aldola18

First up is the North Division. I'll start by contradicting my stated intent of traditionalism and replace the Bruins "B" logo with an alternate logo. A theme of this realignment will be utilizing brands that are demonstrative of the teams mascot or city. The "B" doesn't do this for me so I've opted for a logo that includes a bear, while keeping their traditional jersey design. Our first expansion team is Halifax, which is based on the junior league team of a similar name. By and large, I've kept the Halifax Mooseheads branding and jersey design because I think it's a unique color scheme to the NHL (considering my rebrand of the Wild). I think Moose is a better name than Mooseheads for an NHL team, hence the name change. Our second expansion team is based on the historic branding for the Hamilton Tigers of old NHL days. No explanation should be needed here. The light blue set would look beautiful on the ice and is sorely missed.

Last year's Stanley Cup Final between two non-traditional southern markets in South Florida and Las Vegas stirred up some traditionalist sentiments for me. I intend no offense to the fans of either of these teams or other southern hockey teams as they've demonstrated immense support at times, but the playoffs and final just didn't feel right as someone who grew up in the north watching hockey. In response, I've created an NHL with teams located in only northern cities. My approach was unscientific and based solely on cities capable of being cold enough in the winter to create snow and ice and where you could not reasonably show up to a game in a T-shirt and shorts in January/February (recognizing that climate change is rapidly affecting this criteria). With this in mind and after eliminating all southern market teams, I've added 12 expansion teams, three in Canada and nine in the US, which has resulted in a total of 34 teams. The brands for these expansion markets are based on historic teams or minor league teams in those markets. I've also rebranded a few existing teams based on some personal preferences. The jerseys for each of the teams are consistent with their traditional designs, current or historically, so this concept is more a take on a realigned NHL and less on significant alterations to brands/jerseys.

Loving this series. Please keep it up!