Friday Variety

I'm normally not one to complain, but if you guys knew the week I've had in terms of technology fails, you'd sit down on the floor and cry. I mean grown men. On the floor. Sobbing. It's been that bad.

Only now do I finally have my new wireless router cooperating with my new MacBook Pro — and I say that with fingers crossed. Without going into boring details, the bigger problem with all of this was that every time something stopped working, it meant spending what little free time I had fixing it.

But I'll be back this weekend making loads of updates across the site. A lot has been going ignored while I was troubleshooting — concept art, logo news, and yes, the IceHL.

Live Chat Returns This Weekend

The first thing I want to mention is that I'm bringing back the Live Chat! We haven't done one of those since last November. It's well overdue. I don't have an exact time, but I'll let you know when I do. It'll probably be Saturday afternoon. I'll post a reminder in the sidebar as well as make an announcement on Twitter.

We can talk about whatever you guys want. I'm also going to use it as a platform to unveil the IceHL's New York Guardians logo. It was a tight race. Drop by if you want to hang out and chat. I'll also answer any questions you may have.

Twitter Mailbag Moves

This week only I'm moving the Twitter Mailbag to Saturday. There were a lot of great questions and mentions this week that I want to talk about, but I want to get to some other stuff today. So if you'd like to tweet any questions, now is your chance. Be sure to include @icethetics.

Wolf Packs Wants Your Jersey Designs

In case you missed it, the AHL's Hartford Wolf Pack are holding a fan jersey design contest.

After a very successful first year, the Wolf Pack Specialty Jersey Design Contest is back! We had hundreds of great entries last year and had a blast choosing the winner. Be creative and have fun because we loved all the different ideas that fans had. The winner of this year’s contest will receive a personalized jersey of their design along with tickets to see them worn by the team! During the TBA game, the jerseys will be auctioned right off the player’s backs! This year’s auction raised over $10,000, which benefited the March of Dimes organization.

On their web site, the Wolf Pack has a jersey template you can download and the email address you need to send your artwork to. Fans have until September 1 to get their entries in.And if you want instant gratification, send your design to Icethetics at the same time and it may just show up on the site.

Following Up on the Ice Flyers

The SPHL's newest member, the Pensacola Ice Flyers, unveiled their coma-inducing logo two weeks ago at a fan event in north Florida. I had some comments.

Now we have "official" word from the team on why they went with the logo with the fewest votes in an online poll — the worst one. Via Twitter, Icethetics reader Mike posed the following question to the minor league club.

mburmy @PcolaIceFlyers I know the poll was for 'entertainment only,' but WHY did you HAVE to use the LAST-place entry?"

To which the Ice Flyers' Twittermaster replied:

PcolaIceFlyers @mburmy Thanks for the comments... there were some copyright concerns and it was the best logo to modify and adapt for our use.

I buy the first part. Copyright issues are always a concern when you ask fans to design things. However, it was "the best logo to adapt for our use"? Seriously? I think I should just not talk about it anymore. At least now we have some closure on the subject.

Concept Art

My inbox tells me you guys have been longing for the return of concept art to the site. I had hoped the IceHL would fill that void. Yet all of that is artwork that's been floating around for months. So I am aiming to bring the occasional concept post back to the site via the Concepts section, accessible at the top of the page.

Until I can make time for that, I'll give you something here. When USA Hockey announced it would be unveiling new Olympic jerseys later this month, I asked you guys to send in your own concepts. Here is one by Mike Ivall.

I've also got a bunch more Ducks third jersey concepts. I'll either make a new post on the Concepts blog with all of them or I'll start posting them on Twitter — which is easier for me. Which do you guys prefer?

Anyway, I think I've taken up enough of your time with this post. Got any questions or comments? You know where they go.

Comments

[Kevin Y]

Thanks for the live chat return! It won't be the same without a third jersey reveal, with built-in history lesson, but it's something! Not sure if I'll be able to be a part of it due t my work schedule, but I'll try to be here.

I don't buy what the Ice Flyers are saying about their logo at all. I only slightly believe "copyright" issues, but it's all very suspicious to me.

The USA jersey set looks nice. The white jersey looks too... open (?) because of the white eagle on a white jersey. It's kinda camouflaged, but still looks good. Of course, the team probably is gonna come up with something crappy. I'm hoping for them to go back to the 1980 jerseys for... well, rather obvious reasons. C'mon, those were nice uniforms, and the history behind them? You can't go wrong!!

[Leafers LP]

Twitter sucks!

I kinda like those USA concepts. I'm expecting a rather mediocre update though.

The Ice Flyers (worst name ever) situation is just stupid. Hideous logo, but instead they go with the worst logo. They obviously didn't do their hockey jersey research.

[Evan]

Yeah, I think the Ice Flyers aren't telling the whole side of the story on why they chose that horrible "logo". Copyright issues may apply, but something else was a factor too.
The USA should go with throwbacks to 1980 as Kevin said, you can't go wrong with those uniforms and they're very nice looking.

[McElroy919]

I don't think you should post on twitter I mean not everyone is one twitter you should upload it to the concepts section.

[cl525]

Other than what is on the Wolfpack's website, which does not show much of the front of the jersey, do you have any pictures of the previous fan's winning design?

[TheKing]

I'm not a Twitter person, so I'd prefer it if you posted any concepts (Ducks or otherwise) here on the website.