NHL Outdoor Games reimagined

[WLD42]

Well, with all this free time on everyone's hands, I've revisited an old hobby and gotten back into jersey design for the first time in years. And with all of this season's NHL games free for now, I found some inspiration in 2019/20's three outdoor games, which is where this concept series will start, and we'll see what happens from there.

 

By way of (re)introduction, this isn't technically a new account, but as I said, it's been years, and all my old posts are archived and all my old images are disappeared, which is for the best since they were pretty terrible. I'm not a graphic designer, just a hockey fan who thinks sports uniforms are beautiful, and as a hobbyist, my medium of choice is MS Paint, with some minor Photoshop for logo placement, recoloring, and resizing. I'm always open to criticism, suggestions, ideas, etc., and to posting revisions based on them.

 

First up in this series:

2020 Winter Classic

Dallas Stars vs. Nashville Predators

 

 

I thought that on the whole, the 2020 Winter Classic had great-looking jerseys, but that didn't stop me from overhauling them, mostly by going even closer to their inspirations, the Dallas Texans and Nashville Dixie Flyers. I also thought there was no excuse for this game not to have been a color vs. color matchup. They look great on the ice, the league needs more of them, and while I understand that travel schedules are the main reason for not having them, outdoor games with one-off specialty uniforms are the perfect opportunity to make them happen. And it makes it easier for the road team to bust them out at home later on. So expect to see more color vs. color sets in this thread.

 

My Dallas uniforms are heavily inspired by the Texans jersey that featured the D logo, rather than their other uniforms that inspired the actual Winter Classic jerseys. I introduced silver as a way to mimic the Texans' two-tone-red stripes, and added it into the logo as well to make things more cohesive. The D-in-a-star patch from the Texans' sleeve stripes is also carried over into the Stars' jersey, rather than the Texas-shaped patch on one sleeve and the Winter Classic logo on the other, which has been moved to the chest on both teams' jerseys. The arm numbers have moved up to become shoulder numbers as well, to give the D-in-a-star patch room to breathe, and to fill the space left behind by the shoulder yoke that's no longer in my version. The tan pants and gloves have become a true brown, which is also the helmet's color to try and tie together the "let's pretend the equipment is leather" motif.

 

Obviously, the Nashville sweater has become yellow instead of white, but the striping pattern isn't much different than what was actually done. The cuffs aren't navy anymore, the arm stripes are a tad wider to make up for that, and the chest stripe continues onto the back, because it's my personal opinion that chest stripes cutting off at the sides (looking at you too, Florida) look terrible with very, very few exceptions. I could justify it if it made the numbers illegible or messy, but that's not the case here. As with the Stars, the Winter Classic logo moves to the chest, putting the fauxback tiger head on both shoulders. I also replaced the full-bodied tiger on the helmet with the head-only logo, because the full-bodied logo just always looked weird to me. Yellow helmets offered a better contrast to the Stars' brown helmets than navy helmets would, and the navy logo stands out better.

 

 

So that's the start of this quarantine project! Heritage Classic is likely up next before the Stadium Series. Comments and criticism are welcome, and if there's any strong consensus or ideas that really resonate with me, keep an eye out for revisions.

[WLD42]

2019 Heritage Classic

Winnipeg Jets vs. Calgary Flames

 

 

The real 2019 Heritage Classic jerseys were pretty unoriginal, which I'm not saying in a negative way; of all the outdoor games, the Heritage Classic makes the most sense to have proper throwbacks instead of a newly designed fauxback. But that wouldn't make for much of a concept, so I made some original jerseys that still borrow heavily from real jerseys of the past.

 

The actual Jets jersey was based on the design from the WHA days, while I opted for the redesign that came with their entry into the NHL; the white arms seemed particularly striking to me. The only real modification was the addition of another red stripe to the hem, to keep the red-white-red pattern consistent throughout the uniform, especially in separating the jersey's hem stripes from the blue pants. (The reverse of that pattern on the pants is also what was used on the pants of the uniform that this is based off of.)

 

The Flames jersey is only a slight departure from their current heritage jersey. My only major change was to increase the role yellow plays in the design, adding it to the cuffs, hem, and collar, as well as to the bottom of the socks to match the jersey striping. I felt that with the logo, name, and numbers being so incredibly white with just the thin yellow outline, just a bit more yellow would balance that and be more visually interesting. Hopefully the end result isn't too busy. Of course, the big change from the actual Heritage Classic was to dress them in red instead of white, giving us another color vs. color matchup (I said to expect those!). Neither team wearing white could also allow the officials to wear their own cream throwback sweaters, as has been done a few times before, and which I think is always fun.

[WLD42]

For the Stadium Series, I decided I had to give myself some ground rules, because otherwise there's nothing stopping me from just going wild and doing whatever. (I mean, yes, that's what the NHL does, but they did it first, I'm doing it second.) So instead of starting from scratch, I set out to just do a redesign/improvement of the jerseys that were actually used, maintaining their core themes. To me, the biggest theme for both teams was the half-and-half jerseys; for the Avalanche specifically I felt the front design being its own giant logo was the main element to be kept, and for the Kings it was the slanted front and corresponding mismatched sleeves. I think (I hope) what I ended up doing was leaning into those core elements even more than the real jerseys did, and carrying those themes through the entire uniform in a more cohesive, more attractive way, while still having the Stadium Series' signature "out there" aesthetic. Oversized numbers have also become a frequent Stadium Series signature, so those are in my design too. Here's my take on What Could Have Been with the 2020 Stadium Series:

 

2020 Stadium Series

Colorado Avalanche vs. Los Angeles Kings

 

 

The Avs get the bigger makeover, because their Stadium Series jersey deserved all the hate that it got, and then some. I guarantee that someone looked at the shape of the new Adizero collar, and the entire jersey design was just working backwards from that. So for me, tying the logo into the collar was the first thing to be gone, and I let the other pieces fall into place from there. The mountain pattern that formed the base of the A in the original jersey is now the main feature, with a white triangle added to still make the middle mountain resemble an A, providing at least something of an abstract logo and not just a striping pattern. The arms, pants, and socks have the same mountain angle, because like I said in my intro to this post, I wanted to carry that element through more fully than the original uniforms did, and the Avs have returned to the angled mountain striping on their primary jerseys, so why get rid of it here when you could instead take it even further?

 

The main change for the Kings was to add gray in a major way. Their actual uniforms didn't have any gray except for, somewhat randomly, the socks (I'm not counting the helmets, that's a different story). And I thought it looked really good there as a border between the black and the white, so I took that and used it throughout the rest of the uniform in a consistent way. The logo has white touching black, so I allowed myself leeway with the captain's letter and name-on-back, but other than that, black and white now have gray separating them throughout the uniform, an effect that also links the design more closely to that of the Avalanche. The numbers on the back now have the same slant effect as the logo on the front, and the mismatched sleeves are a bit more mismatched than they were originally, with black numbers on one sleeve and white numbers on the other.

 

I also made both teams' helmets much less gaudy, since both of them were dumpster fires in the real version. No out-of-place metallic effect, no giant logo on one side of the Avs' helmet, just a solid, matte color, with player numbers for both teams, since I didn't feel either logo would work on the helmet as well as it did on the jersey. And both teams have a hem stripe added to the jersey, to continue the separation of the two major colors by the third color where the jersey meets the pants.

 

 

Not sure where this series will take me next, now that I've finished 2019/20's slate of outdoor games. I've got other projects bouncing around as well, but I do think I'll continue to revisit this one from time to time, because the outdoor games are a perfect place to do a quick one-shot concept that stretches the creativity muscle.

[WLD42]

Hope it's alright to be reviving an 11-month old thread, but since it fit the topic, I figured it made more sense than starting a new one.

 

2021 Outdoors at Lake Tahoe

 

I know the Outdoors at Lake Tahoe games used Reverse Retro jerseys mostly because of how quickly it was all organized, but I put together some "what-if" concepts for if the games had in fact had specialty jerseys. I went with an aesthetic that's something of a Winter Classic / Stadium Series hybrid, taking cues from traditional design for the jerseys, but going a bit more modern with the crests.

 

Vegas Golden Knights vs. Colorado Avalanche

Vegas, as the new kid on the block, isn't inspired by anything specific per se, but borrows somewhat from the barber-pole look by repeating the stripes twice on the arms and socks. The main focus really is the crest, though, which takes the already-iconic Golden Knights logo and "minimalizes" it down to just the V and its golden outline. The white beveling in the logo is also what informed the thin white stripes of the jersey striping.

 

Colorado's jersey is inspired half by the Rockies and half by the state flag. The arm stripes come from the old Rockies jerseys, but with an extra white stripe separating the two colors. That separation between the navy and burgundy, in turn, comes from their alternate logo, which is here used as the main crest, and the chest stripe behind it references the Colorado state flag. The striping pattern is used consistently throughout the uniform, but in different weights on the arms, chest, and hem.

 

Boston Bruins vs. Philadelphia Flyers

Boston's jersey is the most direct throwback of the four, using almost an exact copy of the 1948-'51 white jersey, but "reverse retro'd" into the team's original brown-and-yellow color scheme. The socks are also reworked from the fairly haphazard striping used in '48-'51, to follow the more modern convention of matching the jersey stripes. And in keeping with the theme, the crest is the current, modern version, just obviously recolored.

 

And finally, Philadelphia's is inspired in part by their current third and one-time Stadium Series jersey, in the sense that I looked at the extra-thick arm stripe and took it one step further by changing the sleeve color on the other side of the stripe. The recolored crest is probably a controversial move, but I've always thought the black logo on the Flyers' black jerseys is a little invisible, and I liked being able to keep the black-white-orange coloring consistent throughout the uniform. And for what would be a one-off specialty jersey, I figured I could push that boundary a little. (The pants stripe is also a little wink and nod to what was seen on the Cooperalls back in the day!)

[FCMacbeth]

On 4/11/2020 at 10:46 PM, WLD42 said:

For the Stadium Series, I decided I had to give myself some ground rules, because otherwise there's nothing stopping me from just going wild and doing whatever. (I mean, yes, that's what the NHL does, but they did it first, I'm doing it second.) So instead of starting from scratch, I set out to just do a redesign/improvement of the jerseys that were actually used, maintaining their core themes. To me, the biggest theme for both teams was the half-and-half jerseys; for the Avalanche specifically I felt the front design being its own giant logo was the main element to be kept, and for the Kings it was the slanted front and corresponding mismatched sleeves. I think (I hope) what I ended up doing was leaning into those core elements even more than the real jerseys did, and carrying those themes through the entire uniform in a more cohesive, more attractive way, while still having the Stadium Series' signature "out there" aesthetic. Oversized numbers have also become a frequent Stadium Series signature, so those are in my design too. Here's my take on What Could Have Been with the 2020 Stadium Series:

 

2020 Stadium Series

Colorado Avalanche vs. Los Angeles Kings

 

 

 

As much as I like the creativity in the actual Stadium Series, you took something I like that everyone hates and turn it into a wild but beautiful jersey which managed to stay the premise of a Stadium Series jersey. Usually when someone makes an 2019 SS redesign, it always has to fall on some traditional design that defeats the purpose of it. You, however, stayed to true to the zany part of it.

[jbird669]

These are sweet! I especially dig the Kings jersey. 

[flyersfan]

16 hours ago, WLD42 said:

Hope it's alright to be reviving an 11-month old thread, but since it fit the topic, I figured it made more sense than starting a new one.

 

2021 Outdoors at Lake Tahoe

 

I know the Outdoors at Lake Tahoe games used Reverse Retro jerseys mostly because of how quickly it was all organized, but I put together some "what-if" concepts for if the games had in fact had specialty jerseys. I went with an aesthetic that's something of a Winter Classic / Stadium Series hybrid, taking cues from traditional design for the jerseys, but going a bit more modern with the crests.

 

Vegas Golden Knights vs. Colorado Avalanche

Vegas, as the new kid on the block, isn't inspired by anything specific per se, but borrows somewhat from the barber-pole look by repeating the stripes twice on the arms and socks. The main focus really is the crest, though, which takes the already-iconic Golden Knights logo and "minimalizes" it down to just the V and its golden outline. The white beveling in the logo is also what informed the thin white stripes of the jersey striping.

 

Colorado's jersey is inspired half by the Rockies and half by the state flag. The arm stripes come from the old Rockies jerseys, but with an extra white stripe separating the two colors. That separation between the navy and burgundy, in turn, comes from their alternate logo, which is here used as the main crest, and the chest stripe behind it references the Colorado state flag. The striping pattern is used consistently throughout the uniform, but in different weights on the arms, chest, and hem.

 

Boston Bruins vs. Philadelphia Flyers

Boston's jersey is the most direct throwback of the four, using almost an exact copy of the 1948-'51 white jersey, but "reverse retro'd" into the team's original brown-and-yellow color scheme. The socks are also reworked from the fairly haphazard striping used in '48-'51, to follow the more modern convention of matching the jersey stripes. And in keeping with the theme, the crest is the current, modern version, just obviously recolored.

 

And finally, Philadelphia's is inspired in part by their current third and one-time Stadium Series jersey, in the sense that I looked at the extra-thick arm stripe and took it one step further by changing the sleeve color on the other side of the stripe. The recolored crest is probably a controversial move, but I've always thought the black logo on the Flyers' black jerseys is a little invisible, and I liked being able to keep the black-white-orange coloring consistent throughout the uniform. And for what would be a one-off specialty jersey, I figured I could push that boundary a little. (The pants stripe is also a little wink and nod to what was seen on the Cooperalls back in the day!)

The Flyers one is definitely a great concept, the only comment is the logo shouldn't be orange. As my name implies, Im a flyers fan and have never seen an instance of the logo in orange, ever. Their current black alt still has the black logo on it. Besides that critique, they're great. My issue with the current black alt is the lack of white with orange on it, it feels too BFBS.

 

Other than that, I absolutely love this series, the Bruins and Vegas look awesome for one-off uniforms!

[MJWalker45]

My issue with Las Vegas is it looks like a M instead of the front of the helmet. I'd probably try to create a LV monogram based on that instead. 

[johne9109]

9 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

My issue with Las Vegas is it looks like a M instead of the front of the helmet. I'd probably try to create a LV monogram based on that instead. 

I still see the V and the front of the helmet. I see what you're saying with an M, but I don't think it'd be a big issue

[WLD42]

On 2/25/2021 at 11:38 PM, Friedrich Stuart Macbeth said:

As much as I like the creativity in the actual Stadium Series, you took something I like that everyone hates and turn it into a wild but beautiful jersey which managed to stay the premise of a Stadium Series jersey. Usually when someone makes an 2019 SS redesign, it always has to fall on some traditional design that defeats the purpose of it. You, however, stayed to true to the zany part of it.

Thanks! I appreciate the comment on the almost-year-old concept, I'm still pretty happy with it all this time later. I could tell that they were aiming for something with the designs, they just kind of missed the mark, so I wanted to try and aim for that same mark and fix it, rather than reinvent the whole thing from the ground up. And the Stadium Series have always (well, almost always) had that turn-ahead-the-clock vibe, so I definitely thought it was important to maintain the spirit of that and keep the traditional designs for the Winter/Heritage Classics.

 

On 2/26/2021 at 12:38 PM, jbird669 said:

These are sweet! I especially dig the Kings jersey. 

Thanks! The Kings needed less of an overhaul than the Avs, but I still felt they could use the small changes I made.

 

On 2/26/2021 at 12:47 PM, flyersfan said:

The Flyers one is definitely a great concept, the only comment is the logo shouldn't be orange. As my name implies, Im a flyers fan and have never seen an instance of the logo in orange, ever. Their current black alt still has the black logo on it. Besides that critique, they're great. My issue with the current black alt is the lack of white with orange on it, it feels too BFBS.

 

Other than that, I absolutely love this series, the Bruins and Vegas look awesome for one-off uniforms!

I knew the orange logo was a risk! Philly's never altered the logo other than the all-black version for the 2019 Stadium Series, so I thought the response might be what yours ended up being, but figured I'd do it anyways and see what happened. I quickly did a version with the traditional logo, and it definitely turns the jersey into one that could probably turn into a regular third jersey. I agree with you about the lack of white in the current third jersey being off-putting, so that's one of the big things I set out to rectify.

 

On 2/26/2021 at 1:10 PM, MJWalker45 said:

My issue with Las Vegas is it looks like a M instead of the front of the helmet. I'd probably try to create a LV monogram based on that instead. 

Fair enough about the logo being a little out there; I don't have much experience with graphic designs or logos, I'm more comfortable with jersey concepts than with artwork, so pulling the "V" out of the Golden Knights' full logo was already a bit of a stretch for me. I'm still happy with how the logo turned out, at least by my own standards, but if the team already had a LV monogram in use, I probably would have chosen it as the jersey crest.

[flyersfan]

You nailed it. One other thing the flyers have done across their uniforms is the colored nameplate, something you *could* incorporate, but I like the consistency of the jersey how it is right now. Excellent stuff.

 

[WLD42]

21 hours ago, flyersfan said:

You nailed it. One other thing the flyers have done across their uniforms is the colored nameplate, something you *could* incorporate, but I like the consistency of the jersey how it is right now. Excellent stuff.

 

Thanks! I went back and forth about a colored nameplate, but since (according to the godsend site that is nhluniforms.com) it's something that only became a "permanent" fixture of their look with the reintroduction of the current jersey set, I figured there was enough precedent to not have it on an alternate/specialty jersey concept, especially with the letters' font having an outline.