Wild 10th Logo & AHL Report

Wild's 10th anniversary logoThe Minnesota Wild will celebrate their 10th anniversary next season. And we all know that no anniversary can be properly celebrated in the NHL without its own branding.

Meet the Wild's 10th anniversary logo. It started showing up recently on the team's official website in ads meant to promote 2010-11 season tickets. It's simple — a red X in the form of a pair of crossed hockey sticks with the years 2000 and 2010 in a wheat banner surrounding the primary logo. Gets the job done.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are also celebrating 10 seasons in the NHL this fall. However I have not yet come across their anniversary logo. I'm not even certain they'll have one. (But they probably will because it means being able to sell more stuff.)

That's not all. I also have a handful of AHL specialty jersey updates.

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Mike Ivall's winning Wolf Pack jerseyThe AHL's Hartford Wolf Pack held a jersey design contest this season, asking fans to design a specialty jersey.

It was subsequently announced that frequent Icethetics contributor Mike Ivall was named the winner and his sweater design would be implemented for a couple of games in late February. That did not happen.

The Wolf Pack instead told Icethetics that it would be worn for the final home game of the season on Fan Appreciation Night. That was last Saturday. And the jersey looked great. Congrats to Mike!

Nice to see an Icethetics artist taking his concept art all the way to the pros. NHL, here we come!

And there are a ton more photos on the Wolf Pack's Facebook page if you'd like to see more of the jersey. But nothing really beats a fight pose.

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Albany's final gameThe AHL's Albany River Rats sported special sweaters for their final regular season game in upstate New York.

Tom S. emailed in about this photo which appeared alongside a web recap of the 3-2 victory over the Adirondack Phantoms over the last weekend. Neither of us had seen that red jersey before, so I assume it was just used for this game.

No other details were available about it on the River Rats' website. And they did make the Calder Cup playoffs so they'll have a few more games up there before they head to Charlotte. (Scroll down for an update.)

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AHL Pens' specialty jerseyFinally, the AHL's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins wore special sweaters to honor the military last Friday.

The design is similar to their third jersey — a knock-off of the Blackhawks' Winter Classic/third jersey — though it swaps the red and black. And the logo text is replaced with "Support Our Troops."

The Penguins defeated Albany 4-3 in the game and now the two teams are facing each other in the first round of the AHL Calder Cup playoffs.

The Penguins are also utilizing their Facebook page to provide even more photos for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately none of these guys is in a fight stance, but they're still worth looking at anyway.

Thanks to Dave B. for the email!

Update on Thursday · Apr 15 · 2010 | 8:01 AM PDT by Chris

Albany vs. Adirondack for Time Warner CupFollowing up on the River Rats story, it turns out that while that is a specialty jersey, it had nothing to do with it being the team's last regular season game. 

Matt C. explains:

The Albany River Rats red alternate jersey described in today's blog post is actually the jersey worn during Time Warner Cup games between Albany and their Northway rival Adirondack (Glens Falls) Phantoms.

Each team wears a special alternate jersey for these games — Albany's jersey is actually a representation of the jersey worn by their mascot "Rowdy" in their logo, and Adirondack wears an orange-colored jersey with "Adirondack" spelled diagonally across the front similar to the jersey formerly worn by the Adirondack Red Wings.

Always great to get insightful emails like that. Thanks Matt!

Draft Lottery Tonight

2010 NHL Draft Lottery logoOver half the league is preparing for the playoffs which finally start tomorrow. Best time of year for hockey fans! Meanwhile, the LG NHL Draft Lottery takes place tonight at 8 eastern.

It will be televised live on Versus in the U.S. and even has its own logo and sponsorship. A bit odd, but I guess it's a spectacle now that it's on TV. I want my Draft Lottery 2010 t-shirt now.

So who's up for that No. 1 pick? The best my Lightning can do is No. 2 after finishing 25th overall. Edmonton (25%), Boston (18.8%), Florida (14.2%), Columbus (10.7%) and the Islanders (8.1%) have a chance. Anyone else wins the lottery and the top pick goes to the Oilers automatically.

So why is Boston so high? Despite finishing with the 6th spot in the playoffs, they did trade Phil Kessel to the Maple Leafs this season in exchange for their 1st round picks this year and in 2011. Too bad for Toronto.

If you're unable to watch the drawing, check back later tonight as I do plan on posting the selection order. Any excuse to post a list of NHL logos, I guess.

Update on Tuesday · Apr 13 · 2010 | 11:30 PM PDT by Chris

Okay, so I did something I don't usually do and knowing most of you, it's not going to be popular, but I'm used to it by now. I've injected my pathetic, ill-informed opinion into the blog, cobbled together from the CSS ranking and other random things I've read. Feel free to ignore it or tell me why I'm wrong.

Otherwise, below is a list of the teams getting the top 14 picks at the L.A. draft in June. Also included in the table is an at-a-glance look at where each team was placed in last year's draft and who they took in Round 1. TMI? Maybe.

	Draft Rank	Team	My Lame Prediction 2009 1st round picks
	1	Edmonton Oilers	Taylor Hall(10) Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson
	2	Boston Bruins	Tyler Seguin(25) Jordan Caron
	3	Florida Panthers	Cam Fowler(14) Dmitri Kulikov
	4	Columbus Blue Jackets	Brett Connolly(21) John Moore
	5	New York Islanders	Erik Gudbranson(1) John Tavares (12) Calvin de Haan
	6	Tampa Bay Lightning	Mark Pysyk(2) Victor Hedman (29) Carter Ashton
	7	Carolina Hurricanes	Emerson Etem(27) Philippe Paradis
	8	Atlanta Thrashers	Brandon Gormley(4) Evander Kane
	9	Minnesota Wild	Ryan Johansen(16) Nick Leddy
	10	New York Rangers	Derek Forbort(19) Chris Kreider
	11	Dallas Stars	Austin Watson(8) Scott Glennie
	12	Anaheim Ducks	Alexander Burmistrov(15) Peter Holland (26) Kyle Palmieri
	13	Phoenix Coyotes	Nino Niederreiter(6) Oliver Ekman-Larsson
	14	St. Louis Blues	Stanislav Galiev(17) David Rundblad

Wild to Host 2011 Draft

2011 NHL Entry Draft logoThe NHL announced on Saturday that the Minnesota Wild will host the 2011 Entry Draft on June 24-25 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

A logo for the event was also revealed via the Wild's official website. Not sure if it's the final version or just a preliminary generic version for the press conference. It is similar to the 2010 draft logo but lacks any distinguishing characteristics such as the palm trees in this year's Los Angeles edition.

Wild owner Craig Leipold made an interesting comment quoted in the NHL.com article regarding the team's intention to host a future Winter Classic.

"One of the missions by our owner, Craig Leipold, is he wants our organization to be viewed more globally across North America and internationally," Robertson said. "This event helps us with that goal. We are heading to Finland this fall to play Carolina to open the NHL regular season. In 2011 we are going to host the NHL Entry Draft. It's our hope in 2012 or 2013 to host the Winter Classic."

Possible venues for an outdoor game in the Twin Cities include Target Field, the new home of the Minnesota Twins, which opens next week, and TCF Bank Stadium, home of the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team.

As you can see, he also mentions that both the Wild and Hurricanes, who were just awarded the 2011 All-Star Game earlier this week, will face off in the annual NHL Premiere in Europe.

In February, the NHL announced that it would return to three European cities to open the 2010-11 season, all of which previously hosted NHL Premiere games. The Wild and Canes will meet in Helsinki on Oct. 7-8. The Blue Jackets and Sharks will play in Stockholm on Oct. 8-9. And the Bruins and Coyotes will hit Prague on Oct. 9-10.

The NHL Entry Draft was previously held in Minnesota in 1989 when the North Stars played in Bloomington.