World Hockey Association Reverse Retros

[DTConcepts]

Howdy, y'all! Inspired by the success of my Defunct NHL Reverse Retros thread and how much fun I had making those concepts, I decided to start another thread in a similar vein, in which I create Reverse Retros for WHA teams! None of the WHA teams themselves really had histories long enough to warrant true Reverse Retros, so for a lot of these I'll be reaching back into their respective cities' hockey histories.

 

Anyways, intros aside, here's the design for the Cincinnati Stingers:

 

The Cincinnati Stingers are one of my favorite WHA teams. They were only in existence for the final four years of the WHA, and their performance for those years was nothing to write home about. However, their logo is one of the best 70s sports logos designs I've ever seen, and I wish it would've gotten more usage.

 

That all being said, though, this design doesn't have that logo anywhere on it. Instead, it draws from Cincinnati's older hockey history, namely the Cincinnati Mohawks. The team bounced around from the AHL and IHL for about 10 years from 1949 to 1958, and absolutely dominated during their time in the IHL. They won the Turner Cup five times, which is immensely impressive that they were only in the league for six years. To pay tribute to the glory of the Mohawks, I based this jersey off of their IHL uniforms, which are pictured below.

 

And that's the first concept of the series! I've got some more coming up, and I'll post 'em later. What are your thoughts on the Stingers' jerseys?

[vtgco]

Definitely a solid choice to work off of!

Might be a thing with the template but I think the stripes might look truer to the original with equal widths and those sleeve cuffs. Would also be curious to see a version with a rounder arc for the text, and maybe the logo underneath a la Canucks.

[jbird669]

Oh, nice idea! I'll be excited to follow this. 

[DTConcepts]

Apologies for not updating the series - I got a little busy. Here's the next team, the Indianapolis Racers!

 

The Racers hold a place in hockey history as the first major-league club that Wayne Gretzky laced up for. The Racers never had particularly good performance, but they did have an extremely 70s identity, which is replicated in this jersey. But, just like the Stingers, I felt like just swapping colors was a little boring for this team, and as a result, I made a second design based on Indy's hockey history.

 

This jersey is based off the Indianapolis Capitals, a minor/major league team in Indianapolis that played in both the International-American Hockey League, and eventually the formal AHL. The team won a championship in 1942, defeating the Hershey Bears in five games. Here were the teams' original sweaters that I based this design off of:

 

And that's the Racers! Any thoughts?

[vtgco]

The first take on the Racers looks solid. Only thought is that the old photos look like they have a darker, purpler shade of blue, but it'd probably look worse, because the blue you've used is really nice.

 

As for the second take, I really like the concept, but I've found some more things to nitpick: To look a bit sharper and match the original a tad better, I'd add a blue outline around the inside of the roundel, the outside of the roundel, and the car. Also I'd switch up the font for something wider/rounder or at least increase the kerning. Finally, the blue of the collar feels a tad out of place but that might be remedied by adding blue sleeve cuffs.

 

More nice work you've done here!