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For the Isles, At Last, a Much Better Third

Isles Logo Hed

By Phil Hecken

In my capacity as the weekend guy at Uni Watch, and a lover of not just uniforms, but uniform concepts — I get a lot of them sent my way. I try to post every single one, no matter how good, bad, amateurish, professional, etc. Most of them are found in the “Uni Tweaks” section (should I rename that? several readers, and an Algonquin Round Table-esque panel featuring Conn, Paul & Chance, have suggested the majority of them are more “concepts” than “tweaks”). And sometimes, some of the submissions I receive are just too good to be placed “just” in the tweaks’ section. Today is one of those days.

Now, and on a somewhat related note, recently *my* NHL team, the team I grew up with, the team I would see sometimes 20 times a season, the team for whom I can only accept wearing white at home, have sucked for 20 years have fallen upon some hard times. Not just on the ice — I can accept that — but sartorially.

I speak of course, of this. It is quite possibly the worst sweater (and overall uniform) in the history of ever. And, it’s not like the team hasn’t thrown some doozies at its fanbase over the years. Even through the Reebok redux, the team started to get it right with a proper third, finally returning to this almost perfect uni last season. And then, they give us this. Between their horrid play and these thirds, I’m almost contemplating changing my allegiance — I may need a new NHL team for which to root. Maybe you can talk me off the ledge. More on that in a minute.

Almost coincidentally to my team introducing that pathetic attempt at a third jersey, I received a set of tweaks concepts that were so good, the third jersey for my team got me to thinking that if they could just switch to that…I could love them once again. You know of which team I speak — and now I want to introduce you to Elliott Strauss, who has six concepts for NHL teams I’d like to share with you today. Here’s Elliott:

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NHL Concepts
By Elliot Strauss

Hello, my name is Elliott, and I’m a college student at UGA who used to do a lot of uniform concepts for Chris Creamer’s uniform forum back in the day, and I continue to do hockey designs (and other sports) for fun. I have a lot more concepts on my computer, but I’d love to get a little bit of exposure on the Uni Watch website. So I figured I’d send you a few now and there will be more in the future. I’m not a huge fan of many of the RBK edge modern elements such as apron piping and numbers on the front, but I do believe that modern designs can be done correctly in a way that is aesthetically pleasing.

Penguins:
• Colors: Black and white are still prominently used, but the current vegas gold is replaced by the familiar yellow of most of the Lemieux era.
• Logos: The primary uses the triangle element of multiple Pens logos combined with a 3/4 view of an all-new angry penguin. The shoulder logo is the front view of the same penguin in a circle.
• Jerseys: The angled design of the pre-edge jersey returns with a modern variation. I thought that a pinstripe design would make an interesting hockey concept and you’ll notice a slight gradiented fade at the end of each pinstripe. Faux-triangular shoulders are also used. The roads bring back the diagonal wordmark with the city name, and the alternates are dominated by yellow with some chest striping.

Islanders:
• Colors: Gone is the retro royal and orange, replaced instead by a modern scheme of navy, light blue, and two-tone orange with the hopes of proving that a non-traditional, non-90s-fisherman scheme for the Islanders can work.
• Logos: The primary juxtaposes a lighthouse/capital ‘I’ with hockey stick shadowing, swirling Atlantic waters, and an abstract skyscraper backdrop. The secondary is a shield combined with an abstract anchor, hockey stick, and water detail. Look hard for the ‘N’ and ‘Y’ in the orange outer shapes.
• Jerseys: I wanted a clean, modern design inspired by some of Nike’s dot matrix soccer patterns. The number font was sort of a non-traditional creation of mind with an inner outline in either tonal blue/orange, also somewhat inspired by soccer jerseys. Crest stays the same on the orange alts, more tonal orange/blue used here with white accents.

Panthers:
• Colors: No change besides the elimination of the lighter gold used in their crest and the alternate light blue.
• Logos: More of a tweak to the primary, I wanted to make the panther sleeker and less 90s. Dropped the palm tree secondary, instead replacing it with a circular logo using a new font.
• Jerseys: Heavily draws upon the pre-edge jerseys (which in my mind are Panthers uni perfection) with some modern twists and the elimination of the triangular shoulders. New font is used for the numbers. Alternate cuts back the use of white to really focus on the contrasting yellow, navy, and red shades.

San Jose Sharks:
• Colors: Teal and black remain, but their orangish yellow is replaced by silver/gray of the pre-Edge sharks.
• Logos: I attempted to modernize the current incarnation of the sharks logo by eliminating some of the more cartoony aspects to it. I think the shark comes out looking more aggresive here and less like an anime cartoon. The triangle now goes straight at the top, I took out the inward curve. Broken stick is gone and the shark now has silver accents instead of a mostly teal shark. Secondary is the leaping full-body shark.
• Jerseys: Okay, I’ll admit that I hate apron stripes normally, but I wanted to try to improve upon the EDGE system’s frequent apron-ization (see: old panthers, old predators, avalanche, blues). I made the sleeve stripes curve with the piping and made them continue seamlessly on to the breezers. The overall home and away is inspired by the look of the current black alternates, which I’m a fan of. Notice the fin shapes in the striping (white shape on the black jersey). The alternate is primarily teal with a distinctive shark tooth striping pattern and a “bite” taken out of the black regions. I flipped the striping pattern on the socks to create an interesting color balance.

Tampa Bay Lightning:
• Colors: I’ll admit that the current Bolts set introduced this year has grown on me, but I feel that only being blue and white (with a miniscule amount of black) makes them look too much like the Leafs. I introduced a light silver as the only secondary color.
• Logos: Back to the drawing board here, eliminated the “clip-art” look of the current logo by creating a new lightning bolt and making it emerge from a circle / sun. The sun shape acknowledges the team’s balmy home state; although the Panthers use a sun currently, I felt it worked here after scrapping that theme in my Panthers mockup. Stylized TB is the secondary.
• Jerseys: Modern template here, created large white shoulders on the home jersey which remain the same on the roads, so it creates an “empty” yoke effect on the white jerseys. Font matches the TB mark. Sharp angles and abrupt cut-offs on the stripes are supposed to align with the sharp edges used with the angles of the lightning bolt. Bolt shape on the pants remains. “victory stripes” make a comeback as well. No alternate, I didn’t like the look of a gray jersey.

Winnipeg Jets:
• Colors: For my former hometown team, I dropped silver, brightened the shade of navy, added way more red to the overall look, including maroon for tonal red effect.
• Logos: Got rid of the “overlap” effect that they have now with the gray jet and red leaf for the primary. Kept the shading effect on the Jet, but made it red to align it more with the Canadian Air Force roundel. Kept the notch on the circle, I love that subtle nod to True North group. Secondary is a modified version of their tonal leaf. Tertiary is essentially the Roundel alone, with the same leaf.
• Jerseys: Busy, stripe-heavy design for the home and away, features a lot of alternating light blue and white stripes on the home. I came up with a different slanted font and made the home and away numbers red. Tonal-red is used on the collar and pants stripe. Alternate is red with maroon chest stripes and the Roundel as a crest.

~~~

Thanks Elliott. Now, I may not agree with all of your concepts (really, those number fonts could use a bit less modernization), but clearly an amazing amount of time and energy went into those. And, I absolutely LOVE your Islander lighthouse logo and third — now, if only the team would consider dumping that black piece of crap and consider a good orange third. I think I could love the team again.

What say you, uni watchers? And, should I give the team that plays a mere five minutes from my home, the team I grew up with, the team who won back-to-back-to-back-to-back cups (and would have won five in a row, if not for those pesky Oilers), another chance, despite their foibles? Or is it time to break my loyalty and settle upon a new team. I’m open to suggestions, but don’t even think of suggesting the Flyers, Rangers, Penguins or Bruins…everyone else is fair game.

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50 Years Ago This Week

50 Years Ago…This Weekend

Back again with Rick Pearson who is here to bring us his look at the featured ABC television college football matchup from 50 years ago. As always, Rick documented the game via his “kid cards”. Here’s Rick to tell us about it.

~~~

Dec. 2, 1961”¦Navy “at” Army

Wk_12_61_Kid_Card

Army-Navy at Philadelphia is our one and only viewing choice this Saturday in 1961, see President John F. Kennedy toss the coin before the game. …Seriously weird-looking game program cover, though. …Army and Navy used to get a lot more attention because, well, their teams were better owing to college football being less about dreams of playing pro football and more about, oh, I dunno, going to college. …How big? Well, in those years even the cover of comic book about a spy-catching Naval Intelligence office took note of it. …Recent Army legends included “Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside”, “Lonesome End” Bill Carpenter and Pete Dawkins, whose military career was delayed while he studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. …Blanchard (’45), Davis (’46) and Dawkins (’58) all won the Heisman Trophy. …The year before this game, Joe Bellino had won it for Navy. …The unis? My first experience with “special game” gear. …Navy had one-off jerseys whose changes included using a sans serif more rounded numeral font in navy on gold (they had a gold set with navy full block numbers edged in white), and patches on the shoulders reading “Beat Army”. …And, in a bit of visual magic, ends and backs wore early DayGlo orange helmets to make them easier to spot (photo from Helmet Hut, so I can’t attest to the accuracy of the shade of orange). …Didn’t exactly turn them into Air Coryell, though. …They won, but only 13-7.

~~~

Thanks Rick. I normally let Ricko’s writeup speak for itself, but I had to point out, in case it wasn’t completely legible 50 years later, that Rick’s “kid card,” in the lower left, read, “Normal Navy helmets were metallic gold but special orange phosphorous helmets were worn to make it easier for the quarterback to spot his receivers. Only ends and backs wore the helmets. ‘Beat Army’ on shoulders was special for this game.”. Pretty amazing detail for any uni watcher of any age, but absolutely amazing for a 15 year old back in 1961. Kudos to Rick for helping up continually keep up our historical record and for sharing his amazingly vast knowledge of uniform history. Of course, the college season is just a bit longer these days, so the traditional, end-of-season Army/Navy game for 2011 isn’t until next weekend. But 50 years ago this week, this was the only game in town.

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Scotty's A

See more concepts…help a brother Uni Watcher

Instead of a full uni tweaks concepts section today, I’m just going to put up a pretty sweet set, for the Junior Circuit’s newest team, from one of Uni Watch’s more erudite members, R. Scott Rogers. First, his concepts:

Phil,

Houston Astros redesign. I drew inspiration from the Shooting Star and Star Trek eras of Astros uni history, as well as from NASA’s “Meatball” and “Worm” logos. Prominent use of glow-in-the-dark accents. I had wanted to move decisively away from the current Astros unis, but once I settled on a black/red/glowing color scheme, something like Houston’s current aesthetic asserted itself. I do think brightening the red from brick to crimson improves things.

In the light, glow-in-the-dark uniform elements would appear as a very light pastel yellow, but I think if I were adopting this for an actual team, I might depict the glowing elements with a bright pale green in print/screen applications to have stronger differentiation of color scheme. Call the team colors Rocket Red, Orbital Black, and Moonglow. Primary logo, which is based on NASA’s Meatball, hints at the constellation Orion, which in the original Greek means “the strike-zone diagram.” The tertiary logo exists mainly to maximize the glowing area for the alt, but it let me include the Sea of Tranquility roughly where the red A makes an x-marks-the-spot cross.

Logos
Unis
Caps
Scripts
Logos, B&W for print
Glowing elements: Caps
Glowing elements: Scripts
Glowing elements: Patches

Cheers,

Scott

Thanks, Scott. Great stuff. But Arr Scott isn’t just a dedicated Uni Watcher, he’s also a great humanitarian and sadly, he’s afflicted with an all-too-common disease, which, unlike a certain (mostly female) condition that seems to get a lot of attention, doesn’t get the attention it deserves. To quote Scott, “Watch me talk about managing diabetes with ABC’s Lisa Fletcher.” Great PSA. And is it “worth $5 to see me make a fool of myself on TV for a good cause?” Donate to support diabetes education & research. (And check out those socks — or are they stirrups? — either way, they’re sweet.)

So there ya go — let’s see if a few of us UWers can’t help Scott reach his goal of $2,400 and put a few more donors on that honor roll!

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Benchies Header

Benchies

by Rick Pearson

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Hurry! ACT NOW! Also available, Bowling Pins…

12-3-11 d-helmet

And, as always, the full-size.

~~~~~~~~~~

That’s just about it for today. Last night, for those who weren’t watching, the Ducks won the inaugural Pac12 Championship, destroying UCLA in the process — not much uni news, as Oregon’s finest went green/green/black/black, but LaMichael James appeared to be wearing shin guards built into his socks. Is this something new? Say what you will about that combo, but at least the Ducks know how to wear their pants properly.

Also, what the hell is this? Well, it’s actually some new corporate whoring profit-making move by Sevilla’s football team, which is allowing its fans to “pay to have a tiny picture of themselves worn by the player of their choice.” At least they didn’t use Bellotti Bold, right Jim Vilk?

And finally, what the hell is this? If you guessed “the special helmet being worn by a team whose school colors are brown and gold,” well, you win a gold star. Look, we all know the hydra phenomenon is (fortunately) only endemic to the college game, but it’s really reaching pandemic proportions — at least most teams who wear a special helmet do so in a color that matches their uniform. I’d like so see how the Cowboys will dress to match that. Or maybe I don’t.

Everyone have a fine Saturday. And whatever you do, don’t be that guy.

~~~

“Wow, they outdid Maryland for bad use of a good state flag.” — Joe Dreyfuss

 
  
 
Comments (123)

    I really like the updated stick-less Sharks logo.

    I also love the idea of the Astros having glow in the dark logos.

    /…and I hope to Azura that “that guy” had just seen the South Park episode (N_GGERS, correct answer NAGGERS) and was trying to be funny.

    Phil is right about the number fonts — tweakers often forget the principle of “less is more.”

    Aside from that, I can’t really say any of the tweaks appealed to me (granted, my opinion is worthless). However, I did like the Islander lighthouse concept, and have always thought the original should have been retained as the team’s shoulder patch.

    Jesus, I’m old…I actually remember watching on TV that Army-Navy game in which Navy wore day-glo orange helmets. My dad and I used to watch the Army-Navy game every year…

    Anyway, I don’t know if it was reported here or not, but did anyone see that, as a motivational thing, Georgia coach Mark Richt told his team that if they got to the SEC championship game he would let them wear their Nike Peo Combat uniforms again? And his players declined…

    Oh yes Pierre, we Dawg alums saw this.

    And almost threw up in my mouth over it.

    IF we were going to do something crazy, I wanted a surprise blackout.

    However, it will be the traditional red tops, red helmets, and silver britches. I wish Larry Munson were around for this one; I’m hoping he and Lewis Grizzard have had a chat with the Man upstairs about today…

    Again I enjoy the kid cards. I maybe did not pay attention to Navy wearing some of those helmets.

    I have these 2 b&w pics of Navy/Army in 1961.

    link

    link

    As a longtime Astro fan who’s very appreciative of the good ol’ days of the tequila sunrises … I find it intriguing to include glow-in-the-dark colors on their uniforms.

    Fun idea!

    If done tastefully, i.e., just a little outlining here and there, it could be a lot of fun. If any team could or should do it … it’s the Astros, it fits their brand perfectly.

    Either get crazy and go back to a design with a massive wall of colors … or do a traditional uniform design with a tiny bit of craziness, like the designer proposes.

    One way or the other, the Astros need a complete uniform overhaul, it’s so far off brand it’s ridiculous. Like trying to fit plain-jane Yankees pinstripe blue onto an Oregon Duck. Just off.

    I think the Astros have a definite identity crisis. It all started once they moved from the ASTROdome to Enron/Orange Juice Field. They made the park look old timey and put a train in the outfield. Not a rocket train or even a modern mag lev train. But a coal burning train from 1890. That would be like Colorado getting rid of all the rocks and trees from their outfield and putting up a mini skyline of a city for the home run balls to land. You’re the Astros. That is outerspace. Houston may have had a sweet train station at one point but you are not the Houston Railroads. This team should have made the new ball park look like it came from the Jetsons and designed a uni to match. Maybe I’m wrong, but there arent a lot of big cities that DIDNT have trains as an integral part of it’s history.

    Judging from some of the other touches around Minute Maid Park (gas station pumps, signs, etc.), I think they were going for a “City of Energy” vibe — basically an ol-timey gas station / oil company motif, which I think the wordmark draws from.

    I haven’t found that really translates well on television, and most people across the country don’t quite catch it. Not that it was genius in the first place.

    Minute Maid is on the site of the old Union Station. They wouldn’t have put the train there if it weren’t for that.

    I really do like the concept, and although I’d rather see them move away from brick and black, that is a good use of the colors.

    I’ve mentioned this here before, but the year before the Astros moved into Union Station, the Houston Chronicle ran an article quoting club officials, stating that the team was giving serious consideration to a name change. The candidates included “South Texas Roughnecks” (an oil patch reference) and “Houston Diesels”. Drayton McLane was considering two things: one, rebranding the team as representing the whole southern part of the state; and two, moving away from the space age motif (which he felt was dated and too closely connected to the Astrodome). I knew a guy who worked in the front office at the time, and he told me that McLane hated the navy shooting star uniforms, because they looked “too Notre Dame.” The guy told me that McLane’s favorite color was red, and that when they moved, the team would be wearing red and no blue. That proved correct.

    I agree that the Astros have an identity crisis. I blame Uncle Drayton, who history will show to be a rather lousy owner.

    I really like the wordmark on Scott’s design, but it would look so much better in navy blue and orange, which are the Astros’ True and Only Colors.

    Those aren’t shin guards on TheMichael James.. they’re Swoosh’s Amateur Pacifist Padded Shooting Sleeves for basketball-

    link

    Not sure what purpose they serve (period) in football, other than maybe providing more swooshes per square inch of clothing..

    “Not sure what purpose they serve (period) in football, other than maybe providing more swooshes per square inch of clothing..”

    Purpose? Protect his shins from pads, helmets, cleats, and random body parts.

    Have you ever worn one of those sleeves? That 5″x5″ piece of “hexagonal padding” is thinner than Donald Trump’s toupee.. definitely not going to protect from a facemask buried into your shin. Would be better off wearing actual soccer shin guards if that were his purpose..

    It’s not the thickness of the padding that protects you, but the construction. For whatever reason, Nike markets the hell out of things that aren’t actual improvements, but says nothing about the way the pads being constructed in that beehive pattern with closed-cell foam takes off a lot more weight than a titanium D-ring and still gives the same protection.

    Sorry, I’m the opposite. I normally skip reading on the weekends. Unfortunately, today’s entry just reinforced that feeling. I can do without the re-imagining.

    This is actually my favorite ESPN-based concept.

    But, I have a few gripes:
    01) The revised Winnepeg Jets logo has the wrong fighter plane on it. The Royal Canadian Air Force flies the F/A-18 Hornet for most of it’s air superiority/ground attack missions. It has twin rudders, btw–so if you are going to tweak the design, use the right one,will you?

    02) Accessing the Helmet Project website needs to be made much easier.

    03) Quit using the Pads as the Uni-Watch whipping boys! The original uni colors were modeled on the cassock colors of the Franciscan monks who built the missions here along the El Camino Real. That is why the primary color is brown. Blue is the Dominican Order’s cassock color, btw.

    As for the cami unis–it’s rather obvious that Mr. Lukas never lived in a military town like San Diego, Miramar, Oceanside, or Lemoore (my dad’s sunset duty station, where he was the Command Master Chief of the Naval Hospital from 1979-1983).

    Cami uniforms are a touchstone between those who served (or are still serving), and the communities that they call home. Plus, the unis are a major-league hit with we Padre fans.

    So, when it comes to cami (to quote my dad)–“Back the throttle down, Coxswain Lukas–she’s sucking sand.”

    04) The bird is back–and Earl Weaver must be smiling from Heaven.

    05) Any uni changes for the Green Bay Packers have to be approved by the town citizenry, since they own the Packers and Lambeau Field. And some of the designs I saw would get the proponent drowned in a Miller High Life vat for their pains.

    When you talk about Green Bay, the operative word is Green. Without it…need I say more?

    Up the U of O Ducks–we can smell the roses going back to Eugene next year!

    –RKJ

    Just watched Jerry Sandusky’s on-camera interview. Finish this sentence: “Jerry Sandusky blinked more times in his interview than _____________.”

    That Army-Navy surrealist prigram cover is an unexpected delight. Thanks, Ricko. Love Scott’s Astros thing. But I just won’t get excited about any team based in Nassau County that doesn’t wear blue-and-orange. Gotta keep that 17th Century Dutch connection alive. Hoch Holland!

    I hope the kids at Oregon didn’t get sick from drinking all of that Dr. Pepper last night. UPS can always haul what’s left. Go ahead and ship it my way.

    Ya ever go fishing, and get your lure buried in the muck on the bottom of the lake? You wrench it up, and it’s all gnarled up with rotting vegetation; nasty, stinky, slimy green and black detritus with a few chlorophyll-starved yellow bits.

    Yeah, that’s what Oregon looked like last night.

    I liked most of the NHL concepts Elliott came up with. My tweak to his Sharks uniforms would be to make his teal 3rd the Sharks home and maybe play around with a silver 3rd instead of black. Love bringing back the lighthouse for the Islanders and the Pittsburgh lettering for the Penguins. Also love that he used Malkin rather than Crosby for their mock ups. Great work by Scott on adding Moonglow to the Astros sets. I’m a Giants fan but would have no problem wearing Scott’s alternate cap when Astros come to Oakland. And on the note of switching teams for uniform sake… Phil, I would say stick it out with your Islanders this year but bail if they bring back the black alts next season. If they do and you’re looking for a new team, may I suggest Team Teal, Fin City, San Jose Sharks. We’re Western Conference, so no real history/hatred with your Islanders. Won our division 4 years straight with back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances, so we’re good and you can get in before the Stanley Cup Champions bandwagon if we ever take the next step. Young group (Pavelski, Couture, Burns, Vlasic, Mitchell) with good leadership (Thornton, Clowe, Boyle, Marleau) and a young goalie who already has a ring (Niemi). Move to Sharks Territory!

    Man, I hope you’re right about the Cup for the Sharks…die-hard fan, but I don’t know how many more years of underperforming I can take :(

    Go Giants :)

    I love the lighthouse motif for the Islanders. Would look good on t-shirts, and especially on a cap.

    Me Too, the light house element is great. It’s a great symbolic representation of the Islanders…The Current third jersey actually makes the fisherman jersey look great. A seemingly impossible feat.

    If Oregon can use Donald Duck, there is probably a way Houston can get Astro from The Jetsons.

    For context, link featuring NASA’s meatball and worm logos.

    I’m really liking Elliot’s work. These are mostly teams (Islanders excepted) whose current looks I basically like, and while in most cases I would still take the actual team unis/logos over Elliot’s designs, in every case it’s a close call. You just don’t see that level of consistent quality very often. Great work, conceptually and execution. Except for maybe the Pens, each of them is just one or two tweaks (mostly to numbers & secondary marks) away from perfection. I’ll single out the Lightning as my favorite of the lot. The current Lightning unis are very hard to improve on, yet I think Elliot manages to do so here.

    I don’t care for most of Elliot’s concepts. The Jets one, however, is better than their actual uni. The red jet on the logo is really outstanding. The red alternate jersey is intriguing. Team Canada could use it too if black was added to it.

    THe fan poll is this weeks (12/19) issue of the hockey news is about the Islander “new” jersey. Q: Do you like the Islander New thrid Jersey ? A: 71% NO 29% Yes

    I’ve alwasy liked the lighthouse! I also grew up an Islander fan (my 1st hockey game was there 1st win). Outside of the classic (early 80’s Jersey) I liked the hybird of the original logo on the waves.

    Why did that guy keep the Panthers logo in his tweak but not the Pens? Which one is more established? If they went with that people around here would be up in arms. *Herman Edwards voice* Hello?!

    Being “established” doesn’t mean “untouchable”. See the Denver Broncos switch from the D to the Horse Head as a perfect example. People around here tend to be up in arms over everything, so that’s not an issue for a tweaker/designer to worry about.

    I have a few thoughts on Elliot’s concepts.

    I like the crest Penguins logo (reminds me of ‘Drinky Crow’) & color scheme, but the alternate logo seems too Atlanta Hawks/Baltimore Ravens-ish and angry for the set.

    The Lighthouse logo is just uber busy, animated and loud like a slot machine (which was probably intended), and there is nothing in essence ‘clean’ about the jersey – lots of details & heavy excess trim. I love the effort on the alternate logo, but its jagged lines & particular shading throw me off. I would disconnect the N & Y.

    The Sharks teal jersey is definitely my favorite.

    The Lightning hem cutout I don’t understand.

    I know Italic fonts and jagged lettering & numbers is a [fun] part of hockey, I just don’t think it always works or looks good.

    The hockey concepts are really interesting, but I have to agree with concealed78 — the Isles look overwhelmed my rods and cones.

    I think any effort at an Isles third just underscores the obvious: the Angry Fisherman was (take a deep breath) brilliant, and wonderful, and sadly, sadly unappreciated.

    Wouldn’t it be great if some team hired Tony Millionaire to design their logo?

    The Fisherman: hated in the ’90s. Loved in the new millenium. Way ahead of its time.

    It’s music to my ears everytime I hear someone finds it brilliant. :o)

    No, gentlemen. That fisherman jersey was–and still is–an abomination. Why on earth would you look beyond the perfection of that Islanders Stanley Cup uniform for something that does not exist?

    Also…(and this from a guy who generally loves the imperfections inherent in cartoon logos)…why are this guy’s gritted teeth floating somewhere between the neck and collar bone?

    I think the Sevilla thing is pretty cool actually, and the price is pretty reasonable considering you get to choose the player and precisely where on the number your picture will be.

    Don’t see why there is a huge spazz out about this.

    Because it’s an obvious money grab and there’s absolutely no way to reproduce a recognizable picture at that size?

    Phil, at least the Islanders’ “fish sticks” uni was of the “so bad it’s almost good” variety…

    …whereas these new alternate atrocities are simply, “so bad they ARE bad!”

    -Jet

    totally agreed on the gorton’s…im serious about the bfbs thirds being the worst sweater/uniset in the history of ever though

    actually watched about 2 minutes of the isles v flyers game the other week and almost found myself rooting for the broadstreeters…almost

    im tellin’ ya…whatever hope i had for reconnecting with the nhl i loved for the first 2 decades of my life is slowly fading…

    Don’t do it, Phil. You’ll regret it.

    Be tough. The Islanders are your family. You can’t just walk away from your/their problems.

    See this through. ;)

    Joe Queenan has a line about that — Hell is for people who switch loyalties. He says that losing should only deepen the commitment, that the Scots lost to the English for 700 years, but when they finally won, oh, was it sweet.

    Phil, when guys like Bossy and Potvin and Smith pulled on the same sweater as a guy named Satan, you gotta keep pulling for them. ;o)

    Anyone out there know what model Adidas socks the Northern Illinois football players were wearing in the conference championship last night?

    I saw a lot of promise in those NHL concepts, but I didn’t particularly like any of them, except for the Lightning and the Jets.

    The best overall, and the only good font (remember, when creating a new number font your primary concern is legibility at a distance), was the Jets. I really liked the color scheme and the division of the roundel elements into two different logos. The only problem was the beveling. Ten years from now, we’re going to look at beveling the way we look at the mid-2000s Blue Jays unis or the late-90s Cavs.

    Bad news for the World’s Greatest Colouriser. Please: Leave no sharp objects within reach of George Chilvers this afternoon.

    “…Wigan manager Roberto Martinez: ‘It was a frustrating day after we started well in the first 15 minutes. The two first-half goals were a little bit soft and really affected our performance and against a side like Arsenal it allowed them to control the tempo of the game. We have to stop conceding soft goals and as a team we need to defend better. One goal is difficult enough, but two goals, they were too big a weight on our shoulders and the game went easily into Arsenal’s hands. We need to get stronger’.”

    Looking at Scott’s Astros concept again, I think the only thing that bugs me is the use of the A instead of the H on the hats.

    I miss that old block H on the Astros’ lids. Just like it annoys me that the only Rockets jerseys that say “Houston” are the alts.

    If there was one thing I would say about the Astros concept, is that the cap logo & uniform script looks too similar to the current.

    I think the glowing idea could work if there was a way to translate that into the design (via color in pale yellow), but not literally having it glow.

    Back in 2007 a Rockies affiliate Casper Ghosts unveiled a glow-in-the-dark idea, which I haven’t heard about since.

    link

    link

    I actually agree in general. I much prefer when teams indicate their city/state on their caps; I regard that as kind of a civic responsibility for a baseball team. With the Stros concept, I wanted to keep to the tradition of a star on the Astros caps, and when I settled on making the star an A, I was stuck not putting an H on the cap.

    The main reason the Astros ditched the “Block H” on their caps was that a Houston street/prison gang–Tango Blast–co-opted it for their own use. A Portland, Oregon street gang (Hoover Criminals) also uses it as their trademark.

    Check out History’s “Gangland” series (on DVD) for the related stories.

    –RKJ

    Your boys played one hell of a game last night Phil. I was there and I have to say, I was impressed with how well they played.

    Phil said it like I have said it all year long about Ricko’s kid cards. For anybody to have done what Ricko did at that time and to save the work is a real treasure for us all.

    I loved Elliots new Islanders designs. As much as I believe just the third jersey really needs to be changed, his ideas were great on all three jerseys. Even if the Isles just took these logos and change the colors a little it would make the jerseys that much better. What about possibly bringing back the old four slash patch that they wore on the shoulder?

    Apart from the alt, that’s my only complaint about the current set. I really loved the patch, it was a subtle but meaningful thing, and no other team had anything like it.

    1. I love Elliot’s link concept. The fins on the sleeves really do it for me.

    2. I need add my voice to the chorus praising Ricko’s kid cards. I can’t say it any better than LarryB did – they’re an absolute treasure. One of my favorite weekly features on Uni Watch. Kudos, Ricko!

    Thank you. Nice to know some get a kick out of them.

    Normally, for the work of an “artist” not to be appreciated until 50 years after the fact he’s…well, dead.

    Next week, the first-ever Gotham Bowl (which, btw, is half the Gotham Bowls ever played).

    OMG! 1961!

    I will say no more.

    Except to ask Ricko: What was that misbegotten Bowl that was staged indoors at the Atlantic City Convention Center at around that time? I’m thinking Liberty Bowl before it migrated to … where?… Memphis. Terry Baker, Oregon State… Sorry, just have to wipe the drool off the keyboard of this cuneiform machine…

    Was thinking about that indoor game with Gotham Bowl came up, and trying to remember more about it. Wanna say was a few years later.

    Wasn’t Gotham Bowl. I believe the first was at the Polo Grounds and the second at Yankee Stadium, but I’ll have to check.

    Yup. Liberty Bowl, 1964. Utah vs. West Virginia…
    link

    Jeez, sorry about the double comments. Took almost 15 minutes before the first one showed up. Thought I’d forgotten to hit “submit”.

    Go dawgs by 1 pt. Then maybe lsu/bama in the bsc champ still. Sec with three teams in. No non-AQ at larges. Lawsuits perhaps. Perhaps people boycott watching the game. Wou.d be nice to blow it up.

    Evaluating 12-0 and 11-1 teams is tough when they may only have 1 common opponent and most of their competition is teams that are barely .500 or less. It Is so subjective. The only thing that’s I think could help change things is it people stop paying attention to the pointless bowls. But that doesn’t seem to happen

    Some in depth analysis for Elliott:

    Now I know you’re trying to do ‘modern’ unis, and while that’s not my bag, I’ll try and keep that in mind.

    Pittsburgh:
    The penguin logo and the penguin head logo do nothing for me. Too much yellow and the yellow is almost dayGlow, a little to neon, IMO.

    I don’t mind what you’re doing with the pins but I think it works much better on the white “PITTSBURGH” uni.

    The Yellow alt is in need of work. The random black around the logo makes no sense and looks very out of place. I do, however, like these sleeve stripes much better than on the H&R.

    Isles:
    The logos are a bit too busy for me but I do like the general idea behind the lighthouse as well as the waves and it’s overall shape.

    not liking the side panels or uni-horns (or the orange’s striping) but I do like the H&R sleeve stripes.

    The number font would work better with solid colored numbers and I’d like to see all 0-9 numbers to see if it even works as a functional font.

    Dig the number on the pants.

    Florida:
    A pretty good modernization of their current logos. Kudos.

    Terrible number font. At least from what I can tell.

    Let the hem stripes go all the way around the hem. I can live with truncated sleeve stripes. Decent third. Not thrilled with another blue uni with a circle logo in the NHL, but that’s not your fault…

    San Jose:
    The H&R need something – stripes – around the hem. Maybe put the fin stripe on these too. The Home, IMO shouldn’t be black, it should be teal (or whatever that color is).

    The H&R sleeve stripes work for me.

    That third is an excellent design, better than the H&R IMO, maybe make that should be the template for the H&R. Though, I’m not sure I dig the gray shark bite stripe edge… Need to see that in detail.

    Tampa Bay:
    No.

    Everything is way too busy, and what is the hem… thing? It just looks bizarre. I don’t mind the addition of gray.

    Simplify the primary logo and you have a pretty decent set of logos.

    Winnipeg:
    Excelent Idea with the logos, wish I had thought of that – oh wait, I did link

    I kid, lots of people thought of that, and your idea to put the leaf in, by itself, in an alt logo is a fantastic and unique idea.

    Too much going on on the jerseys again, IMO. A design based off of the third’s striping pattern for the H&R might be nice.

    ____
    Overall, nice work, great execution, just – IMO – busy and a little too modern for my taste.

    Yeah…not feeling those.

    The outgoing set is far better…especially when that set mimicked the Patriots’ set (look at the homes side-by-side and you’ll see what I mean).

    Bruins being forced to wear white at home so Toronto can wear their fauxback alts.

    Guess no one told the Leafs that teams wore white on the road in ’66-’67, hey?

    Good luck to Arr Scott in his diabetes funding. I’m 28, been diabetic for 13 years, and it takes a huge toll on anyone. I just got added to the kidney transplant list (caused by juvenile diabetes beating and beating on both my kidneys), and I take over 40 pills a day as it stands. Dialysis starts soon for me too. I’m tellin ya, if it helps anyone younger than me in ANY way, or older too, I respect the heck out of what’s being done. I’d donate some money myself, but hopefully this surgery happens soon enough, so I need to budget every penny. All the best, Mr. Rogers. Good luck again, in your drive and in your own health. Take care every second because there’s always worse things that could happen if you don’t.

    Chris, good luck to you. If there’s such a thing as a good case of diabetes, that’s the kind I have. Sudden onset, caught it quickly, and I’ve got great medical and family support to treat it aggressively. I volunteer and do fundraising events because of the inspiring people I’ve met who are dealing with much tougher cases than I am. Juvenile diabetes especially, so many kids are developing the disease these days, and it really pisses me off that there’s so little medicine can do about it. I was diagnosed last year at 37, and honestly at my age, if it’s not this disease, it’s likely to be something else. That’s just sort of the deal with being an adult and getting older. But kids deserve all the years of good health they can get. You hang in there and get the transplant, and if you check this, please leave whatever info you can about how we can help.

    A different Chris here- I was diagnosed 2 years ago about an hour after my daughter was born (my wife and I both had the Swine Flu and that apparently ‘triggered’ it)… Much respect for the work you are doing, and best of luck to us all.

    The “Kid Cards” are nothing but awesome, and I enjoy them very much. Not to be “that guy,” but the photo of the Army-Navy coin flip is from the 1962 game. The Navy player, on the right, is wearing a dark jersey as opposed to the gold one worn in 1961. Also visible on the helmet he holds is part of a Chinese character, a gimmick by coach Wayne Hardin used only in that 1962 game to dig at Army coach Paul Dietzel, who had formerly coached at LSU with their potent “Chinese Bandits” defense. The characters, on both sides of the helmets, translated to “Beat” and “Army”. There was also a skull and crossbones on the front of each helmet.

    Y’know, you’re right. I shoulda caught that, because I did notice the three stripes on the dark jersey all appeared to be the same color (not the center one white as Army war), and thought it was the lighting. But, now that I think about it, it has a sleeve TV number, too, doesn’t it. Army’s ’61 jerseys don’t.

    Honestly, I googled “Army Navy coin toss 1961” to find it, and it was labelled as ’61, so I used it…because I thought it was a different angle of the shot typically seen from ’61.

    So…my bad for not thinking about it. And not being thorough.

    I did Kid Cards for the ’62 season, too. So if y’all tolerate this long enough, you’ll see my kid notes on the Chinese characters abut this time next year…and the Jolly Roger decal, too. Not that I’m the only one who noticed. I think Paul has done a piece on them.

    Was still the day of two-way players (before free substitution) when Dietzel first initiated those teams at LSU: the White Team was the first-string offense and defense, the Gold (Go) Team the second-string offense, and the Chinese Bandits the second-string defense.

    Ricko…Tolerate? More like anticipate! Great stuff! And right on about the Chinese bandits. Phil, in 1963 Navy wore gold helmets with “Beat” running vertically down the (wearer’s) right side of the stripe and “Army” down the left. Another way to tell the picture is from 1962 is the (barely visible) NOB for the Navy player. Hardin broke the academies’ “all-for-one” or “modesty” code by using them that year, another dig at Army.

    In ’62, Army wore white shoes for the game, had a special patch on the right sleeve…and the brother of a big fish no one had heard of at the time appears on my Kid Card.

    But we’ll deal with all that same time, next year. :)

    “Phil, in 1963 Navy wore gold helmets with “Beat” running vertically down the (wearer’s) right side of the stripe and “Army” down the left.”

    ~~~

    see jerry’s (burghfan) comment above…

    he got where i was going

    /sorry if you thought i was serious

    hey moono, not sure if you’ve already got it covered for tomorrow’s post, but something i noticed last night in the ucla oregon game was that ucla had american flags on their nose bumpers. didn’t notice it any other games, but i also admittedly haven’t watched ucla a bunch this year, so it coulda been there all year.

    K State wore black sleeves and black socks today. Did not look good. Took away from what could have been a jimvilker top 5er.

    link

    So far, I have:

    -UCLA/Oregon
    -Wyoming/Colorado State
    -Okie St./Oklahoma
    -Boise State/New Mexico
    -TCU/UNLV
    -K-State/Iowa State

    Should be good for now, but feel free to message me at link in case I miss anything.

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