Frozen Frontier Sweaters Shine

All photos by Micheline Veluvolu

AHL's Americans and Monsters meet at Frontier Field

The first outdoor game of the hockey season happened Friday night in Rochester, New York. The Rochester Americans hosted the Lake Erie Monsters in a game with a very distinct look. In typical outdoor fashion, the opponents sported throwback jerseys.

The Amerks were dressed to look like they did back in the late 1950s. The Monsters, meanwhile, took on the look of an even older team that preceded them in their hometown of Cleveland — the Cleveland Barons.

A photo gallery posted on the Amerks' Facebook page allows us to enjoy the aesthetics of the game in all their splendor. I recommend spending some time there.

What do you think? Are you over the throwback trend? Or is it a welcome relief from the onslaught of modern Olympic and NHL Stadium Series jerseys?

Minor Jersey Mayhem

This is a big weekend for specialty jerseys around the minor leagues. Let's start in the AHL!

Game photo from Rockford IceHogs (via Flickr)

Rockford celebrates Los IceHogs Dos!

How can we not start here? The Rockford IceHogs donned these numbers for Los IceHogs Dos this weekend. If you missed "Uno," check out this post from last year. They are really something.

I talked with IceHogs' communications director Mike Peck who said the team partnered with the Latino Leadership Coalition in Rockford for the event. In fact, they inspired the jersey design.

"They really wanted to highlight the strong musical aspect of the Hispanic/Latino culture," said Peck.

The IceHogs wore this uniform on Friday night and auctioned them off afterward with "proceeds being donated to La Voz Latina, an organization dedicated to serving the Rockford region’s Hispanic community through education, workshops and youth programming," according to the press release.

The great thing about these specialty jersey nights around the minors is that these teams are always raising money for charity. So no matter how silly the team may look on the ice, at least it's for a good cause.

Photo from Worcester Sharks (via Facebook)

Worcester raises autism awareness

The Worcester Sharks wore these jerseys on Friday and Saturday to benefit The Autism Resource Center of Central Massachusetts. The puzzle piece pattern is the standard symbol of autism awareness.

Photos from Texas Stars

Texas dons player-designed stars and stripes

This Veterans Day weekend was marked by a number of patriotic or military-themed jerseys. The Texas Stars called it Stars & Stripes Military Appreciation Weekend and wore these jerseys on Friday and Saturday. The subsequent jersey auction is benefiting the Texas Stars Foundation.

The cool part of this uniform is who designed it. Remember Taylor Vause? He played for the Swift Current Broncos a couple seasons and ago and was responsible for designing some fo the team's specialty jerseys. He's continued that hobby since graduating to the pros.

Vause spent most of last season with the Stars but is currently with the club's ECHL affiliate, the Idaho Steelheads. So unfortunately, while he designed this jersey, he didn't get to wear it this weekend.

Images from Springfield Falcons and Hershey Bears

Falcons and Bears go patriotic for Veterans Day

The Springfield Falcons and Hershey Bears honored military veterans in different ways this weekend. The Falcons wore the Hometown Heroes Night jerseys above while being shut out 3-0 on Friday. (This is the only photo I've been able to find of the jersey so far.)

The Bears, on the other hand, are going the camouflage route with tonight's set. I have yet to see any photos of the actual jersey, but the rendering above was posted to their Facebook page on Thursday.

Bakersfield can't stop making odd jerseys

And finally, we wrap up in the ECHL where this is happening tonight.

Image from Bakersfield Condors (via Facebook)

Had to make it huge so you could truly appreciate it. The Bakersfield Condors are always trying to go outside by the box with specialty jerseys. And I really don't know what to say about this one. Perhaps I could address the irony of the sponsor being Dignity Health. Because that's just what the players won't have after they wear these for three hours.

If you can't get enough, the Condors have a photo gallery on Pinterest.

I know there are some I've missed so I'll have a follow-up to this post likely later this evening. In the meantime, what do you think of these? Any favorites in the bunch?

Update on Sunday · Nov 10 · 2013 | 7:32 PM PST by Chris

As promised, I wanted to follow up with a few more recent minor league event jerseys.

Photos from Toledo Walleye (via Facebook)

ECHL clubs compete on epic Star Wars Night

Last weekend, the ECHL's Toledo Walleye and Michigan K-Wings coordinated a one-of-a-kind Star Wars Night. This is a schtick that's been done many times before. In fact, just the week before, the Orlando Solar Bears hosted one of their own!

What made this one interesting was how both teams came together for this event in Toledo, Ohio. I have to be honest. I've never been a Star Wars fan, so I don't really understand all these teams doing this or even the references involved. But I can understand it's a big part of popular culture and many fans get a good kick out of it.

I read that the Walleye are dressed as X-Wing pilots (in orange) while the K-Wings are dressed up a Darth Vader. Of course as names go, wouldn't it be more appropriate to have the K-Wings dress up as X-Wing pilots? But then the game was in Toledo, so the Walleye can't be the baddies.

Anyway, it was visually a rather interesting game. No denying that.

Cancer awareness night jerseys also popular

If you're a team trying to raise money for charity, the best you can probably do is cancer research. The Providence Bruins and Portland Pirates recently held their Pink in the Rink Nights — an event that a vast number of hockey teams have started to latch onto in recent years.

But taking the crown this weekend were the San Antonio Rampage who focused on cancer affecting children. Because there's no bigger bummer on which to end a blog post. But you know what, when the jerseys are sold, it's money those researchers wouldn't have otherwise had. So good on these teams for their efforts!

IceCaps Unveil Third Jersey

New look designed by a fan of the St. John's club in 2011

As promised, the AHL's St. John's IceCaps unveiled their first ever third jersey on Friday night — complete with the brand new crest seen above. The team had been previewing the new look with daily teaser photos on Instagram since Oct. 28.

The coolest part of this new jersey is how it came about. That story follows these photos.

Photos from St. John's IceCaps

Check out this excerpt from the team's press release:

The jersey was designed by Troy Birmingham, a graphic artist from St. John’s, who approached the team with his concept when the club was formed in 2011. It was the first time Birmingham had designed a logo for a sports team.

To all you concept artists, I guess sometimes it does pay off to approach a team with your design. Great to see the IceCaps taking advice from their fan base on this jersey design.

Photo from St. John's IceCaps

For specifics on how Birmingham's design came about, here's another chunk of the release:

He explains his inspiration: “The primary logo was meant to represent the province as a whole, so for the third jersey I wanted a logo that was a bit more specific to the city, that’s why I used Cabot Tower,” said Mr. Birmingham.

“The font was meant to represent ice-grey gradient, power and motion and I included a stylized iceberg. I included the small outline of Newfoundland and Labrador to tie the alternate logo to the primary logo and have a connection with the original logo.

“For the jersey itself, I wanted to keep a similar colour scheme to the primary jersey but I wanted a traditional look and feel. It kind of reminds me of an old jersey from the 1970′s with the square shoulders.”

The IceCaps debuted the new look for their game against the Manchester Monarchs on Friday where they won 5-2. They'll face the Monarchs again tonight where the same sweaters.

Photos from St. John's IceCaps (via Facebook)

The new looks is fantastic — just what the IceCaps needed to infuse a bit of their own identity. For the last two years they've simply been wearing the jerseys of their NHL affiliate, the Jets. So it's nice to see them go their own way a bit here.

That's the positive. I also have a couple of negatives. The provincial flag on the shoulder is a bad trend. It started with the Calgary Flames in 2007 and the launch of their Reebok Edge jerseys. We then saw Abbotsford of the AHL follow suit.

I can only speak for myself, but I really don't want to see this become a regular thing. The way I see it, throwing a flag on your jersey is a lazy way of connecting to the locals. If your own trademarked logos can't do that job, come up with new logos that do.

Photo from St. John's IceCaps

I'm also not crazy about the crest. I like the tie-in to the city of St. John's certainly, but I'm just not sure it's a well-executed design. The text is the focal point and it has my least favorite feature in the world — a gradient.

But those are just minor issues in the overall picture. The jersey's colors and striping are cool and unique and I really like the square shoulder yokes here. In action, they look great!

St. John's to host 2014 AHL All-Star Classic

While we're on the subject of St. John's, N.L., I should point out that they're hosting the 2014 AHL All-Star Classic. The logo for the event was released back in September along with the announcement of a brand new format.

Instead of pitting two teams of AHL stars against one another, a single team of AHLers will face off against Färjestad BK from the Swedish Hockey League — known as the Swedish Elite League (or Elitserien) until this year. According to the AHL, it's the first time a Swedish club will compete in North America.

That game will take place on Wed., Feb. 12 and Canadians will be able to watch live on Sportsnet.

I'll leave you now with a look at Färjestad's logo. Pretty standard stuff for a European hockey team.

Minor League Anniversaries

It's been a busy summer with a lot of changes in the NHL. While I work on the next edition of NHL JerseyWatch, how about some new anniversary logos to hold you over? The AHL alone has at least four that I know of. Let's take a look at them here.

The Syracuse Crunch will mark their 20th season after arriving in upstate New York in 1994. (The franchise was actually founded as the Hamilton Canucks in 1992.) This logo was unveiled Aug. 14.

Also in 1994, the Springfield Falcons joined as an expansion franchise. So this season marks their 20th in the AHL as well. Although, I don't know what to say about this logo, which was released just last week. There's just too much going on and none of it good.

Fifteen years later, a couple more teams arrived on the AHL scene. The Abbotsford Heat are celebrating their fifth anniversary with this neat mark. It was unveiled almost two months ago, back on July 11. This is what most anniversary logos should be, actually. It cleverly incorporates an aspect of the team's primary logo with a unique type treatment for the number.

Here's what not to do. The Texas Stars are also marking five years, but in a much less interesting fashion. Hey, it's an anniversary logo. They can't all be winners. It was unveiled way back on June 28.

I'll wrap this up with a league anniversary. Can you believe the Southern Professional Hockey League has been around for almost a decade? But I think an intern made the logo. (Does the SPHL have interns?) Regardless, the execution is poor even if it's not a bad concept.

See any minor league anniversary logos I missed? Drop me a line and I'll update this post.

Providence Bruins Update Uniforms

P-Bruins tout tweaks to all three kits for 2013-14

Back on the minor league beat this weekend, the AHL's Providence Bruins launched a new mini-site to promote and explain the updates they've made to their uniforms for the coming season. And because they did it in three elegant graphics, that makes less work for me.

The big takeaway from the new home jersey is that the P-Bruins will no longer wear white at any time. (I think they did a bit of that last season, but now it's official.) The AHL is going to prove that you don't always need one team to be wearing white to tell the opponents apart. When will the NHL get on board? We're looking at you, Nashville.

The road jersey is pretty close what we see with their NHL affiliate in Boston. Unfortunately, they've gone with that awful opposite-color name plate. This is a terrible trend that doesn't seem willing to die.

Finally, there's the black alternate jersey. It's a bit plain — not unlike what Boston's third suffers from — but I like what they've done with the collar. It's different. And I really like the complete lack of white in this jersey. There's a bit in the logos, but no white stripes. This is totally a black and gold sweater and it looks great.

What do you think? Did Providence hit the mark with their updates?