NHL Utah - The Ryan Smith Way

[fortunat1]

Upon seeing that Ryan Smith will be involved with new NHL Utah ownership, I decided to tap into his psyche and deliver some new designs.

 

My immediate first move was to give the team a complete makeover, effectively ushering in the new era of ownership and tying into the Utah Jazz brand. I started by changing the name to the Utah Grizzlies, which seems fitting given the ECHL team of the same moniker. I followed that up by creating a new color scheme akin to the Jazz in the sense that it has little to no relevance with prior team history and uses a neon color. I continued ushering in the new era with a set of 3 new jerseys. The white jersey features the new team icon on the front in black, with very traditional stripes rounding out the minimalist design of the jersey. The black and orange jerseys feature plain wordmarks paired with oversized numbers below them as another nod to the NBA's Jazz. It should also be noted that the jerseys have no other identifying features besides the attention grabbing bright-orange and seemingly useless sleeve-trim, which utilizes a new accent color that's close enough to other brand colors that it could've been omitted entirely.

 

 

Departing from my Jazz parody, the new logo seen on the white jersey is meant to take the general shape of a bear paw and combine it with Utah's recognizable Delicate Arch.

[eegl75]

flip it upside down to make a U for utah

[johne9109]

God I hope they don't go as lazy as they did with the Jazz

[vtgco]

The joke aside, that bear claw / Delicate Arch logo is beautiful! I think that's the perfect solution to promoting the Grizzlies name (which would be my first choice for this team) in a way that successfully avoids stepping on the Bruins' branding's toes. Would love to see a non-joke uniform set. Orange and gray could work, though I'm curious about other color schemes. Keeping green and copper would look good, or Utah Jazz Red Rocks colors would also be quite nice.