u/Kinder_On_Tinder

Welcome back to part 6 of the VT high school uniform concept series! This is a series where I take the time to imagine what I would do if I could design all of the jerseys within the state of Vermont. Some jerseys may look similar to how they look now, while others might look completely different. In the end, they’re all concepts, and some teams have their identity nailed, and others are still looking to find their stride.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at the CVU Redhawks. CVU has had a rich and storied history within VT High School Hockey dating all the way back to 1970. CVU is one of very few teams to compete in every division from D-I to D-III during their time as an active program. They have 5 state championships to their name, 4 at the D-I level, and 1 at the D-II level.

Up to this point, the making of these concepts came internally, but this is probably the first where I’d say the pressure to perform came externally. As an alumnus of CVU, I felt compelled to put together something that brought together a fresh blend of originality while paying homage to past jerseys. The CVU fans within the state are also some of the most passionate among those who follow Noble Dog and Pre-Game Twirl, so I wanted to create something fitting for that fan base. Starting with CVU, if a program will be hosting a tournament or significant rivalry game, they will be getting a special jersey for that occasion.

Created using the Puck Designs - Jersey Concepts Version Four.5 template

A modern classic, this jersey calls back to a time when the Redhawks went by the name ‘Crusaders’. There’s not a lot to say about this design that just about any hockey fan can surmise for themselves, as it is a 1:1 remake of the jersey CVU wore during their 2002 State Championship-winning season.

Included within the neckline are 5 stars with the respective years for each of CVU’s 5 state championships. Stars seem to be a popular motif for the team on the helmets of the players, so I thought it would be fitting to place that within the jersey itself.

This is when things start to change up a bit. It’s been noted across the state how much CVU appreciates their current black alternates. So I figured, why not change it up a bit, and keep a black jersey as a standard away option? It was a bit more subtle with the homes, but I’m utilizing all three colors for the color palette of these CVU jerseys. The current color palette is strictly red & white for the homes and black & white for the alternate and I just think it looks awkward. I don’t really care much for most two-tone designs, and thought these jerseys would look better when utilizing all the colors the Redhawks had to offer.

This particular jersey is a color reversal of the Crusaders' away uniforms from 2002, but with the addition of a white shoulder yoke to create better color contrast with the white helmets that CVU wears.

But wait, the jerseys get more unique! For a red alternate, I’ve opted to create my own full-body version of CVU’s Redhawk for a crest. This logo is completely original and took many hours to formulate and refine for this uniform. The striping takes inspiration from a Huntsville Havoc throwback uniform from several years ago, as I thought it balanced out the complexity of the main crest well. The ‘CV’ mark sits on the shoulders so that the black doesn't dominate the jersey too much.

The neckline for this jersey depicts a landscape photo of camels hump with the words ‘Vermont is red’ superimposed over it. This was a tagline I saw Redhawks fans put out there from time to time, so I thought it would blend nicely with CVU’s red jersey.

Here’s a surprise! Now I know two captions ago I remarked about my disdain for two-tone uniforms, but if you pair the right colors, you can make something very unique. This particular design takes the crest from CVU’s current black uniform and reduces it to a two-tone logo, sort of like how Carolina made their primary logo two-tone on their white jerseys. For the jersey layout, I took some inspiration from Dallas’ & Edmonton’s darker alternates they’ve had over the past several years. I opted to place 5 stripes on the sleeves to pay homage to CVU’s 5 championships while keeping the waistline free from any striping. The collar of the sweater features a small ‘CV’ mark just for an added bit of branding.

This jersey was designed with the CSB Cup in mind, so the neckline carries one singular message: ‘Beat SB’

I’ll be attaching the custom red hawk I designed for the red jersey at the end because I’m honestly pretty proud with how that came out. It’s still a little janky looking but it’s a big step forward for me in terms of vector art.

Welcome back to part 5 of the VT high school uniform concept series! This is a series where I take the time to imagine what I would do if I could design all of the jerseys within the state of Vermont. Some jerseys may look similar to how they look now, while others might look completely different. In the end, they’re all concepts, and some teams have their identity nailed, and others are still looking to find their stride.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at the Burr & Burton Bulldogs. Many are familiar with BBA now from their most recent run to the State Championship to face off against Rice, but BBA has had a history of success, having won Division II titles in 2004 and 2007.

On the girls side, BBA has had a very strong program throughout its time in Division II, capturing 4 championships. They continue to showcase an impressive group year in and year out, and look to be strong competitors in D-II once again for this coming year.

This became a difficult jersey mockup because I lost all the original source files for my original mockups of both the girls' and boys' programs. While I had all the renders, looking back at the files a couple of weeks after making them, I realized I did not care for what I did, and decided to either completely change or redesign some aspects.

This was also difficult as I wanted to build BBA’s identity to be different from BFA’s (as they share a very similar color palette). So I decided to follow a more modern design philosophy to contrast with BFA’s more historic design philosophy.

Created using the @_puckdesigns Version Four.5 template

This is a combination of several inspirations. Firstly, I liked seeing ‘BBA’ on the front of the current BBA sweaters, but I thought it didn’t take up enough space. For the wordmark, I took some inspiration from the road uniforms I wore while at USM my freshman year. As for the jersey template, I originally wanted to take inspiration again from my USM jersey (this jersey utilized the St. Louis Blues navy blue ‘Arch’ template they wore back around the 2010’s) but I had trouble making it work with the away jerseys. At some point, I realized the NY Islanders had a great color balance in their jerseys that was somewhat similar to BBA’s, so I gave it a shot and it worked really well I think.

The hangar effect is a phrase that stood out to me on their Instagram page: “Dawgs VS The World”. There’s some power with that statement, and I thought it’d be a great mantra to put into the jersey.

This ‘Islanders’ template in particular gave me a means to break away from giving white shoulder yokes to teams that use white helmets. The amount of white on the sleeves and letting is substantial enough to balance out the white in the helmets without having to add white shoulder yokes to create a ‘smooth’ transition. It’s a simple design but I feel it demands your attention.

Finally, there’s the alternate which I spent way too long trying to figure out. Originally, the wordmark read ‘Dawgs’ before switching to ‘Academy’, and I just relented to ‘Bulldogs’. This is somewhat of an original design that takes inspiration from the 50’s Providence Friars black jerseys that they wear, but honestly this is more of its own thing. I opted to place the numbers inside the sleeve striping as it felt it made the design more sleek, and it’s a design trait not seen too often in the modern NHL. The shoulder patches are now changed to the logo for BBA instead of the Bulldog mascot as I felt it would contrast better since the whole jersey is yellow.

The hangar effect for this jersey features two broken dog bones with ‘2004’ and ‘2007’ inscribed on the inside to celebrate the program’s two state championships.

The first thing I thought of doing with BBA was adopting something similar to what the Ferris State Bulldogs had. Seeing how the girls' program utilized the Bulldog much more than the boys, I thought making the Bulldog head the centerpiece of the homes and aways seemed the most logical. The striping is pretty simple, it’s somewhat Bruins-esque, but I wasn’t looking to do anything crazy because I really didn’t want the Bulldog head to be overshadowed by anything.

The hangar effect, similar to the boys, was taken from the team’s Instagram page. ‘United • Devoted • Scrappy’ is a perfect description of the culture that BBA breeds, and I think it makes a great addition to the jersey.

Green is swapped for white here and a white stroke is placed around the Bulldog head for greater contrast. I also opted for the numbers to change to white, that way there’s a bit more contrast in this particular jersey.

This one’s a bit of a doozy. The original was much more abstract and strange, but after a long time of refining it down, I came up with this. The four stripes on the sleeves and waist represent the four championships BBA has won, which was an idea I got from Denver’s anniversary jerseys they rolled out several years ago. Additionally, the stripes on the waist include a cool subtle detail that includes the final scores of that year’s state championship game, and the opponent they won against. The logo itself took some inspiration from Quinnipiac’s women’s team logo. I placed BBA’s signature tower within a shield with the school’s name overtop. The overlapping circles were a bit of a happy accident for the primary crest, but I thought it created an interesting visual so I kept it. I opted for a white shoulder yoke with green trim to create better color coordination with the white helmets that the girls use.

The hangar effect is very simple, featuring 4 Bulldog heads to represent the team’s 4 championships. This jersey is very much made to celebrate the success of the program’s past while presenting it in a new modern look.

Welcome back to part 4 of the VT high school uniform concept series! This is a series where I take the time to imagine what I would do if I could design all of the jerseys within the state of Vermont. Some jerseys may look similar to how they look now, while others might look completely different. In the end, they’re all concepts, and some teams have their identity nailed, and others are still looking to find their stride.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at the Burlington-Colchester Sealakers. BC has competed in Girls High School Hockey for 12 seasons, starting in 2015. Across their existence, they’ve been a top 5 team annually within the state, and have been rewarded for their consistent excellence with 3 state finals appearances and a state championship in 2024

So far, this has been my biggest challenge among the teams I’ve covered. BC last season had some very strong uniforms, and I challenged myself to make something original for them that pulls inspiration from both Burlington & Colchester. Right off the bat you should notice I’ve simplified their primary logo while also changing the colors to match the navy blue of Burlington and the green of Colchester.

Created using the Puck Designs - Jersey Concepts Version Four.5 template

This first jersey borrows some elements from Colorado’s reverse retro from 2022. You’ll notice here that in addition to updating the standard BC Blue & Green, I’ve also added Colchester’s Royal Blue and Burlington’s Silver into the color palette to include all the colors for both respective schools.

The waistline for Colorado’s jersey was meant to emulate a mountain, but I thought it could be used to represent a wave as well, and it’s a concept that I decided to theme both the home and away on. I opted to keep the ‘BC’ crest intact because that is the team’s sole logo, and I believe it looks great on a jersey. The vertical striping took some time to ensure every color could be seen distinctly, and the template gave me some issues connecting the sleeves to the shoulder yokes but I think it turned out okay.

The hangar effect is a gradient of the primary green and blue seen within the logo, with a ghosted ‘sealakers’ wordmark. This will be the hangar effect for all three jerseys.

Here’s a first for this series: unique home and away templates. I came up with this concept when thinking about the properties of waves from a design standpoint, and I thought that because waves are always in motion, it would be a cool idea to visualize that by the waistline striping rising and falling between the home and away jerseys. This particular striping pattern takes inspiration from a junior team I played on, the VT Lumberjacks. I thought this would be a great way to maintain a strong presence of navy with enough white balance at the waistline to make BC’s white helmets look good with the rest of their uniform.

I also took the time to change the royal blue backdrop from the BC logo seen on the homes to white for this jersey so it could stand out better against the navy.

Finally, we have what is- to my knowledge- the first BC jersey to utilize the ‘Sealakers’ name. This jersey is a mashup of inspirations and it took the longest out of the three to figure out. Eagle-eyed viewers might notice a similarity with the ‘Sealakers’ font to the Seattle Mariners font which was very much intentional. The waistline takes inspiration from the Milwaukee Admirals uniforms of the 1980’s where the rest of the striping on the arms and yoke was put in to help balance the white and blue of the design so the green wasn’t too overpowering.

Overall this was a very challenging set of uniforms to design, both because of BC’s strong pre-existing jerseys, and the difficulty that came with this particular Nike template.

Welcome back to part 3 of the VT high school uniform concept series! This is a series where I take the time to imagine what I would do if I could design all of the jerseys within the state of Vermont. Some jerseys may look similar to how they look now, while others might look completely different. In the end, they’re all concepts, and some teams have their identity nailed, and others are still looking to find their stride.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at the Burlington Seahorses. Burlington was one of the original six teams to compete within VPA High School hockey all the way back in 1967. Across 53 seasons in both Division I & II, the Seahorses have amassed 4 Division I state championships

Created using the Puck Designs - Jersey Concepts Version Four.5 template

These are the first home jerseys of this series so far to utilize an off-white colored home jersey. The current Seahorse jerseys utilize grey homes, and it’s a really great look in my opinion, so I kept it for this concept.

Looking back through Burlington’s extensive history of jerseys, I found they were almost all wordmarks. Nothing against wordmark jerseys, but I felt that Burlington had exhausted many different iterations, so I thought I’d mix it up and give them a proper crest with the head of the seahorse from their primary logo. I initially wanted to use the logo on the shoulder patches as the primary logo, but something about the seahorse head really stuck with me. That being said, the ‘BHS’ logo I thought made for a very nice shoulder patch.

The striping draws from a variety of inspirations. It takes a striping pattern from the Hartford Wolfpack. On the larger stripes, I included some wavy lines to tie into the aquatic theming of Burlington’s mascot and the city’s relationship to Lake Champlain

The hangar effect is very simple: 4 Seahorses to symbolize the team’s 4 state championships

This is a reversal of the grey homes jerseys with some minor tweaks. I shortened the stripe at the waist/hem portion of the jersey and added a grey stroke around the seahorse head. I was debating color-swapping the head at first, but I think the addition of grey in the logo really makes it stand out well. I’ve been trying to keep my usage of white to a minimum in this concept so far, but I end up using it a bit more in the alternate concept.

Okay, this jersey is very experimental and puts together several ideas. I got a message from a BHS player about a coral-reef-inspired jersey. It was difficult to envision, but it led me down a path to create something more aquatic-themed that pays homage to Lake Champlain itself.

Sublimated onto the body of the jersey is a topographic map of Lake Champlain, something very unique and subtle that I drew inspiration from with the sublimated tiger stripes seen in Korea’s Football Team Kits. Burlington has a motif of dark away jerseys with white shoulder yokes, so I decided to implement that into this jersey and use it as a space to put a coral-like texture on, which takes some distant clothing inspiration from the white shoulder yokes that Czechia’s old international uniforms used to sport.

The striping on the jersey is unique, and utilizes the 4 of the waves seen in the home and away jerseys from earlier- the 4 waves symbolizing Burlington’s 4 championships. Ghosted onto these stripes is the same coral texture seen on the shoulder yokes.

Finally, the crest and numbers are white outlines, which was something I lifted from the Kraken's black alternates. I tried implementing a striping pattern similar to that Kraken 3rd jersey, but I found the Seahorses didn’t have a color palette that could make those stripes pop in the same way, so I opted for something simpler.