0653: Canada in Sochi

As our International Sunday series returns, we're taking a look at a neat set of Olympic jerseys created by Eric Westhaver. Last week, we saw his take on the U.S. This week he tackles Canada. He writes:

Simple, traditional, yet bold. Kind of like Team Canada, right? There are eight gold maple leaves on the back hem of the home and away — and on the right cuff of all three jerseys — to represent eight gold medal wins, and the words, "TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREE" written on the left cuff. The third is based off of the uniforms worn by the 1948 gold medal winning RCAF Flyers.

0567: Team Canada in Sochi

Skipping our Winter Classic Saturday series today for something more timely. On Thursday night, the world got a sneak peek of what may be Team Canada's 2014 Olympic jersey. With that in mind, a few concept artists have toyed with the idea. Francis Matte has a revised version of the red sweater along with a white one to match.

Adam Ravenhill decided to stick with the Nike design for the red jersey and also add a white version. Any chance the maple leaf in the middle of that one could be white? Or is that sacrilege in the Great White North?

And now for something completely different. Devin Durocher submitted this one last week, prior to Thursday's leak. He writes: "It's very simple with a few accents. There is a gold 8 in the V of the collar for the 8 golds Canada has won at the Olympics. Also inside the collar at the back of the neck it says TRUE NORTH."

Thoughts on these designs? Are you worried about the official unveiling of Canada's sweaters?

0491: Simply Canada

The prolific Matt McElroy is back on this International Sunday for another look at Team Canada. Simple and sharp. How can you beat it?

0456: Team Canada

On this International Sunday we have a neat concept for Canada from Ted Noakes. A blast from the past in more ways than one.

0359: The Canadians

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are now less than a year away. So in that spirit, this is International Week on the Concepts page! All week I'll be featuring a variety of national teams. We start today with Ryan Haslett's take on the defending gold medal champion Canadians.

0311: A Christmas Surprise!

Looks like Santa decided that more of you were nice than naughty this year because he's delivered not one but 10 new concepts today! First up is a Seattle Metropolitans design by Wicky Turton. Hm, it's very... red and green. Maybe Santa had a certain theme in mind for today.

Nick Burton would like to see the Red Wings in a red jersey similar to their 2009 Winter Classic threads. It's a pretty sharp look!

The "Big Guy" definitely likes his green and red. Colin May imagines a brighter palette for the Dallas Stars. It's not bad even if he is sticking to the wordmark crest.

Joseph Loretz offers up an elegant fix for the Carolina Hurricanes' flag problem. The club's secondary logo portrays a single red flag with a black square in the middle, which typically refers to a tropical storm. A hurricane is generally represented by two of those flags. However, the swirling winds behind the H in Joseph's logo would appear to be rotating clockwise — which only happens in the southern hemisphere. Oops.

Back to green again. This time it's Chance Waddell (of our ongoing Winter Classic fauxback series) with a sharp sweater for the Canucks. They should just adopt this as their third jersey immediately. In fact, why haven't they already?

Another Original Six team gets a look here on Christmas Day from Wade Herrmann. Again, I'm a big fan! For whatever reason, I really like the black and white logo on the mostly red sweater. Sometimes I think it's too bad NHL teams don't do more one-off sweaters like they do in the minors. (Though most of the time, I'm grateful for that.)

Guess Santa couldn't find anymore green teams, so we're back to the Stars — but this time in a much darker palette as designed by Kevin Dion. In fact, it's actually too dark. On TV, this uniform would look solid black from head to toe. The idea isn't bad, it just needs brighter colors and more contrast.

I believe Icethetics is breaking new ground today. This may be the first bit of concept art ever posted from a female designer. Gotta be honest. I don't think many of them are that interested in designing fake hockey sweaters. But kudos to Christine Adams on her new look for Team Canada.

Oh wait, there was one more team with green. And they also have red. Bryan Dyck probably didn't intend for his set to have that Christmas-y look, but it kind of does anyway. Or maybe it's just me. Or Santa.

We'll wrap things up here with our 10th concept of the day. Ryan Yuck gives us this very red Devils jersey. Filling in the white area in the Devils' logo gives it a whole new look somehow. It's really interesting — as were all of today's jerseys. Which was your favorite?

0127: Go Team Canada!

The 2014 Winter Olympics are still two years away, but Brendan Anderson is already getting started on jersey ideas for Team Canada. It's not a huge departure from what we usually see, but it is a solid design.