IceHL vs. NHL

I'm very excited about bringing the IceHL back this week! I'm saving the first of the final four polls for tomorrow just so no one misses anything during the long holiday weekend.

However, I am going to unveil the Calgary Cavalry's logo a day early. Look for that this afternoon. Keep an eye on Twitter for updates. Here is the new schedule for the end of this phase of the IceHL Project:

• Mon. 9/7 - Cavalry logo unveiled
• Tue. 9/8 - Hitmen poll, Blue Crabs logo unveiled
• Wed. 9/9 - Kodiaks poll, Hellcats logo unveiled
• Thu. 9/10 - Archers poll, Arsenal logo unveiled
• Fri. 9/11 - Pioneers poll, Aviators logo unveiled
• Tue. 9/15 - Hitmen logo unveiled
• Wed. 9/16 - Kodiaks logo unveiled
• Thu. 9/17 - Archers logo unveiled
• Fri. 9/18 - Pioneers logo unveiled

On Monday, September 21, I'll outline the process for jersey design submissions and release a schedule for entries. I will also be taking submissions for the IceHL logo. The league needs one too, after all.

IceHL vs. NHL

Now the real reason for this post. I was comparing the IceHL with the NHL and thought I'd share it with everyone. (Keep in mind that I am a nerd.)

From the beginning I built a lot of safeguards into the project so we would have minimal overlap with the NHL. I wanted designers to be able to branch out and come up with something entirely new. Still, we ended up with IceHL teams in 17 of 30 NHL markets. But I guess you can't keep hockey teams out of the big cities, right?

The shared markets: Atlanta, Boston, Calgary, (North) Carolina, Chicago, Colorado/Boulder, Dallas, Detroit, Edmonton, Los Angeles/California, Minnesota, Montreal, New York City, St. Louis, Tampa, Vancouver, and Washington D.C.

But consider some of the places that didn't get IceHL teams — Ottawa (the capital!), Toronto (Hockey Hall of Fame!), Philadelphia, Miami, Cleveland, Hartford, and San Francisco/San Jose. I was surprised to see towns like Regina and Saskatoon get nods while Ottawa and Toronto were overlooked.

How do the nicknames compare? I generally tend to think of sports team names in five categories: animals, people, nature, abstract and "other." IceHL has 8 animals: Blue Crabs, Mammoths, Nighthawks, Barracudas, Huskies, Kodiaks, Gators and Scorpions. NHL has 7: Ducks, Thrashers, Bruins, Panthers, Coyotes, Penguins, and Sharks.

As for "people" nicknames, the IceHL offers up 11: Colonials, Hitmen, Guardians, Archers, Sentinels, Outlaws, Pioneers, Renegades, Sharpshooters, Aviators, Lumberjacks. The NHL has 8: Blue Jackets, Oilers, Kings, Canadiens, Islanders, Rangers, Senators, and Canucks.

A smaller amount can be categorized as "nature." In the IceHL, only the Wave qualify. The NHL has 5: Flames, Hurricanes, Avalanche, Lightning and Maple Leafs. (The Wild isn't specific enough to make this category.)

Many team names in any sport tend to be abstract or ambiguous. There are 6 in the IceHL: Motorheads, Steelcats, Olympiques, Beasts, Hellcats, and Winterhawks. The NHL has 8: Blackhawks, Stars, Red Wings, Wild, Predators, Flyers, Blues, and Capitals.

As for the rest, they fit a number of minor categories, such as war and weaponry: (IceHL) Arsenal, Armada and Cavalry; (NHL) Sabres only. One is a drink: (IceHL) Lagers; and the other is supernatural: (NHL) Devils.

With 30 teams in each league, it isn't uncommon to see nicknames doubling up with similar concepts. For example, the NHL has the Capitals and Senators in the two capital cities, as well as Canadiens and Canucks (what you might call citizens).

It's much more prevalent in the IceHL, however. You have the Armada and Cavalry, Steelcats and Hellcats, Renegades and Outlaws, Sentinels and Guardians, and even Nighthawks and Winterhawks. It seems that as much as voters wanted the freedom to be creative, they couldn't help but fall into old patterns.

Here's another question: Why are the IceHL's team names so long? In writing them so often, I feel like so many IceHL teams have such long names. North Carolina Nighthawks — 23 letters! Saskatoon Sharpshooters — 22! Even the Salt Lake City Scorpions have 21. The title for longest NHL team name goes to the Columbus Blue Jackets with just 19. The IceHL's Lumberjacks, Sentinels and Winterhawks each have that many letters or more.

For the record, the shortest IceHL team name is the Quebec Armada with just 12 letters. The NHL, however, wins out with the Dallas Stars who have a mere 11 letters.

So how do the two leagues stack up on the whole? The average length in the NHL is 15.2 letters while the IceHL averages an entire letter more with 16.2.

Another question: Is it the locations or nicknames that are causing the long names? The longest IceHL nickname is the Sharpshooters (13) and the shortest is the Wave (4). In the NHL, Blue Jackets (11) is the longest while Wild (4) is the shortest. IceHL takes the longest. Shortest is a draw.

The longest location name in the IceHL goes to North Carolina (13, again) and the shortest is a 5-way tie between Boston, Quebec, Dallas, Regina, and Alaska (6 each). In the NHL, Philadelphia (12) takes the longest while Boston and Dallas (6 each) share the shortest. The IceHL is still the longest.

I'm sure you didn't read through all of that, but if you ever get really bored, it's there. And if you find any other patterns or interesting numbers while comparing the IceHL and NHL, feel free to add a comment or email me so I can expand this already long post.

Bad News...

Technology and I have not been getting along over the past few months. Unfortunately, as a blogger I'm forced to rely on it to a large extent. So it just makes it that much more irritating when it fails.

Just last month I was forced to buy a new MacBook Pro when my old one died. Now, my second computer, the PC, has gone the same route. This is important because, ironically, I use it and Paint Shop Pro 7 to create all of the graphics for Icethetics and, more importantly, the IceHL project.

Effective immediately, the IceHL project must be postponed. I cannot create graphics for the polls nor add the embroidered effect to the logos that have already won their polls. It sucks, I know.

As I try valiantly, yet hopefully not in vain, to rescue the files from that machine, we'll be without any IceHL updates for a little while. The worst case scenario is that we're down for the rest of the week. I expect to have a back-up plan in place that I can implement by the weekend so we can be up and running again by Monday. But no promises.

In the meantime, I'll be looking into running Windows on the Mac. But it looks like that will have to wait at least until October 22 (when Windows 7 is released). Any advice would be appreciated.

Please continue to vote on the current polls. There will not be any extensions for them. Polls remain open for seven days each.

Update on Thursday · Sep 3 · 2009 | 10:06 PM PDT by Chris

I've got some good news for IceHL fans at this late hour. I seem to have resolved most of the aforementioned computer issues that were stopping me from bringing you guys the final four IceHL logo polls as well as the remaining winning designs.

I'll get started on building all the necessary graphics so that we can move forward right away. I mentioned earlier on Twitter that the first would be posted Monday but I may wait a day in consideration of the long holiday weekend. I don't want people to miss out on voting because they didn't know. That also allows us to tie things up in a nice bow by posting the final poll on Friday.

So that's where we stand. Here's a revised schedule for finishing up this part of the IceHL project:

• 9/8 - Chicago Hitmen poll, Calgary Cavalry logo unveiled
• 9/9 - Edmonton Kodiaks poll, Baltimore Blue Crabs logo unveiled
• 9/10 - St. Louis Archers poll, Houston Hellcats logo unveiled
• 9/11 - Portland Pioneers poll, Atlanta Arsenal logo unveiled
• 9/12 - Seattle Aviators logo unveiled

The remaining four winning logos will then be unveiled the following week. At that point I will outline how the jersey submission process will work and begin accepting entries.

By the way, thanks to commenter IslesHockey21 for the suggestion about CrossOver. That software is perfect for what I need and will serve as a great backup should another issue likes this ever arise. You have my undying gratitude.

Poll: Seattle Aviators

Craig C. Wheeler

Tone Loc Productions

Paploo

Click on a logo above to see the complete set to the right. Then vote for the best one below! All sets include a primary, secondary and corporate mark. Some include an additional tertiary mark if provided by the designer. The identifier at the top of the image is the signature provided by the artist.

Spotlight: tdog

Our third and final IceHL Artist Spotlight this weekend features tdog — a phenomenal designer with seven different finalist entries. Also known as Rik Oko, tdog has even seen two of his designs win their respective polls already — the Motorheads and Sentinels.

His logos for the Outlaws, Guardians and Scorpions were runners up but his Hellcats and Kodiaks logos remain in competition. The Edmonton Kodiaks poll goes live this week where he'll face Roccot and Sean Cox Tattoo.

In order to get a better idea about where Rik got some of his inspiration, I asked him to offer up some background on his finalists. Attached to each description is a small version of the logo being described. You can see the full versions in each team's logo poll.

I really am not one to talk (or write) about myself. I entered some art for the heck of it. I love hockey and I have always had a sick fascination with uniform design. I'm a big overall sports fan who secretly critiques uniforms and jerseys while watching games — occasionally doodling my version of what they should be wearing. I guess Icethetics gave me an opportunity to take it to a more final stage. It was fun to create some quickie art for the fictional IceHL.

As for the background, it has been a while but here goes...

Outlaws – I really didn't want to do the hat and scarf. So I decided on the horse. And eventually caved and put the hat and scarf on the rider as well as the shoulder patch. I found that the team name was the most tedious part of the design. It was hard in such little time not to make it look hokey. The majority of the time was spent designing the two logos. But I tried my best to make it all coordinate. I also tried to keep the colors to fewer than four on all designs — three if possible — and to match the colors to something related to the city. Too many colors on a logo for a sports team is overkill.

Motorheads – I would have liked to have taken more time on this one. But basically I wanted to do an amalgam of a face/head with an engine. I like setting the logo on a shape, usually a circle works best. It balances it a bit more for me. The side patch was an idea for the chest logo at first.

Sentinels – Kept it basic. Big W, silhouette guard. Tried my best not to get too detailed or busy. I think I modeled the colors similar to the previous Caps colors, even though I hated those jerseys. The flag logo — again pretty simple — similar in design to the Hurricanes' flag. I didn't want to overdo the patriotism here. I avoided stars until the last second addition in the script logo.

Kodiaks – This was a real quickie. My original submission had the Kodiaks letters on the chest front.  I wanted to convey ferocity and speed and have the head look like it was tearing at the edges but due to lack of time i played it safe and put it in a circle. Same with the bear claws.

Hellcats – I wanted a retro look to the plane and also a little hokiness so I based it on the Islanders logo. I hate the team but love the logo. The orange H in the background is supposed to be searchlights. Imagining the plane on a night time bombing mission ready to destroy the enemy — er, competition. I tried to change the "S" in the logo since it looked like a Nazi symbol. I was only able to change one and left the others since I ran out of time again.

Guardians – My fave to work on since I am a NYer. Just took the lion head from the statue in front of the Main library. What? It's a guardian... work with me here. The five stars represent the boroughs. And I think the color scheme I borrowed from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I like that pewter gray.

Scorpions – Utah color scheme, mountains, and a scorpion shaped like an S with a white "S" behind him. What more can you ask for?

As always, any questions or messages for Rik can be directed to him by writing a comment below. Approved comments should appear within 48 hours of submission.

The Spotlights will return next weekend after a final week of logo polls. That means the time for uniform design entries is just over the horizon!

Spotlight: Sean Cox Tattoo

Tonight's IceHL Artist Spotlight double-header begins with a prolific artist who has a unique style all his own. Sean Cox, of Sean Cox Tattoo, graced the project with three logo finalists — for the Kodiaks, Steelcats and Beasts.

  

Sean's Beasts logo was defeated and the Steelcats' logo will be revealed this week. He's hoping for victory this week when the Edmonton Kodiaks' poll is posted on Icethetics. In the meantime, I asked Sean to tell us about how he went about creating what would become his finalists.

The Edmonton Kodiaks was somewhat of a rush job. I had just discovered Icethetics a few days before the deadline so I took a drawing I already had and modified it. It's actually one of my tattoos, which was inspired by (among other things) a bear that attacked someone on the mountain I was camping on. (Bear #66, Banff National Park. She's dead now. Got hit by a train.) So really all I had to do was the wordmark — which I wanted to make look like a camp/park sign because one of my original ideas for the tattoo was to have this bear in a campground.

The Hamilton Steelcats concept was important to me because I grew up in Hamilton and a lot of my friends and family work in the steel mills. I don't know if it's obvious enough, but that's a bolt in the tiger's eye. A lot of Hamilton's sports teams have had the yellow and black so that was a no brainer. And a lot also have the tiger theme. The CFL's Ti-Cats actually used to have long skinny cages at the back of the end zones where a real tiger would pace back and forth the width of the field. They moved the tiger when the teams switched ends so it was always in the visiting team's end.

For the Boulder Beasts, I just liked the name Beasts. It made sense to have the beast made of stone (boulder). That idea made me think of Bronx from Gargoyles, so I modeled the animal after that.  The mountains in the back is an actual mountain range near the city. I think they're called the flat irons. And the secondary logo is a busted net. That was my wife's idea. There's always broken sticks or skates or pucks in logos. No one ever has a net. And nets are impossible to break so I thought that would show some balls.

www.seancoxtattoo.com

If you'd like to leave a message or question for Sean, please do so in the comments below.

We'll finish up tonight's two-parter in a little while with the artist known simply as tdog.