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?

0301: Waddell's Winter Classic, Part 6

Our Winter Classic Weekends series continues to be brought to you by the Brothers Waddell. Chance and Jake have designed "fauxback" jerseys for all 30 NHL teams and week by week you guys are deciding which teams to see next. Last Saturday, Adam R. selected the Avalanche and Devils.

If you want to pick next week's teams, be the first to comment on this post!

0220: A New Twist for New Jersey

Michael Ozolnieks offers a new spin on the classic NJ logo used by the Devils.

0100: A Hundred Concepts and Counting...

When I relaunched the Concepts page earlier this year, who really thought I'd be able to keep it going for 100 straight days? I know I've been flaky about this aspect of Icethetics in the past, but clearly you guys are enjoying it and I've finally found a way to keep it fresh.

That said, hitting triple digits seems like a special occasion we should mark. In honor of that and the 2012 Stanley Cup Final about to begin, how about this...

Following the overtime victory that sent the New Jersey Devils on to the final round of the playoffs to face the Los Angeles Kings, Matthew Henderson had an idea. He emailed me this pair of mutant logos in the vein of Ross Taylor's recent Freak Out Friday series.

Sure, this concept might be better suited to Friday, but sadly there are no Fridays between now and the start of the last playoff series of the season. Plus, I didn't want to make you guys wait to see this. I think they're pretty clever and pretty funny.

But since this is a special occasion — and so as to ground this post in reality a little bit — here are some more normal concepts for the NHL's conference champions.

I've been hanging on to this concept from Matthew Beck for a while. It has a very cool soccer-y feel. I'd love to see an NHL team try an idea like this some time, but it is a little out there.

And from Chance Waddell we get a new iteration of a black alternate for the Devils that will probably never happen. I know, we're a bit put off by the lack of color in the Stanley Cup series this year and adding more black wouldn't exactly help the cause. Still, it is something I'd like to see New Jersey try in the future. You know, when black is cool again.

0057: Winter in Winnipeg

Thomas Hopkins put together this Winter Classic concept for 2014. He envisions the game taking place in Winnipeg between the Jets and the New Jersey Devils. Odd partners sure, but as classic hockey jerseys go, you could do worse.

0025: Green-a-thon, Part III

Last week, the New Jersey Devils announced they are renewing their annual tradition of going retro for St. Patrick's Day in 2012. Since 2010, the Devils have used the occasion to sport a green-infused uniform that debuted when they moved from Colorado in 1982. Andy Bugelli has taken the idea a step further by making the majority of uniform green instead of red. I'm not sure I'm sold, though. How can the Devils wear anything but red?