Hey everyone,
So a bit of a background on this project. The NWHL is a upstart women's hockey league, I think they just wrapped up their 2nd season, and are mostly based in the northeast. The CWHL is a 5 team league with Canadian teams, plus a team in Boston. Super talented leagues, made up mostly of USA and Canadian national team players, which you could imagine are both very very good at hockey.
But the issue is that they aren't exactly making too much money. The NWHL dropped their minimum wage for players, and the CWHL doesn't currently pay their players. As you can imagine, the athletes have other jobs during the season.
I got thinking about different ways to improve the quality of life in the leagues because my sport management degree brain won't let me rest. I don't want to be some asshole white knight coming out saying they should be completely ran by the NHL and be absorbed and lose their identities. That would be the easy way out. The leagues don't have ties to the NHL, which is cool. It seems like some teams have loose ties. If you're trying to be successful in Montreal, it doesn't exactly hurt to mirror your jerseys like the Habs.
So while I bore you with some reorganizing, feel free to scroll down and look at concepts. I'm an artist not a cop. Just for the sake of confusion, I merged the leagues. I was going to keep them separate, but went to a divisional format rather than conferences to minimize travel cost. I have a 14 team league, which is probably too many because you want 9 really deep teams than a big league with some watered down teams(like men's leagues). These NHL teams are building insane practice rinks with top of the line locker rooms and smaller seating capacities. I propose some sort of partnership to teams playing in those arenas, to get the top facilities, share sponsorship, and possibly get a discount on rent. Do practises on weeknights with open ice, games on Friday and Saturdays. Do specials like girls under 14 get in free, or whatever. Hell, with a strong partnership they could hypothetically play before an NHL game for fans who want to upgrade their ticket. Partnerships wouldn't be required, much like how the WNBA functions. Connecticut and Brampton would be teams that fit this category.
College sports have travel partners that do weekend trips and swap opponents to minimize on the trips. Each team has one, depending on the closest team in their division. I have a 4 team western division, a 6 team central division, and a 4 team eastern division. I did the math and an even schedule can be made with 32 games played. I can get to those later but feel like I'm rambling.
Here are the first 7 teams. Just one jersey concept for each. I used an Adidas template as a future NHL partner. They'd have more freedom than they would with the NHL. I put some small ads on the jersey as another form of income. All the ones there are just simple ones that might carry over, or in Connecticut's case, already exist. I started out mirroring NHL teams closely, and my friend Lexi made a good point. Basically she said AHL teams' jerseys are inspired but not carbon copies and so should these. Great point, and I tried my best to design as such.
Buffalo Beauts (NWHL)
Connecticut Whale (NWHL)
Detroit Sirens (Expansion)
I originally was going to put them in Grand Rapids, but decided the brand new Red Wings practice facility would be a better home.
Edmonton Vixens (Expansion)
A V as the center hem with a cool fox logo I made that would share the orange heavy uniform set.
New Jersey Riveters (NWHL)
I didn't like the places the Rangers and Islanders practice, but the New York Riveters play out of the small arena inside the Devils building. I kept the bad ass logo and swapped navy for black.
Pittsburgh Blades (CWHL)
So this was the CWHL Boston team that I relocated 100% based on the fact I liked the Boston Pride's logo more. They were black and yellow so Pittsburgh seemed like a good fit in a hockey hub. The Penguins rink looks really nice.
Toronto Furies (CWHL)
I've got 7 left to do. I want to make some friends design teams, so not sure when this is getting done, but I've had these done for a month and finally got around to posting them.
Thanks!
