The IceHL: Recap
Tuesday · Jul 21 · 2009 | 8:31 PM PDTSince the return of Icethetics, readers have slowly been making their way back. That's good news because it means the revival of one of my favorite projects. Many of you have asked about it. Now we're finally ready to pick up where we left off.
But before we can do that, I need to catch everyone up. There are as many new visitors has those returning. That means recapping the history of the IceHL. I'll try to make it as brief as possible.
The IceHL is a fantasy hockey league that Icethetics users decided to build and brand from the ground up. That means coming up with names, creating logos and designing uniforms. Icethetics readers would vote on every decision-making step of the process, from the very beginning.
Project Intro
It began nearly a year ago, August 10, 2008, after the completion of the IHA project (our first fantasy league project). I announced that we would be building and branding an entire league from scratch. Readers were very happy about this. Why? It would give them an outlet to express themselves creatively, designing logos and uniforms for teams that didn't already have a logo or colors.
Creating the League
The first decision would be about geography. Do we want a North American league or a global one? After a week of voting, 59% of users opted for a league restricted to North America. I then set up five options for league size and breakdown, ranging from 24 to 36 teams. The 30-team option secured the most votes, with 34%.
The Ground Rules | Divisional Alignments
After setting the ground rules for how the rest of the project would play out, users voted on five divisional boundary alignments. Basically, maps of the U.S. and Canada with blue lines dividing up geographical regions. The idea was to determine how users wanted the teams to be spread out.
After a week of voting and garnering 33% of the vote, Aligment A was selected, as seen below.
;)
Selecting Cities
The next step was to determine which cities would be awarded franchises. Users voted on the available locations from the above lists, two divisions at a time. Each of the six divisions would be narrowed from 12 available cities to five.
Voting on the Pacific and Central Divisions ended a week later. By this time it was the first week of September and nearly a full month into the project. For the Pacific Division, voters chose Anchorage, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. In the Central Division, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and St. Louis garnered the most votes.
The following week, final locations were released for the next two divisions. The Northeast Division would be made up of Boston, Montreal, New York, Quebec City, and Toronto. For the North Division, users selected the only all-Canadian group, comprised of Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg.
The final two divisions were announced the next week. In the South Division, readers picked Dallas, Denver, Houston, New Orleans, and Salt Lake City. And finally, the Southeast Division would include Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.
Selecting Nicknames
With all 30 cities now in place, the fantasy league, which had yet to be officially named, was finally christened, the IceHL. The Icethetics Hockey League, or as one reader suggested, the Icethetics Continental Elite Hockey League (thanks, Vic DiGital).
As soon as each divisional breakdown was officially announced, readers were given the opportunity to submit nominations for team names. This was a chance to be creative, though some restrictions were put in place to assure originality. For each division, team name nominations were accepted for one week, followed immediately by a week of rating each entry in the long list of names for each team.
At last, one week at a time, the official names for each of the IceHL's 30 teams were released. Finally, we had a real league. The following team names were selected:
- Pacific Division: Alaska Huskies, California Wave, Portland Pioneers, Seattle Aviators, and Vancouver Lumberjacks
- Central Division: Chicago Hitmen, Detroit Motorheads, Milwaukee Lagers, Minnesota Mammoths, and St. Louis Archers
- North Division: Calgary Cavalry, Edmonton Kodiaks, Regina Renegades, Saskatoon Sharpshooters, and Winnipeg Winterhawks
- Northeast Division: Boston Colonials, Hamilton Steelcats, Montreal Olympiques, New York Guardians, and Quebec Armada
- South Division: Boulder Beasts, Dallas Outlaws, Houston Hellcats, New Orleans Gators, and Salt Lake City Scorpions
- Southeast Division: Atlanta Arsenal, Baltimore Blue Crabs, North Carolina Nighthawks, Tampa Bay Barracudas, and Washington Sentinels
It was nearly the end of October by the time all of the teams were officially named. From the announcement date, each division was open to logo submissions for three weeks. Designers were to submit primary, secondary and script marks for as many or as few teams as they wished.
On November 1, the brand new Icethetics.info was officially launched, and along with it, readers began rating each of the accepted logo submissions. For each team, a different number of logo sets were submitted so it was determined that each set would be narrowed down to three by having Icethetics readers rate each one. Those three would then be voted on. The logo set with the most votes would be the final design.
That's where the project currently stands. Our next step is to have you vote on the Top 3 logos for each IceHL team. I will reveal the Top 3 for the Eastern Conference on Thursday and the Western Conference on Friday. Voting for the first team will begin on Saturday.
To see the Top 3 and to vote when polls are posted, the IceHL tab will soon return to the top of the page, giving you access to everything related to our fantasy league. I hope you guys are as excited about this as I am! Weigh in with a comment.
Reader Comments (31)
YAAY!
Thank you so much. This was one of our favorite parts of this website before it went "on hiatus" because it was interactive. It'll be nice to see it return, and I can't wait to see all the logos we had picked a year ago, and so we can kick ourselves in the rear end when we ponder why we picked what we did.
niiiiiiiiiiice!! too bad i didnt had the time to concept a team in this league! im pumpd up to do one!
Finally. Keep up the great work =]
so so so happy its back!
That's a really cool idea!
wooooo!
Any chance we can re-vote on the name "Salt Lake City Scorpions"? I live in SLC and scorpions have virtually nothing to do with this city. Besides, it's a bit of a mouthful.
For a long time I felt like this was the main feature of the site and then some jersey news was thrown in as it came along. I was a big fan and now with the Adobe Creative suite at my disposal I'm pumped to get started. I'd love to see variations maybe
NA league,
Euro/Russian league
Non-traditional Hockey nation league (for fun places like Australia, Israel, the parameters being that the country is in the IIHF)
National Jersey designs.
Throwback design
That's all I got for now.
Thanks for coming back.
Oops forgot,
Minor league - design (smaller city options)
I am SOOOO excited about seeing it again!
After this one's done, I think we should do an "IceHL D-League" where we could vote on nearby but smaller cities for potential affiliates (Madison/Green Bay could be the Lagers' affiliate, Duluth/Mankato/Rochester could be the Mammoths', Galveston/Katy/Sugar Land could be the Hellcats', Arlington could be the Outlaws'-you get the idea)
I like the idea given by Kent about having a minor league. We could assign the teams to IceHL affilliates. I'm glad you got this going again, It's my favorite part of the site.
Just curious as to why, if Denver was actually the city awarded the team, would the name of said team reflect the city of Boulder instead? For those who are not aware, Boulder is not even considered a part of the "Greater Denver Metro Area" to those of us who live here.
Aside from the disappointing moniker of my IceHL "home team" (still hoping for a revote on the Scorpions name), I'm REALLY excited about this project being resurrected. What a great idea and so far, very well executed.
An affiliated minor league for the next project is also a great idea, but I hope we can find lots of fun things to do with the IceHL league when we've finished. Some ideas in that direction...
- Digitize the IceHL for use with EA Sports NHL 09 and perhaps use the online multiplayer features to simulate actual seasons.
- Retro jersey versions for selected 'Winter Classic' teams (for example, PuckDrawns 'Totally 80's' concepts.)
- Somehow these teams will need players won't they? No idea how that would work.
- Some people wanted 36 IceHL teams, but starting with 30 allows for a six team expansion later, which I think would be really cool.
- Someone with alot of extra cash could actually have jerseys/hats produced that can be purchased here on Icethetics.
Thats all I've got for now. Thanks for putting together such a great project!
To Jamee: I gave users the option to choose to name their team after a number of areas that were geographically close, relatively speaking. For the "Denver" franchise, the options were Denver, Boulder or Colorado. Ultimately, voters preferred the name Boulder Beasts.
Yay Jamee for hockey fans in Denver (I just moved here from Pittsburgh)
hmmm... why do i get the feeling that the "Vancouver Lumberjacks" is simply going to serve as an outlet for every person unhappy with the canucks current version of Johnny Canuck to try to re-create their own version.
I just wish people could get over the lumberjack already.
@Chris--Thanks for the clarification. It just seemed strange to me was all.
@Kent--Welcome to Denver. I hope you enjoy Colorado (and that you're an Avs fan).
Honestly, ever since folks decided Ohio doesn't deserve any hockey I have had zero interest whatsoever in this project. It's hard to play with this sort of thing when the popularity contest explicitly excludes you.
Viqsi, you should have gotten you, your friends and whoever else to vote for the Ohio cities back went the polls were up.
Woo! Looking forward to it.
I would love to be a GM of one of these teams and look forward to see how the players are choosen for the teams.I would suggest possibly having volunteers be the GM of the teams and do a fantasy draft of actual NHLers then kinda use a stat system like fantasy hockey to decide who wins each game. Either way you do it i look very forward to seeing how this project progresses gook luck and great work so far.
I wish Pittsburgh or Buffalo were included. Buffalo could have had a good logo.
Is there somewhere we can see the results of the voting of the team names and cities voted on?
When everything is finished and every team has a uniform with logo will there be a season for them using curreny players?
To Mike: Voting results will not be made available until after each poll is complete, but there is no set schedule for that. Should be within a few days of the end of the poll. Keep an eye on the IceHL blog for that info.
To your second question, there is no answer yet. It will be up to guys to decide what happens after we get the uniforms done. As some have mentioned, we could hire GMs for each team, hold a draft (using NHL players), simulate a season, and crown a champion. We could also hold an IceHL Tournament of Logos.
Plenty of options but let's get through this process first.
I really enjoy the names and logos, the only one that should be changed is Salt Lake City.
Scorpions does not fit the character of this place. That name would fit Las Vegas or Phoenix. Not here. It would be like naming the New York team the Tropics.
Theres nothing tropical about New York. I know you are passionate about your city, we are too.
Sentinels or Guardians would be perfect. Those are taken as well. I suggest you re-think the name.
If you want advice from a resident of the state , I would be happy to comment.
As far as the rest of the names and logos......well done!
Any hockey league that includes New Orleans and excludes Ottawa is absurd!! Otherwise, a pretty interesting idea.
I just noticed, no Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. Are you kidding me!!!!
There is a serious problem with your methodology for picking cities. Some divisions have way too few viable cities and you end up picking ridiculous locations such as New Orleans. Any selection process that puts two team in Saskatchewan, which would struggle to support one, while putting none in Pennsylvannia, has major issues.
Wow, you people act as if this is going to be an actual league! It's just for fun. As far as i can tell, the main reason for this project is to see what kind of great logo and uni designs people can come up with. And, in my opinion, including cities like New Orleans gives designers some new material to work with with respect to hockey. Just enjoy the ride people. I think this is a GREAT idea.
But I'm starting to wonder where the uniform explanation/request is going to happen!?