Who wants to be a Millionaire?

Voting finished up yesterday evening for the Vancouver Millionaires uniforms. Thanks to everyone who voted on these, and stopped by throughout the process to give feedback. A decent amount od votes were cast and they were helpful in determining which jersey sets to choose.

For the Home uniform, it was a no brainer. 11 of 12 votes were cast for option 1, here is the final concept for that, I will also be posting these on the Final Concepts page. I have also included a full body view of the uniform for this concept. I don't know if I will do this for all my concepts from here on out, but for these ones I already made them up during the creative process, so I am going to include them this time.

Home Winter/Heritage Classic uniform:

The second uniform was not so clear cut in terms of voting. 6 of 12 votes went to option 3, while 5 of 12 votes went to option 1. Both of these have real strengths. I like the fact that the equipment from option 1 matches the equipment from the home uniform, but I think with the "faux-canvas" pants there is just too much vintage white going on. The brown "faux-leather" pants provide the easy fix to this problem.


Away Winter/Heritage Classic uniform:

Well, there you have it, these Millionaires inspired Winter/Heritage Classic uniforms are complete.

Check out what's coming up next:

Check back tomorrow to see the completed collaboration between myself and Justin which I mentioned a while ago.

Some edits on the flying V concept which I posted last saturday will be coming this week as well.

This friday I will be featuring a new concept artist on the blog. Drop by then to check it out!

Finally, Some more Flying Vs

Hello again everyone. It has been a slow week on Shirt of a Canuck this week (mainly because it has been a busy week in real life for me). It is the first beautifully sunny Saturday of the summer here in Vancouver, and I (of course) am at home with a cold (probably because I had a busy week). That just means I can catch up on the blog.

Over a week ago I posted concepts from Stéphane and Justin, and hinted at upcoming posts. Today, one of those upcoming posts is here. Today, for your viewing pleasure, I have some blue and green Flying V concepts from Stéphane, Justin, and myself. What I like most about all of these concepts is that they are all very different.

Without further ado, here are the concepts:

Justin's striping design stays very true to the original, with the Vs in the arm stripes. I was unsure about using the stick in the rink logo as a shoulder patch, but it seems to work here. The one thing I would change on this concept is the partial green cuff stripe, I would just keep it blue.

A while ago Stéphane sent in a Flying V concept in the Canucks' Hallowe'en colours. He has sent in a couple more versions of this concept in blue and green. As you will notice, the players he has selected to use for the names and numbers are not Canucks. Stéphane is a Habs fan, and is still a bit sore about losing Lapierre, and has proposed a few trades to me in an attempt to get even for the Lapierre trade. As the unofficial GM of the Canucks I have acquired Scott Gomez from in exchange for a enough money to pay the Electricity Bill in Roger's Arena for the next few seasons, and a one way ticket to Chicago. This jersey would never happen, because Gomez would never wear a Canucks sweater (a Chicago Wolves sweater, maybe?).

My only complaint for this sweater is the use of the Orca logo, which I do not feel represents the Canucks brand well. Other than that it looks awesome.

Stéphane has also sent in a green version, with the Johnny Canuck V logo. This one also looks really good, except for the name on the back. Number 22 IS NOT AVAILABLE.

This is better...

I just wanted to do a version of the Flying V which was different from any other version I have seen.  I don't really like how the arm stripes on the original Flying Vs only go part way around the arms. This was a big complaint with arm striping when the Reebok Edge uniform system was introduced. Recently a few teams have taken steps to fix this (notably the LA Kings, and Winnipeg Jets) I started to imagine it based off the Jets away jersey with the arm stripes going all the way around the sleeves, and over top of the vertical striping on the sleeves. What do you think? was the experiment a success?

I also made a matching road version. And since it is meant to match, I didn't really have a choice as to which player I chose for the name and number on the back of the sweater.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let's wrap this up.

Okay everyone. I am getting tired of working on these Winter Classic uniforms. I have been working on these for a few weeks on the blog, plus a week or so before I posted them, and these concepts have been floating in my mind for a few months. Needless to say, I just want to finish these up.

I am going to treat them as straight-up throwbacks, and not include any Canucks branding on them, not even a hidden blue-on-blue shoulder patch. When the Canucks participate in an outdoor game, I predict that they will blend the Canucks and Millionaires brands, and include the Stick in the Rink logo somewhere on the uniform. However, what I am creating are not intended as predictions, they are concepts, and I think that they are indeed better without that logo on them.

Also, with the inclusion of a Winter Classic patch on the jersey, if there were shoulder patches, the jersey could be very cluttered. Most of the "Classic" jerseys have not had shoulder patches for this reason (Detroit's in 2009 being the only exception, although shoulder patches were also added to Chicago's 2009 Winter Classic jersey following the 2009 season, when this uniform began to be worn as a full time alternate).

For these reasons, in addition to many suggestions by respected contributers to leave them off the sweaters, I will leave them off. Instead I have added a generic Winter Classic shoulder patch on all concepts, which was designed by Ryan Haslett, who runs HJC.

Also with the elimination of the shoulder patches I took the opportunity to make the numbers on the sleeves larger, as well as the numbers on the back. I think this adds to the vintage feel.

So with those most recent alterations made, the jerseys, as I see them, are complete (obviously if you have any brilliant ideas, still pass them along). The uniforms are not, though.

The home/dark uniform is perhaps simpler in putting together than the away uniform, because there is an existing Millionaires uniform from which to model them. This home uniform will be as close to a direct throwback as possible. Vintage white (faux-canvas) pants, brown (faux-leather) gloves. However, we do hit a snag when we come to the decision of what the helmet should look like. The Millionaires did not wear helmets, so we have some freedom as to what colour we make them.

For the away/light version of the sweater, I experimented with a number of different options. one thing was very clear from that: having socks which are mainly vintage white does not work, if the socks are not mostly blue, there is simply too much vintage white. As well, I was having some hang ups with using vintage white pants with the mainly vintage white jersey, I thought that huge vintage white area would be a bit awkward, in reaction to this, I created a couple concepts using brown pants instead. I thought they looked pretty decent so I applied the same treatment to some home uniform concepts as well.

I think a plain blue helmet looks best, but a brown one, to create the illusion of a leather helmet could work. I have arranged all the equipment in the way it would look on a player, so we can get a good feel of how the uniform looks as a whole.


Enough talking, on to the concepts:

HOME OPTION 1:

HOME OPTION 2:

HOME OPTION 3:

HOME OPTION 4:

AWAY OPTION 1:

AWAY OPTION 2:

AWAY OPTION 3:

AWAY OPTION 4:

There are two separate polls for you to cast your vote for your favourite version of the home and away uniforms. And, as always, feel free to leave suggestions, or voice your opinions in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE: Oh Canada!

Stéphane just sent me an email, with a Canucks concept from him for Canada day.

When I was little, I asked my parents what a Canuck was, and they told me it meant a Canadian. This really confused me, because there was already a team in the NHL called the Canadiens (which I knew was the French version of Canadians). So for a while I thought that the Canucks and Canadiens were the same team.

Stéphane's concept reminded me of this story as soon as I looked at it. His purpose was simply to make a bit of a joke. I really do find it funny that two of the seven Canadian NHL teams have variants of the term "Canadian" as their nicknames. I also find it funny that three of the seven Canadian teams have a "C" shaped logo. Stéphane really play this up in this concept, a blending of the Canucks and Canadiens. Hockey is something that unites Canadians from coast to coast, but I think Stéphane may have taken that idea to the extreme with this brand blending concept.

As you will recognize this is a Canadiens home sweater done up in Canucks colours. The C shaped logo switches from the famous CH crest, to the Canucks Orca. This concept has alerted me to another similarity the Canucks and Canadiens share: the arm striping on the home jersey, it is uncanny how similar they are!


Stéphane is a big Lapierre fan, and was very sad to see him traded to Vancouver at the 2011 trade deadline. This concept is an attempt to ease Lapierre out of Vancouver and lure him back to Montréal. 

Oh Canada!

Hello Everyone! Happy Canada Day! If you are not a Canadian reading this blog, do tough it out. I will talk about some stuff which will interest Americans, like baseball.

Anyways, for us Canadians, hockey is something that really draws us together. However it is only once the snow and ice have melted that we take time to celebrate everything great about our country (officially at least!) Canada Day is here, and I can think of no better thing to do than post some hockey jerseys.

Ironically, the inspiration for these Canada Day themed Canucks sweaters come from the world of baseball. In the MLB every July 4th (and Memorial Day, also, I think...) every team rolls out a specialty uniform featuring the teams logo with some alterations made to make them more patriotic. This has usually been stars and stripes inlaid within the logo, unless you're the Blue Jays, they have a red and white maple leaf design.

My local baseball team the Vancouver Canadians are the single A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, and have joined in the tradition of wearing patriotic caps on Canada day as well. How could they not do this? Their name is the CANADIANS!   

Canuck is also a slang term for a Canadian, so it would make sense if the Canucks decided to produce a specialty uniform for use on Canada day. Unfortunately, the Canucks will probably never play a game on Canada day, so them wearing special Canada day uniforms will never happen. Nonetheless, I have made them up. Enjoy!

I have chose Roberto Luongo's name to go on these sweaters for two reasons. The first being, that Luongo has had the most success when playing in Vancouver, wearing a Canadian uniform. The second being that with Schneider being re-signed, and with it being July 1st and free agency opening up potential for signings and moves, it may be my last chance to put Luongo's name on the back of a jersey on this blog.

For this jersey I have tried to keep the striping simple and classic, so as to not take away from any of the  specialty elements on the jersey.

The logo is the Canucks' Stick in the Rink crest re-coloured to fit the Canadian flag, which shows up in the background of the "rink," just like it would on an MLB "Stars and Stripes" baseball cap. I also drew some more inspiration from baseball on this sweater. The numbers in the maple leaf patch was a feature on the Vancouver Canadians Canada day uniform last year.

I also made a white version to match the red jersey.

And since these uniforms were largely inspired by the Vancouver Canadians baseball sweaters, I thought it would be a neat idea to do one in their colour scheme, and include black on the jerseys. Admittedly this last one is my least favourite, they are definitely "black for black's sake," but I thought I should try to pay some homage to the team which was the inspiration for these sweaters.