NHL Realignment | Only Teams in the North

[aldola18]

Last year's Stanley Cup Final between two non-traditional southern markets in South Florida and Las Vegas stirred up some traditionalist sentiments for me. I intend no offense to the fans of either of these teams or other southern hockey teams as they've demonstrated immense support at times, but the playoffs and final just didn't feel right as someone who grew up in the north watching hockey. In response, I've created an NHL with teams located in only northern cities. My approach was unscientific and based solely on cities capable of being cold enough in the winter to create snow and ice and where you could not reasonably show up to a game in a T-shirt and shorts in January/February (recognizing that climate change is rapidly affecting this criteria). 

 

With this in mind and after eliminating all southern market teams, I've added 12 expansion teams, three in Canada and nine in the US, which has resulted in a total of 34 teams. The brands for these expansion markets are based on historic teams or minor league teams in those markets. I've also rebranded a few existing teams based on some personal preferences. The jerseys for each of the teams are consistent with their traditional designs, current or historically, so this concept is more a take on a realigned NHL and less on significant alterations to brands/jerseys. 

 

 

 

[aldola18]

First up is the North Division. 

 

I'll start by contradicting my stated intent of traditionalism and replace the Bruins "B" logo with an alternate logo. A theme of this realignment will be utilizing brands that are demonstrative of the teams mascot or city. The "B" doesn't do this for me so I've opted for a logo that includes a bear, while keeping their traditional jersey design.

 

 

 

Our first expansion team is Halifax, which is based on the junior league team of a similar name. By and large, I've kept the Halifax Mooseheads branding and jersey design because I think it's a unique color scheme to the NHL (considering my rebrand of the Wild). I think Moose is a better name than Mooseheads for an NHL team, hence the name change.

 

Our second expansion team is based on the historic branding for the Hamilton Tigers of old NHL days.

 

 

 

No explanation should be needed here.  The light blue set would look beautiful on the ice and is sorely missed.

 

 

 

 

 

[neo_prankster]

Here in San Diego, who are we supposed to cheer for in this scenario?

[The_Admiral]

A new Tigers team should consider orange rather than yellow and black to set them apart from both the Tiger-Cats in town and the Bruins and Penguins in hockey. I did an old Tigers concept with orange, yellow, and steel blue. Call it Tiger Orange, Hamilton Yellow, and, well, Steel Blue for civic engagement, I don't know.

 

I'd consider dropping red from the Nordiques and going back to the igloo-n designer's original vision of a fully blue team in opposition to the red Canadiens.

 

I believe the NHL always should have stuck to its home base, but that doesn't mean not having outposts in Los Angeles, Dallas, or Tampa. This alignment stays north of I-64 but is still too big with three teams in not-particularly-hockey-mad Ohio. Kudos to you if you can see it through, though.

[neo_prankster]

17 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

A new Tigers team should consider orange rather than yellow and black to set them apart from both the Tiger-Cats in town and the Bruins and Penguins in hockey. I did an old Tigers concept with orange, yellow, and steel blue. Call it Tiger Orange, Hamilton Yellow, and, well, Steel Blue for civic engagement, I don't know.

 

I'd consider dropping red from the Nordiques and going back to the igloo-n designer's original vision of a fully blue team in opposition to the red Canadiens.

 

I believe the NHL always should have stuck to its home base, but that doesn't mean not having outposts in Los Angeles, Dallas, or Tampa. This alignment stays north of I-64 but is still too big with three teams in not-particularly-hockey-mad Ohio. Kudos to you if you can see it through, though.

And without LA, Tampa or Dallas, that would make the NHL unattractive to TV networks in the US.

 

It sucks that Quebec and Hartford lost their respective clubs in real life, but there's other reasons why they moved besides money.

[aldola18]

Yeah I recognize this fantasy realignment is unrealistic from many perspectives including the market size/value of many southern cities and concentration of teams in a geographic region (like having three teams in Ohio), but being realistic wasn't my intent. It's purely about maxing out "northern" hockey teams and bringing back some of the historic hockey clubs in these markets. That may make this less fun for some people.

 

I'll take a look at orange and black for Hamilton considering there are a lot of yellow/black schemes already.

 

Next up is the Atlantic Division.

 

Having lived in Baltimore for quite a few years, I love this maritime identity for them, though I wavered back and forth on the yellow/black color scheme due to frequency of it in the NHL. I tried to differentiate them by making yellow the primary color, but still am not 100% convinced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[edjb93]

Hey there! First of all, these concepts looked great, especially that Nordiques set, which looks similar to what I did.

 

For the Skipjacks, have you tried using the old RWB scheme of the Capitals? That's what the old AHL team of the same name used in its final years. It would be a challenge, though, since there are the actual Capitals and the Rangers within the same division.

[ManillaToad]

These are all fantastic

[johne9109]

I feel like of the Whalers were still around this would pretty much be their uniform set

[chcarlson23]

These all look pretty good so far! I believe you’re using one too many outlines on the Habs sweaters. They only have a white, then blue outline on the red jersey, not white, blue, white. The outside white one looks a little off. 
 

I also would move Minnesota into the Central, and bump Kansas City out west. Kansas City is farther west than the Twin Cities. 

[Bomba Tomba]

What exactly is a skipjack? That could influence your decision