On Monday, the ECHL's South Carolina Stingrays unveiled their 25th anniversary logo — the product of a design contest held right here on Icethetics!

A month ago the Stingrays partnered with us to give fans the opportunity to design the club's 25th anniversary logo and third jersey. Both will be used during the 2017-18 season.

During the two-week submission period, we received more than 80 unique logo designs. From that impressive collection, Stingrays ownership selected four finalists and left the final decision up to a vote of Icethetics' readership.

The logo that garnered the most votes was created by Brooks Freeman, a relative newcomer to Icethetics.

"Winning this contest is a dream come true for me," said Freeman. "My dream is to see a logo that I have created being used by a professional sports team. I can't believe that I will actually get to see it next season in South Carolina."

The design is simple but bold.

"I really wanted the 25 to stand out," Freeman added. "I thought another large shield in the background would go nicely with the stingray logo and would make it feel unified. In general I just really wanted everything to flow nicely and to keep the shape of the logo fairly simple."

From the Stingrays' press release:

"We are thrilled with the fans' selection," said Jeffrey Zucker, member of the Stingrays' ownership. "Brooks' logo is a tremendous representation of our brand, and we look forward to prominently displaying his logo throughout next season. We want to congratulate all of the finalists and thank all of the artists for their fantastic submissions and support of the contest."

Freeman will receive a jersey featuring his logo design, and travel and tickets to see the Stingrays play while wearing the jersey during the 2017-18 season.

There was also this nice quote about us:

"Working with Chris and the Icethetics community has been a great so far, and I hope other organizations will follow our lead with getting fans involved in the design process," said Zucker. "We're excited to move on to the next phase of the contest and can't wait to see what jersey designs come our way." 

I would certainly love to see more teams engage the talents of this incredible community!

Anyway, Brooks' logo will make for either a great crest or shoulder patch on the Stingrays' 25th anniversary jersey. But which will be up to the jersey designer!

This week, we entered the second phase of our partnership with the Stingrays — the jersey design contest! Fans may submit their creations via email, and once again the team will select a handful of finalists to be voted on by the Icethetics community.

For details on how to enter, click here. But hurry because submission window closes this Sunday!