Just To Freak You Out XVIII

It's time for another belated edition of the Freak Out series. Hopefully I'll get over this cold soon. It's making me very unreliable here at NHLToL. And it's supposed to be Freak Out Friday, right? Anyway, let's dive in.

Wow, that was awfully violent. Who's hungry for buffalo tongue?!

I got a ton of submissions this week for the "If They Mated" category. And these are all about rivalries.

I don't even know what to say about this. Except that once again, don't send me hate mail as I am excessively illiterate and wouldn't understand it anyway. Also I didn't make these.

Perhaps slightly less inflammatory are these.

Everything's gone haywire. But wait it gets better. Sure anyone can mix two teams in a blender, but it takes a special kind of talent to do three.

Presenting the Anaheim King Sharks. Let me break it down for you. You've got the Sharks logo in Kings colors on a Ducks jersey. Can't get much more to the point than that.

While we're still on the topic of ridiculous jerseys, do you remember the crazy Red Wings design I posted a while back. (It's the second one down in that post.) Were you wondering what it might look like on Dominik Hasek? Wonder no more.

Don't know what he's so happy about. Hideous if I do say so.

Here's a scary merging of the current and original Canucks logos.

Whales that play hockey. I love it.

To finish up this morning's post, I've got a couple more whacked out logos. I'm pretty sure these come from a Quebecois looking to break away from Canada. It's like if Texas decided it wanted to be its own country. I laugh. But then I am a lousy Floridian who knows nothing of the politics of Canada. Look!

But wait, there's more!

So what do you guys think?

Oh and I'm just warning you now that any comments with discussion of politics will be promptly removed. Go elsewhere for that.

In the meantime, I hope I managed to freak you out a little. Until next time.

Poll: Kings vs Panthers

	vs
Los Angeles KINGS		Florida PANTHERS

Place your vote and then feel free to leave a comment as to how you came to your decision. Tell all your friends to drop in and vote! The more voices heard, the more accurate the results!

Poll opening date Mon Nov 12

Poll closing date Fri Nov 16

07TJTRN | #1H | LAKvFLA

Result: Jets vs Kings

Winnipeg
JETS
73% 1,656 votes

Los Angeles
KINGS
27% 604 votes

2,260 total votes

Winnipeg Jets
Advancing to face Rockies or Penguins

Los Angeles Kings
Eliminated

Click here to see the original poll

Poll opening date Wed Oct 10 @ 4:27 AM

Poll closing date Sun Oct 14 @ 11:59 PM

07VNTRN | #1E | WPG79vLAK67

Rbk EDGE Review: Kings

Part 17 of 30. All 30 NHL clubs have unveiled new jerseys under the new Rbk EDGE Uniform System for the 2007-08 season. Here at the NHLToL, we're going to review every one of them. Read up and then rate the new sweaters. We'll do a full ranking after completing all of the reviews.

Rbk EDGE Uniform System

Los Angeles Kings

New Uniforms

Old Uniforms

The Unveiling
Friday, June 22. The Kings unveiled their new jerseys to fans at a draft day party in Los Angeles.

Home vs. Road
Home: Black. Road: White. The two sweaters are essentially mirror images of each other and feature secondary logo patches on the shoulders.

The black home jerseys feature purple shoulder yokes with silver trim. Spaced silver-purple-silver stripes wrap around the elbow with the purple stripe being the thickest. The text "LOS ANGELES" runs across the bottom of the front of the sweater in silver letters with a purple stroke. The collar is silver with purple trim on the inside and the primary logo serves as the crest.

The white road jerseys feature purple shoulder yokes with silver trim. Black-silver-purple-black-silver stripes wrap around the elbow with the purple stripe being the thickest. The text "LOS ANGELES" runs across the bottom of the front of the sweater in purple letters with a silver stroke. The collar is silver with black trim on the inside and the primary logo serves as the crest.

In The Details
A unique aspect of the Kings' uniforms is the city name across the bottom. The same numbering and lettering style has been retained.

New & Old
The new sweaters are primarily the same as the old with some slight modifications. The horizontal striping around the waist is gone and the shoulder yokes are rounded at the end instead of coming to a point as they did on the old jerseys. The elbow striping remains the same, however.

Standard FAQ
Numbers on the front? No.
Laces at the collar? No.

NHLToL Editorial by Chris
The Kings are one of the most interesting-looking teams if for no other reason than their use of the color purple — an element unique to them. Their color scheme is one of my favorites, league-wide. It doesn't adhere to the red/blue standard. In fact, it sort of mixes them. Even the name across the bottom is cool — so long as it doesn't get stolen by other teams. My one quibble would be with the color of the home sweater. I'd love to see them go with the purple jersey they wore as an alternate last year on a permanent basis. But we can't have everything, can we? 4/5

View the photo gallery

Buy your new Kings jersey!

Poll: Jets vs Kings

	vs
Winnipeg JETS		Los Angeles KINGS

Place your vote and then feel free to leave a comment as to how you came to your decision. Tell all your friends to drop in and vote! The more voices heard, the more accurate the results!

Poll opening date Wed Oct 10 @ 4:27 AM

Poll closing date Sun Oct 14 @ 11:59 PM

07VNTRN | #1E | WPG79vLAK67

Result: Kings Logo History

BEST ALL-TIME
1988
33% 1,235 votes

3,749 total votes

1998
25% 925 votes

2002
22% 825 votes

1967
20% 764 votes

Click here to see the original poll

Poll opening date Sep 30 @ 8:57 AM

Poll closing date Oct 7 @ 11:59 PM

07BONLH | LHLAK

Some Unusually Familiar Concepts

I got a funny email yesterday. Check out these. See if you notice a pattern.

I don't feel a need to explain or comment on them really. They sort of speak for themselves. Pretty clever, if you ask me. What do you think of them?

Poll: Kings Logo History

1967	1988

1998	2002

With the Ducks and Kings opening the season with the NHL Premiere in London this weekend, I'm opening logo history polls for this two teams. The Anaheim poll was opened yesterday and the Los Angeles poll is opening today.

Place your vote and then feel free to leave a comment as to how you came to your decision. Tell all your friends to drop in and vote! The more voices heard, the more accurate the results!

Poll opening date Sep 30 @ 8:57 AM

Poll closing date Oct 7 @ 11:59 PM

07BONLH | LHLAK

Jersey Concept Art Galore

Busy day today. Shame I'm only getting to my first post at 5 PM, but some days, that's the way it goes.

Always gotta kick things off with some good concepts. So let's dive in with the Boston Bruins.

I like these logos much better on a yellow jersey than the old bear head. Although, I say that now but to be fair, when it came out I thought it was pretty damn cool.

I also like the striping patterns on both jerseys. When the third jersey program is reinstated next fall, I hope the Bruins consider something like this. It's very sharp.

Then, one thing a lot of people have been contemplating is what the Atlanta Thrashers would look like if the road jersey matched the home jersey.

Perhaps it would look like this. That's really nice, if you ask me. I really love the asymmetry of that light blue jersey. The city down the arm looks great and it's so unique to this team. I'm really impressed and I only wish the Lightning had thought of it first.

One reader also emailed me a handful of concept designs. I wish I had larger images, but this is what was sent.

My favorite in that set is the Kings but I think the red Blue Jackets sweater is ironic and very sharp. Not a fan of the black Wings jersey and the blue Isles jersey reminds me of the Lightning's old black sweaters with the white along the shoulders.

Now it's time for your input. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Just To Freak You Out VII

I've decided to make the Freak Out series into a weekly feature to be posted on Fridays from now on as long as crazy artwork keeps landing in my inbox. And man, do I have some stuff for you this week.

We'll begin with our friend Pfizer who's created mish-mash logos for the likes of the Vancouver Canucks, Buffalo Sabres and New York Islanders (check out the Freak Out series for those if you haven't yet). Now comes another shot at logo merging for the Los Angeles Kings.

For my money, it's not his best effort, but it makes me laugh no less. I'm a little disappointed he couldn't find a way to work in the current crown logo. But then it does feel a little thrown together. You have to admit, though, that king face is a great logo. Don't mess with that son of a bitch.

Meanwhile, I've got some completely new takes on a couple of team logos and uniforms. Imagine the Boston Bruins swapping out the yellow for red. Then imagine a cartoon bruin the likes of which might be owed money by Yogi Bear.

He's come to collect. Then imagine the Colorado Avalanche adopting a yeti for their primary mark. Might it frighteningly go a little something like this?

We should hope not. Lest ye bear the brunt of the abominable snowman's ever-clenched fist. And what's up with the upside-down feet on the shoulders?

Speaking of what-ifs, let's say the Kansas City Scouts were to make their glorious return to the NHL. Let's also say their return was marked by the uprooting of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yes, this design was made in the days when the Pens' future was uncertain. I point that out merely to explain its color usage.

If you enlarge the image, you can read the designer's explanations of the three logos, so I'll spare you the details here. What I will say is that I like Patch 2. I'm a big fan of city skylines in logos, though you don't see that a whole lot. What's cool about this one is the new Sprint Center being placed to look like a puck. Clever.

The horse's eyes are freaking me out, by the way.

This next image is probably best viewed while high. I don't condone drug use, but chances of one having an "experience" are rather great. See for yourself.

Someone with a good deal of free time and an inability (or not) to cure boredom came up with this. He basically recolored the Montreal Canadiens' logo in the colors of various teams around the league. Conspicuous is the absence of the Tampa Bay Lightning's colors. But I guess not everything is about the Lightning.

Now I want to show you some of the scariest things of all — because they're real! Okay zombies aren't real, but movies are real. A reader emailed me a production still from the new Resident Evil movie. One of the zombies appears to be wearing an old Nashville Predators sweater.

Talk about foreshadowing. That's not even right.

And finally, a reason for all those NHL fans out there bemoaning the arrival of the new Rbk EDGE jerseys to quiet themselves. It could have been so much worse. A fact proven by the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms.

AHL fans, continue your bemoaning. It's perfectly warranted.

Freak.

Out.