Minnesota Wild: What say you?

[CS85]

Didn't want to pollute the Kraken thread with this discussion, but I'd like your input on this oddball franchise's look.

 

In my opinion, the Wild have infinitely superior alts to their primary looks, by a wide margin, really.  Their look has gotten better over the years, but they have yet to nail down an identity.

 

But I'd like to hear your takes on the Wild. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sport]

They have one of my ten favorite logos in sports and one of the 5 worst names. Forget the North Stars look or the fauxbacks - my frustration with the Wild has long been their insistence on not matching home and road looks for well over ten years now and their obsessions with using beige over gold and with using a white jersey template that contains no red striping. 

 

They got the uniforms and logo right in 2000 and each change since hasn't looked as good as that inaugural set. 

[SFGiants58]

I’m game for phasing in North Stars dress-up, with a name like Auroras or Northern Lights taking the place of Wild. Something that vaguely resembles the classic N-star would be nice, but might be a bit if a trademark nightmare. 

[AFirestormToPurify]

Their best look was from 2003-2007 when they were still wearing their original jerseys full time but had a fauxback that was worn occasionally

Their current set isn't bad by any means but they're a recent team and it feels like they're appropriating the North Stars and Minnesota hockey history in general and pretending they're an O6 team. It's kinda lame imo. They're a new team and there's nothing wrong with that, they should stop pretending to be something they're not. None of the expansion teams since the 90s have done that. The Preds aren't doing it. The Ducks aren't doing it. The Thrashers never did it while they were around. Okay, maybe the Sens kinda did it with the barberpole jerseys lol. But at least they were used as third jerseys, not their full time look

[Fitzy0220]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

I’m game for phasing in North Stars dress-up, with a name like Auroras or Northern Lights taking the place of Wild. Something that vaguely resembles the classic N-star would be nice, but might be a bit if a trademark nightmare. 

Maybe it's just me but I think the Bear head logo stands out more in the Green / Gold color scheme than their current color scheme (plus I'm a sucker for the North Stars '91 Home sweater) 

[seasaltvanilla]

It bothers me immensely that the home and away jerseys have different templates. The home stripes are inconsistent. Red is a tertiary color on the home but a secondary on the away (and the logo), and red and green should always be separated by beige (so take off the red number outlines.)

 

Not to immediately turn this into a concept thread, but I would do this

 

[SFGiants58]

2 minutes ago, seasaltvanilla said:

 

 

That’s the best Wild concept I’ve ever seen. I especially like that you restored their custom font instead of using that condensed block font that looks so bad.

[CS85]

I'm still trying to come to terms with how the "wheat" color is used.  I feel like it doesn't compliment the other colors that well, especially when you have both wheat and white together.  It falls right into the "Fast Food" color scheme.   Plus there's no white on the home set at all, yet the road set has obviously got the white uniform, so it feels way too distinct from the home dark set.  It's conflicting.  Plus the moon having its own shade is annoying as hell.

 

 

Plus all of these colors are kind of vintage-y, and yet the Wild's brand has been pretty not-timeless.  The goofy font and swirling crest still feels locked pretty firmly in the early 2000's Create-a-Team aesthetic.

Which is why the MPLS/ST. PAUL Winter Classic set is so damned good.  Same with their North Stars dress up set, to a lesser extent.  The MPLS/ST. PAUL has virtually no reference to anything "Wild."  It's simply Minnesota, state of hockey, as it should've been in the first place.

[dont care]

I fail to see how where is “fast food” color scheme. As far as I’m aware of no fast food chain uses wheat much less green and red.

[The_Admiral]

13 minutes ago, dont care said:

I fail to see how where is “fast food” color scheme. As far as I’m aware of no fast food chain uses wheat much less green and red.

 

No, I see it. '90s fast-food chains had all sorts of weird off-brand, off-color stuff going on. McDonald's employees wore teal for a long time despite the red, yellow, and earth tones for the rest of the brand.

 

 

I can see something like a Burger King or Wendy's interior/uniform doing that wheat/gold/red color scheme.

Anyway, as for the Wild, I hate the name with my life, it's the single stupidest team name in North America and that includes all the dopey Euro-LARP names in MLS. All the North Stars/vintage dress-up is frustrating and well-meaning at the same time. They're all band-aid solutions to a problem that never should have happened, i.e., not having a hockey team in the Twin Cities for a while.

[AFirestormToPurify]

2 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

That’s the best Wild concept I’ve ever seen. I especially like that you restored their custom font instead of using that condensed block font that looks so bad.

Speaking of which, can we all agree that their original font was a bit goofy but in a good way and it looked amazing and that custom block fonts are one of the worst sports uniform trends of the last few years?

[Morgan33]

The road jersey is so close to perfection.  Just need to make the thin green stripes red to balance the palette and replace the redundant roundel with the 'M' on the shoulders.

I'd like to see the home jersey match but the wheat chest-stripe feels necessary for the logo to stand out and pairing it with the thick, hem-striping from the road would be overkill.  Perhaps having it not match is a good thing in this case.  They're similar enough in aesthetic that it doesn't seem jarring (see Carolina).

[nash61]

Best full set:

 

 

Best overall jersey:

[gsn93]

All they really need to do is remove the center stripe on the green jersey and bring the striping from the sleeves to the hem. It'll match up both the home and road jerseys. I don't mind the current look but the center stripe only being on the front and not on the back drives me nuts. Florida has the same problem too. Overall, the Wild never had a bad look. They have a strong visual identity and it would be a shame to drop it for a North Stars-esque look. That might be an unpopular opinion.

 

I mention this in another thread awhile back that I like the name. It just works for me. Never had any issues with it.

[Jer15]

I’ve come back to this thread 3 times now and every time I try put my thoughts to words it comes out as “meh”. 
 

I dislike the renaming teams thing that’s happening in MLS but I’d like this team to start over. 

[monkeypower]

The logo is good. The colours are good.

 

The name isn't good. The fact they haven't settled on a consistent jersey look isn't good. The fact they don't know how to place the colours on the jerseys isn't good.

 

However, I am not a fan of them doing anything close to a permanent North Stars dress-up with the fact that that franchise still exists as the Stars. If it was the case of Jets 2.0 where the relocation changed everything about the team and left Jets sitting around in NHL storage, than sure, but that's not where we stand. I don't want them to change to Auroras or Northern Lights or Gemini (all of which I think are on the same name level as Wild) just to borrow the North Stars look. The inclusion of the North Star in the Wild logo is a nice enough detail and nod, but that's where it should stop.

[Digby]

The script logo they used to have on the thirds was great. So good Adidas ripped it off for the entire NBA Christmas that one year.  The rare good hockey wordmark, might be a better fit as the sweater main logo than the actual team logo, as good as that is.

 

I like the color scheme. It’s very distinct and the colors work well together, even the wheat, but it’s hard to do wheat on a regular white jersey so it looks miles better on the color jerseys.

 

Like everyone else I hate the name, the cohesiveness of the jerseys, and the entire reason the team exists… but there is plenty of quality in the brand.

[ManillaToad]

I think they should have gone with a name alluding to North Stars from the very beginning and basically just kept as much of the identity as they legally could. Yeah the Wild logo is great, and the colors are good (not great, they don't blow me away like a lot of other teams' do), but the name is outright terrible and none of their uniforms have ever struck me as being particularly notable. Maybe the best of both worlds for me is keeping the current logo, using the North Stars color scheme, and going with a name like Northmen or Geminis. In a better world they kept the identity when the Stars left for Dallas, in a perfect world there was never a relocation in the first place.

[DTConcepts]

The Adidas chest stripe jerseys and Winter Classic uniforms are the only jerseys in the Wild's arsenal that I can really, fully get behind. Everything else is just mediocre, imo.

[CS85]

Minnesota HC would’ve been 100% acceptable.