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First, I wanna show off a few concepts I've made during the week:
Here's one I made for my current school, Lethbridge College. The Kodiaks do not have a hockey team repping the school yet, but with their athletics logo and wordmark logo elements making up this jersey, as well as a classic looking 3rd jersey, I would be pretty happy if these jerseys were used.
This was done for a contest at HJC, making jerseys for the bottom 10 teams in the IIHF World Rankings. I chose Israel simply because I had this design in my head already, and while it's a simplistic design, I still like how it turned out.
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While I'm talking about some concepts, let's take a look at some more designs sent in from Ricky at Buffalo Nickel Graphics:
Here is (I assume) a Colorado Avalanche redo. The logos are really cool, and it does relate to mountainous terrain for sure, but I'm not sure how 'Avalanchey' these logos are. The dog paw with the 'A' looks really good as a logo, but I thought at first it was for an Arizona logo (Future Arizona Coyotes logo? Could work). The jerseys are nice and modern, yet keep the Avalanche look. The 3rd logo is decent, but the one-armed design is what I like most about the jersey. It looks really cool in Colorado colours. Overall, not convinced that the logos do the job, but its a cool design.
Oh my goodness. As god awful as this would look on the ice, this looks like a fantastic ECHL specialty-jersey design. From a design standpoint, the lettering and numbers is hard to notice, especially the front number. This could never pass as an on-ice jersey, but if I seen a t-shirt like this, I'd probably buy it. Aloha Anaheim!
I don't have much to go on here, and I'd love input if anyone has more to add here, but to my knowledge this is for the Indigenous Round of the AFL, Aussie Rules Football. It's a celebration of the native cultures of Australia, and some of the foundations of what created the game that connects most Australians together. I know less about this sport than probably any other semi-major sport in the world, especially from a design standpoint. But the artwork of the jersey, and how its blended with the jersey, is absolutely beautiful. This sort of artwork is similar to how Team Canada designed their Olympic logo, which was a hit amongst Canadians.
And there are a few more of Ricky's concepts coming hopefully in the next couple of days, so stay tuned for that.
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Is it troubling anybody of how many suspensions have been handed out so far this season? Not like I'm complaining about the suspensions, but the high amount of suspend-able offences committed. 5 during the season, 7 during pre-season. Most of those were hits to the head or checks from behind.
I like how the league is handling these incidents. There are no small 1 or 2 game penalties, with some 5 and 10 game sentences being handed out. Pretty tough, but good for the league in the long run.
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In a very tragic incident in the USHL, a player lost his helmet during a fight, and fell with his head hitting the ice. He started going into convulsions right on the ice, and had to be sent to hospital, where he is still recovering. He will likely make a full recovery.
But while this was a tragic event, this will of course bring back the debate of fighting in hockey. With occurrences such as this, or with George Parros earlier this year, the water cooler talk is at an all-time high on the issue.
I've always said that fighting needs to be in hockey, and until it's removed at the NHL level, it will not and should not be removed at the junior level. Injuries like this are unfortunately not new, but seem to be getting more and more exposure to the problem of concussions in hockey and the problems caused by fighting.
Is the game any safer without fighting? That is a very important question, which I think I'd still say no to. Things like this are going to happen with fighting or not As I write this, Trouba from the Jets got sent off on a stretcher. He wasn't fighting, he wasn't hit, he just lost his footing and hit the boards hard.
Fighting has a risk, of course. And I think I could support a move to limit fighting, such as a game misconduct after a fight, or additional penalties if the fight was deemed to have no meaning (Laraque's "Good luck" fight), or was overly aggressive (John Scott's attack on Kessel). But removing fighting all together will not be the answer, as more players will aim for dirty hits without the consequence of being stood up by one of the other team's tough guys.
Fighting give the game accountability, and while it has an injury risk itself, it keeps the game safe from the Torres', Cooke's, and Kaleta's of the league. You can suspend them, but will that make them learn any more than having to stand up for themselves? Have you ever seen Cooke, Torres, or Kaleta fight? Cooke fights players like Kovalchuk, Callahan, and E. Kane. That's a weak fight card. If Scott Stevens got a hold of Cooke, do you think that could change him? I think it would.
Overall, I think there should be less fighting, particularly "staged" fighting. But I don't think I would like the NHL's direction if they decide to remove fighting all together. Fighting is both a safety risk and a safety device, but a perfect balance needs to be needed, or else it could be the game itself being removed on a stretcher.
