their jersey.

So how did he get around that rule? That's where it becomes Icethetics news. He put it on his mask.

As you know, Luongo won the goalie mask tournament at NHLToL back in June. I'm considering doing one of those every year. But I'll wait until playoff time. I think I enjoyed that tournament the most out of any we've done.

By the way, the Oilers' third jersey will be up here shortly.

Monday Afternoon Notes

I've got a few things to talk about this morning. I'll start with the IceHL. I had to disqualify a bunch of team names that were up for rating in the Central Division. It was pointed out that several of them have already been used by obscure or defunct pro teams.

I asked that you guys not submit ineligible names since I don't have the time to search everything submitted. Anyway, some of you may want to go back and adjust your ratings based on the names that were disqualified. There are links to those pages in the pollbar.

In other Icethetics related news, we surpassed the million-hit mark. Did it in under three months too. Thanks for continuing to check in, everyone. According to my stats, we've had over 400,000 unique visitors following Icethetics in the last three months. You guys are the reason I do this every day. Thanks again!

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SANFORD'S MASK GETS PAINTED
Vancouver Canucks goalie Curtis Sanford decided to wear a fan-designed goalie mask this season. And after choosing his favorite last week, it's now been painted. The team's official web site had photos of the new mask.

It doesn't quite look how I thought it would, but I think it's still a great looking mask. I like the green eyes at the top.

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REBRANDING THE NHL & PROJECT: IHA
Been getting a lot of questions about both of these. First, I can tell you I've talked with Matt and since school and work — designing logos — have him very busy and without much free time, it may be about six weeks before we see his Blues rebrand. Hope you don't mind waiting a little longer. If you do, too bad.

Nicolas, creator of the IHA, will have a statement for everyone later in the week regarding the future of the league we designed logos for here at Icethetics. At that point we'll also begin accepting logo submissions for the league itself. The IHA will need its own logo as well.

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NO THIRD JERSEY NEWS
Over the weekend, the Sabres and Blues unveiled their new third jerseys but I was keeping an eye on the rest of the league to see if anyone else would have theirs on display at various fan events. The Senators, Coyotes, Blackhawks and Lightning all held festivities over the weekend but none showed a third jersey. We'll probably have to wait until November for most of them....
FAKE THIRD JERSEY NEWS
I've been getting a lot of emails from people saying they've found pictures of all the new third jerseys on various message boards. Well, what they're seeing are the concepts created by JerseyDatabase.com based off Howard Berger's descriptions. I'm writing this hoping to get those emails to stop.

Let's take a look at the concepts JB.com did versus the actual jersey — all of which they have on their site. We'll start with the Hurricanes.

Berger wrote about stars across the bottom but we know the images he had were really bad quality so it was probably difficult to make out. Though I think seeing dots around the sweater, it would've been a better guess to stick with the storm flag design. Next, the Bruins.

It seems this concept wasn't based entirely off Berger but maybe a little wishful thinking. The main differences are the drawstring collar, the gold stripe at the bottom and the word BRUINS in the logo. Berger never said it would be the BOSTON logo and the earlier images we saw kind of confirmed that. Now the Sabres.

Berger did say it would be a throwback but the low quality images probably precluded him from noticing the slight modifications. And finally, the Blues.

For this, I'm betting Berger was looking at something similar to the image I posted on Saturday. Because of the terrible quality of the image, the jersey appears to have black stripes on it and the gold's been washed out entirely. It's also hard to tell that the ends of the sleeves are white.

So there it is. JerseyDatabase.com appears to be basing their concepts off of good descriptions but these are by no means the actual jersey designs. For that, we'll have to keep an eye out the next few months. I'll be here keeping track of all of it.

Around The League

Time to get caught up on a bunch of news items from around the NHL. Get comfortable. This is a long one.

Vancouver Canucks goalie Curtis Sanford has decided on the fan-designed mask he'll be wearing this season. Hundreds of designs were submitted and the winner was announced yesterday on the team's web site.

I'll follow up when pictures of the final mask start popping up.

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The Chicago Blackhawks recently attended a White Sox baseball game — I'm guessing to show the other hometown ball club that they don't love them any less than the Cubs even though they'll be playing in the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. But they were wearing some unusual jerseys for the occasion.

See what I mean? Let's just hope they never make it on the ice.

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The Los Angeles Kings continue to pimp their season tickets by offering a free third jersey no one's ever seen. Guess that's one way to avoid complaints. You can't whine about something that's free (...oh, wait a minute). There's an ad on their web site showing that ol' question mark jersey.

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I got an email from an Atlanta Thrashers season ticket holder who asked his account rep about when the team would be unveiling their third jersey so he could get tickets for that game. He was told Friday, November 14 when they play the Hurricanes. That date coincides with what I've had in the sidebar....
Recently, a handful of new Phoenix Coyotes logos leaked and now it seems the team's own web site has some confirmation of at least one of them. A version of the new script logo in that post can be seen in the CoyotesFest logo.

The event is this Saturday at 11 AM. The team hasn't indicated any plans to unveil their third jersey... but neither did the Bruins.

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Speaking of third jerseys, aside from the Sabres and Coyotes, a handful of other teams are holding fan events this weekend. Only the Sabres have mentioned anything about unveiling their third jersey, but it'll be worth keeping an eye on these other guys.

The Ottawa Senators will have their Fanfest on Saturday from 8 AM to 1:30 PM. They really want you waking up early for a Saturday morning. Anyway, on the agenda for the day is the grand opening of The Sens Store. Might they have certain new merchandise for sale? (Wink, wink.)

The Chicago Blackhawks have Training Camp Festival 2008 on the books for Saturday from 8 AM to 4 PM. The Bruins unveiled their new third jersey to very little fanfare. I'd expect the same from the Blackhawks who are likely to go with their standard black alternate that's been in service for over a decade now. Will they have it on display at this event?

The St. Louis Blues will hold FANfest on Sunday from 11 AM to 4 PM. There's a Q&A scheduled with head coach Andy Murray and president of hockey operations John Davidson with season ticket holders at 1:45 PM. I can almost guarantee someone will ask about third jerseys. What will the guys say?

That wraps things up for today. I wanted to get as much new information as I could in this post since it might be the only one I write today.

Sanford Picks Mask Finalists

A few weeks ago the Vancouver Canucks held a competition on behalf of Curtis Sanford to design his new mask. They received over 300 designs from fans and artists and now the finalists have been posted on their official web site.

You can see galleries of Sanford's Top 10 favorites and the staff's Top 40. Some of them are amazingly well done. Others not so much. Go see for yourself.

Design Curtis Sanford's Mask!

Since there are a lot of Vancouver Canucks fans out there, by now I'm sure many if not most of you have seen the new contest on the team's official web site.

That's right, even you can design Curtis Sanford's mask! As you know, his teammate Roberto Luongo won the Tournament of Goalie Masks at NHLToL. Sanford, however, didn't fare as well being eliminated in the second round by Mathieu Garon. Now you guys have the chance to make it the best!

But obviously this isn't just for Canucks fans. I encourage artists of every stripe to take a shot at this. And as a bonus, feel free to submit your mask design to me at the same time as you submit it to the team. If you do an awesome job, I'll post it for everyone at Icethetics to see.

Have fun with it!

Freak Out Friday XL

This is the 40th installment of the Freak Out Friday series. And the Roman numeral for 40 suggests I'd better have an extra-large helping of freaky hockey artwork this week. Let's hope I can deliver.

The biggest real-life freak out of the last couple weeks has been the public unveiling of the Iowa Chops along with their new logo. But someone's made an improvement.

(Apologies for the low image quality, but this is what was sent to me.)

It seems that with the Buffalo Sabres, when it comes to fan made concept art, you either love it or hate it. I wonder what you guys will think of these.

But wait, there's more.

There have even been jerseys designed for them.

And more along the lines of Matt's recent rebrand of the Stars, check this out.

Something else I got this week that made me chuckle were concepts for the Vancouver Canucks.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort someone put into this but wow, you can't help but shake your head in amazement.

Here's a concept jersey for the Chicago Blackhawks.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Sometimes folks send in team-branding concepts that miss the mark a little.

I can only imagine the nightmares the children of Cleveland would have to endure.

Speaking of nightmares, if you recall about a month ago I started a series within a series for the Freak Out Friday. One reader created 30 logos based around the Mighty Ducks' third jerseys from the mid-90s — one for every NHL team. Last week I posted the Atlantic Division and the week before was the Ducks' own Pacific. Today we're going to the Northwest.

Be sure to notice the half-stripes on the Oilers logo. Yes, all of these are based on last year's new Rbk EDGE jerseys.

And that's all folks. We're back with another Freak Out Friday in two weeks — assuming you get all your ridiculous artwork sent in! My big thanks to everyone who's submitted work — good and bad alike!

Rumored New Looks For Fall

I ran across a post on the Canucks' official message board with some interesting information. It actually links back to NHLToL but that's not the interesting part. Apparently there's someone claiming to have had a look at new NHL logos for use this season. You can see the original thread here or catch the highlights below.

First of all, Boston, St. Louis, Nashville, and Florida have all changed to the same yellow Pantone color. The sharks also changed their teal. I think that is all for color changes.

Now for the more exciting stuff...

Boston: new wordmark in the same font as the B in the primary logo.

San Jose: Added a secondary logo with the letters SJ and the old unused shark fin logo from last year at the bottom.

Phoenix: Pretty much all new logos except for the primary, including a new full body coyote as a secondary.

Buffalo: Added a slightly redesigned version of the classic logo with the new navy blue. I looked at the two logos more closely together and it is pretty much the same with a Very minor tweak in the sword handle, and the addition of silver outlines around everything. It also has the red eye.

Vancouver: Added the Johnny Canuck logo with his head in the V back to their identity.

As with anything, I can't vouch for the information myself, but I read it and thought you guys might be interested — whether it ends up being true or not. However, my guess is most of it is on the level.

If I get any confirmations or looks at these logos, you can expect to see them posted right away.

Interestingly, but unrelated, in the same thread was an amazing concept logo I just had to post. You guys know how much I like the Canucks' new V logo. Well someone on that site created one that's even better! It's got a roughness and an edge to it that's lacking in the original logo.

credit: DaveyG @ Canucks.com Message Board

I'm sure most of the Canucks fans here have already seen that, but to anyone who hasn't, what do you think?

Alternates From A Fan

In combing through my inbox I came across a set of third jersey designs one reader sent in recently. There's 18 in all but I'm going to start with six — my favorites of the bunch.

An obvious win for a Hurricanes alternate sweater would be this one.

Though it steals a page out of L.A.'s book with the locator on the front of the sweater, it's not a bad look. Speaking of the Kings...

...how about a purple jersey with the Gretzky-era logo? One of my favorite logos has to be the new alternate unveiled by the Canucks last summer. I'm dying to see it on a uniform.

As far as that jersey goes though, sort of reminds me of the Whalers. But I do like the green. A lot!

Of the few things we have confirmation of regarding next year's third jerseys, is that the Blues will use a new logo that incorporates the Gateway Arch. Here's another concept with that in mind.

It may not be a new logo but it does include the arch.

I know many of you are opposed to black third jerseys, but I think they work for teams that actually have color in their regular home sweaters — the Sharks and Coyotes, for example.

I love that shield logo too. And here's a unique take on Phoenix's logo.

I'll have more from this artist in the future. In the meantime, stick around. I'll be posting information about the brand new International Hockey Association logo project a little later this evening.