colinturner95

Hockey has a pretty decent following in Utah, pretty much centered in the SLC metro area. The Grizzlies won two IHL championships and compete fairly well in the ECHL. They also have a handful of junior teams in the area. I don't think it's enough support and following to support an NHL franchise however. I don't know how suited Vivint Arena is for hockey either. I figured as such. Still, I don't get the same thrills watching them play Buffalo or Toronto or Ottawa opposed to Chicago, Colorado or Dallas even.

Arizona to Quebec. Quebec to the Atlantic. Detroit to the Central. Gonna happen? Probably not. But I can always dream right?

7. Kuna Kavemen - Est. 1924 - Kuna, ID - Classification: 5A Kuna is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing cities in Idaho. Seated 8 miles south of Meridian, off of SH69, Kuna has grown exponentially and shows no signs of slowing down, even garnering Costco's attention just 3 years after building the 3rd warehouse in the valley. The rapid growth of Kuna has led to Kuna High School getting moved up the classification ladder pretty quickly going from 3A in the mid 80's to 90's all the way up to 5A in 2015. BK and Kuna have had some pretty good battles over the course of the years, usually ending up going BK's way, though in 2019, Kuna finally broke through, beating BK for the 4A SIC District Title and taking the State Title over Blackfoot, whom we'll meet in the next and final AA conference. As for hockey, Kuna makes no real appearance in the state. I personally haven't known anyone or played with or against anyone from Kuna, and I'd imagine they'd play for one of the Meridian high schools. Though with their growth, I'd imagine that probably could change. Kuna Kavemen - Identity: Colors - Another black and gold team, this time the gold settles in the middle of BK's and Capital's. Primary Logo - The primary logo used to be a block K on top of two crossed Florida State spears. Digging a little deeper, this appears to be something of a football-specific logo, with the vast majority of the results giving the logo you see above, which is one of the best in the state IMO. However, it does seem that the logo is making a comeback, with their football coach having brough the spears back to the helmet. I however, felt the Kaveman to be the better option here. Secondary Logo - Baseball uses a more gothic K, and I wanted to bring that over as is, but instead went with something less than gothic but still capturing those vibes. Wordmarks - The K worked for the secondary logo but not the whole wordmark, so I went with a pointed serif font that I felt worked with the whole identity. Jersey Fonts - TT Octas works well as the number font, slotting in as a condensed version of the wordmark font. Kuna Kavemen - Uniforms: Home - Away: Jerseys /Socks - Kuna does a blackout better than a lot of schools who try, but gold sometimes becomes an afterthought. I wanted to give gold a shot to shine, no pun intended. The stripes are a modified version of their current football jersey's stripes, which morphed into something close to the Cleveland Browns stripes. Kaveman logo front and center. Socks match their jerseys. Equipment - Black pants, K Logo on the front leg. Gloves are all black with gold accents. Helmet has the Kaveman wordmark on the side. Alternate: Jersey/Socks - Gold gets its biggest chance to shine, taking over as the base color, and the stripes pare down to just a double black stripe, which also moves up to the chest. K logo is now the chest logo, with the Kaveman going up to the shoulders. Equipment - no changes to the equipment. C&C appreciated! I personally would have gone with "Stampede" or "Thunder". Their football field is called Thunder Stadium, and I feel like it would have been more unique and could still have used a horse logo or theme. I'm sure they wanted to avoid the bird theme as it probably would have been too low-hanging, if you catch the parlance. Glad you guys are enjoying the series! I was doing a lot of talking to myself there for a while

Love it! And the green can play up the City of Trees nickname Boise has too. Big thumbs up from the resident Idaho native!

Have we brought this up yet?

15. Toronto Maple Leafs I hope I gave the Leafs fans enough time to grieve before posting these. Toronto is another team that has a tough time with this program because in a lot of ways, they've worn two colors for almost 100 years (as the Leafs) but even longer as a franchise. And at face value, they have one of the better Reverse Retros in the second go around. But, and I can't remember who it was on here or where it was, but they pointed out the inaccuracies and it was more than a couple and that knocked their uniforms down a little for me. Going off of the team saying this uniform is from the 1961-1962 season: The uniform crest had no outline, and RR2.0 had an extra outline that wouldn't appear until a couple seasons later The collar was a tie down and the RR2.0 had the retro sweater collar instead. The socks were the iconic Maple Leafs triple northwestern striped socks and instead we got the main uniform ones basically. And not necessarily an inconsistency since pants are a bulky thing to lug around, but a skinnier pants stripe on the sides. and since I was bored, two other options: A St. Pats'd version of the same uniform from above. the 1934-1937 white jersey flips its colors to a blue base with white details. C&C welcome!

6. Eagle Mustangs - Est. 1995- Eagle, ID - Classification: 5A Eagle is to Idaho, what Edina is to Minnesota. Eagle is one of the richer cities in the state and Treasure Valley especially. As such their high school is one of the nicer ones in the region. Athletically, they compete well but just can't seem to capture amu state championships, not having won one since 2015 in any sport. They were however the first high school in the state to invest in artificial turf, which they did in 2006. Hockey wise, they play as a combined team, imagine that, with Rocky Mountain, who we will meet towards the end of the SIC-E. That partnership has been around for a while now, not sure how long, but given that Rocky Mountain has been a school since 2008, I could imagine that it's been going on since then. Eagle Mustangs - Identity: Colors - Forest Green stays around, but the debate was around black vs silver, and I felt that black worked better. Primary Logo - They've used the Broncos logo since I can remember and that stuck around. Secondary Logo - Block E, they've used it pretty interchangeably with the Broncos logo. Wordmarks - Modern font. Jersey Fonts - Nike Uncontested, we'll touch on that later. Eagle Mustangs - Uniforms: Home - Away: Jerseys /Socks - It always seems like Eagle is wearing the latest catalog offerings from Nike, which played a large role in the uniforms here. I personally am a big fan of the hazard stripe motif Nike pushed a few years back, and so was Eagle who adopted it for their football team, before they switched to the Boise State stripes. For the hockey uniforms, not quite the same stripe style. Shoulder stripes with 5 diagonal cuts. Hem stripe follows along with the sleeves. Mustang logo on the chest. Socks go for the same stripes, no hazard cuts. Equipment - Black pants, green hazard stripe. Black helmets and gloves, the latter of which has a green cuff. Alternate: Jersey/Socks - The alternate keeps the same motif going. Biggest changes are the hem stripe moves up to the chest, with just the hazard slashes on the chest, and the E logo takes over for the mustang logo. Equipment - no changes to the equipment. C&C appreciated!

The uniforms are great, but one thing I thought of is if the bandana pattern is retired. I thought that was one of the cooler parts of the now previous uniform set.

Indeed they are. Hopefully this means they'll pare down the helmet selection a little bit.

This feels like it would be perfect for a Winter Classic. Just has a super classic and maybe a little vintage feel.

5. Centennial Patriots - Est. 1987 - Boise, ID (West Ada School District) - Classification: 5A The other "CHS" in the area, Centennial High School is one of the younger high schools in the Treasure Valley. Originally planned to be the 4th high school in Boise's school district. at the time, was in "unincorporated Ada County" but as the area grew around it, it became closer to Meridian than Boise, despite having a Boise address. It was named Centennial for the centennial of Idaho, celebrated in 1990. Centennial never threatened anyone athletically during my high school days and really since then. Girls soccer won a state title in 2015 but that's their most recent state championship, boys or girls. However, their lacrosse team always had a Samoan faceoff guy, and if you've ever faced off in lacrosse or played anything against a Samoan, you can imagine how difficult that was. As for hockey, in yet another case of combined teams, Centennial has been partnered with Mountain View longer than I can remember or played high school hockey. I can't say for certain, but I don't think that team ever had more than 5 Centennial students. Centennial Patriots - Identity: Colors - Darker red, silver and white. Primary Logo - With a nickname like Patriots, you can bet they've used and continue to use Patriot Pat. I, however, retired him again, and used their "minuteman" logo that's popped up in the last few seasons. Secondary Logo - Despite by best efforts, I could not come up with a better script logo than what the Regina Pats use and so that comes over in a darker shade of red. Wordmarks - Just kind of a modern font, nothing super wild. Jersey Fonts - United has its moments when it can work in a sports setting and I think this is one of those moments. Centennial Patriots - Uniforms: Home - Away: Jerseys /Socks - So the inspiration for these uniforms, was actually another logo Centennial uses. The double stripe from the tri-corn hat in the logo was the base and I added smaller double stripes on either side of the sleeve stripes. Patriot logo on the shoulders, Pats script on the chest. Simpler double stripe on the hem. Equipment - All dark red, gloves have silver and white accents. Pats script on the helmets, blank pants. Alternate: Jersey/Socks - The alternate is a lot simpler than the home and away uniforms and that stemmed from the original plan for the away jersey. I had paired grey socks with the red jersey originally, kind of Boston Bruins style, but with the alternate going grey, I didn't like the idea of two different sets of grey socks, so I scrapped the contrasting socks idea and used that design as the alternate. Biggest change of note is the Patriot logo going on the chest and the stripes getting simpler. Equipment - no changes to the equipment. C&C appreciated!

I'm honestly not sure. Besides having no connection to the high school, not having access anymore to local newspapers hasn't made searching for information any easier, and I might have exaggerated it being an offense/defense split, but there were distinctly players on the same side of the ball wearing different helmets. As I typed this out, I found this! This was taken in 2022 so apparently it's still an on going practice, but I definitely exaggerated it. It looks like it could be a captains thing, but one of the team captains is in the more common gold helmet, so I'm not sure. Capital's JV team also wears gold helmets so it's not a case of a JV call-up.

16. Minnesota Wild Minnesota could be unequivocally the winner of the Reverse Retro program, depending on how you look at it. It's also brought into question whether they should dump their current colors in favor of the North Stars palette. Now, none of that really had a huge influence on why Minnesota came in at #16 for me. A big thing for me so far in my rankings has been how repetitive the two Reverse Retros have been. In Minnesota's case, it really does feel like they're test driving for a return to the North Stars' colors, but the beautiful colors don't save the repetition from RR 1.0 Now I'm sure this will make some people feel a type of way, since the black base probably would be too similar, or would dredge up the uniforms worn by the team leading up to their move to Dallas. But instead of going for a green uniform, I did go the BFBS (I think you could call it that in this case) route on the 1991 uniforms, which I realize does undermine my whole argument above. But anyways, it was a different take IMO, especially in the equipment, going all black, with the stars on the sides of the pants. C&C welcome!

17. Nashville Predators We're reaching the midpoint of this little series and the next two teams suffer from a similar issue. In the Predators case, I really do like the choice of uniform. It's amazing what happens when you pick a more appealing shade of gold for the 3D tiger. My gripe is with the fact that the Preds now have two very similar gold uniforms, which I think kind of defeats the purpose of the whole program. So instead of going gold, I flipped it around and made navy the base color and turned the navy elements gold. Pretty simple fix that solves my disdain for the double golds. C&C welcome!

I don't hate the black pants as much as I thought I would. Still think white or royal blue would still be better.

4. Capital Eagles - Est. 1965 - Boise, ID - Classification: 5A Capital High School is the 3rd of the 4 BSD public high schools, being built in 1965 to serve more of North Boise. I used to drive by it every day going to work and I have to say that I'm pretty sure the exterior façade of the building hasn't been updated since day 1. Capital competes fairly well in the region and the state overall, notably having a very successful tennis program. They also compete informally with Centennial High School over who is the true "CHS" in the area, but between you and me, no one calls Centennial CHS. Capital has had a few famous alumni roll through her doors. Geraldo Boldewijn, former Boise State and CFL wide receiver, and Bryan Harsin, former Boise State & Auburn head coach, who would be the most famous athletic alumni if it weren't also for Jake Plummer, former NFL QB and mushroom farmer. Like I mentioned above, Capital was combined with Borah for as long as I can remember, so this is the first real instance of Capital's hockey team existing on its own. Capital Eagles - Identity: Colors - A black and gold scheme, with more of a Purdue/Saints Throwback gold than what BK uses. Primary Logo - It's not uncommon or unexpected for a high school to use a college's or pro team's logo. but it's usually a good idea not to bastardize the logos completely. I dumped the Eagles' logo entirely and reworked the Cavs logo into their brand, with cleaned up lines and added the drop shadow. Secondary Logo - Capital has used Southern Miss' retired full body eagle and I kept that around and changed the gold to the new shade. Wordmarks - An angular styled font, fitting with the primary logo. Jersey Fonts - Matches the wordmark font. Capital Eagles - Uniforms: Home - Away: Jerseys /Socks - Capital does a good job of balancing both their main colors on their real life uniforms, but personally wanted to get some more gold in the mix, which feels more unique than leading heavy into the black. I ended up with a Cleveland Browns style stripe as the main look, which leads with the gold, Eagle logo on the chests, C on the shoulders. Opted against a matching hem stripe with just a simple stripe instead. Equipment - Like Borah, the football team has been long known for their gold helmets, though Capital for a long time was doing gold helmets on offense and black on defense, which I'm not entirely sure how that was legal at all, but that probably is above my pay grade. Gold helmets, black gloves with gold fingers, pants with a double stripe down the sides, sort of Kings style. Alternate: Jersey/Socks - Nothing crazy, just a color and logo swap, which I have to say, the C logo looks good IMO in that color way. Equipment - no changes to the equipment. C&C appreciated!

interesting to lead with green as the primary, but not a fan of the green helmet

oooooooh I like this

3. Borah Lions - Est. 1958 - Boise, ID - Classification: 5A Borah High School was the second high school to be founded in the Boise School District, 56 years after Boise was opened and would be the first of 3 total high schools to open in the BSD (1 of which moves to Meridian's SD) over the next 25 years. Borah gets it's name and nickname from former US Senator and presidential candidate William Borah, nicknamed the "Lion of Idaho" for his rather loud and outspoken personality, loudly opposing the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and his failed attempts at gaining the Republican ticket for the Presidential Election in 1936. Despite this, he is one of Idaho's most well known historical figures, having the aforementioned high school and Idaho's highest peak named in his honor. Borah's athletics used to dominate the southern parts of Idaho. Football, led by Ed Troxel, winning the pre-state tournament title 15 out of 21 times in the school's early history, and 2 more with the advent of the state tournament, but haven't won since 1981. Basketball also has seen dominance, winning 13 total state titles, and most recently having won back to back in 2019 and 2020. Borah and Bishop Kelly are separated by less than a mile, and despite the difference in classification, have made a greater attempt to play each other in the 3 major high school sports in the last 10 years, the games of which have become known as the Battle of the Canal, for the irrigation canal that runs behind both campus'. Hockey on the other hand, hasn't quite seen the same success. Borah was also in a combined team situation with Capital High School, who we will meet next after Borah, and later were forced to join again with Meridian HS, but that partnership did not have to last that long. To my knowledge, Borah (and Capital by extension) have never had individual teams. Borah Lions- Identity: Colors - The first time we've seen this color combo since Lakeland in the Inland Empire, Borah keeps its classic green and gold color scheme. Primary Logo - At first I was not intent on keeping the "flaming lion". I felt that a more refined and traditional lion logo would be more fitting, but after cleaning it up a little, I ended up keeping it around. Secondary Logo - The baseball team has used the Boston B for a long time and I thought it fit in with with the identity as a good secondary logo. Wordmarks - Much like Boise, a classic styled font. Jersey Fonts - Another pretty classic styled number font, with an accompanying serif NOB font. I managed to track down an image of Borah-Capital's white uniforms, which were just the Dallas Stars' Reebok Edge uniforms, which was a good combo of Borah's green and Capital's gold. Borah Lions - Uniforms: Home - Away: Jerseys /Socks - For a long while, going before I even cooked up this project as I know it today, I had imagined the white jersey for Borah pretty much as it exists as you see it. The double stripes on the sleeves and hem and the arched text on the chest. Originally, I had Borah on both uniforms above the number, but felt it too similar to what Boise's alternate became, so I switched it up to Lions on the home, Borah on the away and the Lion logo under them both. Contrasting yoke on the white jersey, gold collars on both. Equipment - Borah has worn a gold helmet in football for as long as I can remember, and it goes well with the overall look, so that happens here as well. Pants are green with the B logo on the leg. Gloves are green with a gold accent by the thumb. Alternate: Jersey/Socks - I had more of a plan for Borah's alternate than Boise's, but there were still a couple things I had to decide on. The chest gets adorned with diagonal text, with a logo treatment very much inspired by Michigan basketball's national championship uniforms. I had debated on Detroit Red Wings away jersey sleeves in green and gold but it didn't turn out looking good so just simple one color stripes around. Equipment - no changes to the equipment. C&C appreciated!

18. Washington Capitals Time for a little story. So my grandparents lived in the Tri Cities, WA for 30+ years and having moved from Philly after the Flyers won their Stanley Cups (the parades of which my grandpa watched from his office in downtown), they became season ticket holders of the Tri City Americans after they moved from New Westminster. Now during that time, a young goaltender came through Kennewick by the name Olaf Kolzig, who did well enough to get drafted to the Capitals and stuck around for quite a while. Well flash forward to when I'm about 7,8,9-ish and I'm up visiting my grandparents and Ollie is doing a bobblehead signing at the Costco and I got to meet and talk hockey for a little bit. Pretty cool experience. Now why is that relevant? Most of it isn't but it get's me onto what I did for the Caps. I associate Ollie with this uniform: Which I think is way too similar to the Reverse Retro, plus I personally think it bastardized the blue version it was based off of that I feel was discarded far too quickly. Not to mention it came so quickly on the heels of the Reverse Retro 1.0 uniforms, which I think could go down as the best Reverse Retro uniform period. Going further back than the 90's, I went back to day 1, or pretty close to it and took the 90's colors with me. I've been down this road before but did the uniform on a black base, this time going for the steel blue look as the base with black and gold accents throughout, in the stripes and the stars throughout. C&C Welcome!

The updated S-compass logo is gets sort of muddled when it's on a white BG. A thinner white outline on the inside of the S might help there. But the northwest compass point is the perfect touch.

19. Montreal Canadiens Let the record show, I love the light blue. That's not why I middle of the roaded these uniforms. The lack of red really harms these uniforms IMO. Plus the uniforms were supposed to be homaging the Expos and I definitely felt like they could have done a better job of that. My first attempt was a much more literal Expos hockey uniform, combining the racing stripes from the '81 team, and the Habs' uniform stripes. Not personally my favorite. So I went with another option, this time replacing the Canadiens' stripes with the Expos' stripes. Both uniforms have the same helmet, gloves and pants with the Expos stripes. A third option, likely more suited for a Heritage or Winter Classic, combines the 3 historic Montreal NHL/NHA teams. The Canadiens carry the bulk, as the one remaining team, with the Wanderers lending a solid chest stripe, and the Maroons giving us the sleeve stripes and socks stripes. C&C welcome!

2. Boise Braves - Est. 1881 - Boise, ID - Classification: 5A Boise High School is the oldest high school in the state, and if I remember correctly, still using part of the original building. Despite the deep history of the school, the athletics at Boise really haven't managed much in recent years outside of a girls' cross country state title in 2018. When it came to hockey, for my first two seasons on varsity, Boise was able to field a team by themselves but by my junior year, they weren't able to anymore and fielded a combined team, called the T-Braves with Timberline, whom we'll meet later in this conference. BHS made some amount of news, don't know how far ranged it got, when they decided to drop the (s) from it's now previous nickname Braves and simply go by Brave. I personally think it was the wrong move. I understand why they did what they did, they had been phasing out logos that were offensive or could be deemed offensive (they used Chief Wahoo for a few teams which you could imagine went over well) but also used the Atlanta Braves wordmark too, which doesn't really have the same effect. For my efforts here, I went back to the Braves nickname but did the Illinois thing, where the Native American logo was largely ignored/retired. Boise Braves - Identity: I touched on a lot of the identity in the preamble so there's not a lot that bears repeating. Colors - Black and red serve as the main colors. As far as I can find in their history, red has been a part of the color scheme and I think black has as well, but that isn't as clear. Primary Logo - Went with a Utah Utes-esque logo, with feathers coming off the top serif of the B. It's sort of a take on a logo the team has used, which is more directly a ripoff of Utah's logo. Secondary Logo - This logo actually came from a basketball camp flier from a couple years ago and I can't seem to find it in use anywhere else. with some updates. The four feathers represent the four pillars of what BHS instills in her students: wisdom, justice, temperance and courage. Wordmarks - Classic, "varsity" arched wordmarks. Jersey Fonts - Classic block font for the numbers, with notched serifs. Boise for the longest time, wore the classic New Jersey Devils uniforms, at least the red ones, as you can see in the first image, but in my time they never had the matching white jerseys, instead going for simple, blank white jerseys with their now retired Braves logo on it, which you can see on the right image, with the tool holding the trophy. for the T-Braves team, with Timberline using blue, Boise using red, the combined team team used the NY Rangers uniforms: Boise Braves - Uniforms: Home - Away: Jerseys /Socks - It's a return to a more classic look. I took the Braves back to the New Jersey look, this time combining a bit of both eras, the new stripes from the Adidas uniforms, with the overall look of the long time uniforms. B-feather logo on the chest, arrowhead on the shoulders. Equipment - Black all around, Braves on the helmet, triple stripe on the pants, gloves with red fingers and cuffs. Alternate: Jersey/Socks - I really didn't have a concrete plan for the alternate. I was originally going to just go with a simple color swap, but I instead ended up with something again New Jersey inspired. The stripes are very much reminiscent of the red and green era, with the offset stripes. The B logo moves to the shoulders with the arched Boise now covering the chest with the player number under it. Equipment - no changes to the equipment. C&C appreciated!

I might be in the wrong thread with this, but I like the updated stripes more than the classic stripes, just seeing them side by side. The lack of a hem stripe however, still sucks.

lol Idaho is barely PNW