Order Your Own IceHL Jersey!

Just wanted to update everybody on the IceHL jersey contest. The Milwaukee Lagers sweater is now available for you to own and wear from RinkGear! Be sure to order yours right away. If they sell enough Lagers jerseys, they'll consider making more IceHL sweaters!

Also wanted to update the GMs and AGMs. Since I won't be able to update the leagu scoreboards on Monday as I normally would (taking a long weekend), I've posted a mid-week update as of Friday's AHL games.

• East/West Mid-Week Scoreboard Updates

Couple of notes. There are actually two teams with no points at this stage of the week. The Mariners are getting shut out 28-0 by the Archers in the IceHL EAST. In the IceHL WEST, the Huskies are down 21-0 to the Wave. Also, if you have any Oklahoma City Barons players on your team, you're probably killing it right now. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has 16 points, Justin Schultz has 14 points and Jordan Eberle has 13, to name a few.

Check back on Tuesday to see the final results from Week 2.

By the way, because there are no AHL games on Monday or Tuesday of next week, I'm giving everybody an extra day to submit waiver claim requests. The Week 3 deadline is now Tuesday at 3pm ET. Don't delay. The earlier you submit your claim, the better.

One more note. We have a newcomer! Tony Krogen is taking over AGM duties for the Olympiques as of Week 3. Chris Stephens will remain GM of the franchise.

IceHL Rebranding This Summer?

Got a question for all my IceHL fans out there. I've been talking about putting a handful of teams up for rebranding or relocation this summer. But my question is this: should we do it now or wait?

If you don't mind, please take a moment to read through this before you vote.

We just finished designing jerseys for all of our original 30 teams. They're all now fully branded. Does it really make sense to start rebranding teams before we've even gone through a full season?

Truthfully, none of the existing teams are that bad that they require an immediate overhaul. So I'm suggesting that we wait until next summer when the IceHL Project will have a lighter load. However, I'm still open to hearing your suggestions.

Please vote in the poll above. And if you'd like to elaborate, please leave a comment.

I won't deny that part of this is me wanting to take a breather. The jersey design contests have kept me extremely busy over the past several months and I wouldn't mind a break. But that's just a small part.

My main concern is that we'll be making a number of jerseys that were just designed obsolete. Seems like a waste. I say once we finish with the expansion teams' jerseys, we take a break from the IceHL branding process and pick it up again in 2013.

I also have some other big plans for 2013 which involve creating a new secondary league called IceHL WORLD which would feature teams in cities outside North America. More on that later this year but I always welcome suggestions. Thanks for reading!

Update on 2012-07-23 18:17 by Chris

Hi all. The lack of updates since this post should probably indicate that we are not moving forward with any rebranding projects this summer. They will be pushed to next summer instead. Also, in the next day or two I will be launching the Expansion jersey design contest. Stay tuned!

IceHL Voting Schedule

Before I get the first poll posted today, I wanted to lay out the schedule for the next six weeks. I'll be posting five new polls a week, which means I'll get some time in there to catch my breath. Each team's poll will be open for seven days.

The following schedule indicates the tentative dates for each team's poll. No date should change by more than a day or two. After this week, polls will primarily be posted Monday through Friday.

• 7/25 - Boston Colonials 
• 7/26 - Vancouver Lumberjacks
• 7/27 - Washington Sentinels
• 7/28 - Dallas Outlaws
• 7/30 - New York Guardians
• 8/3 - Winnipeg Winterhawks
• 8/4 - North Carolina Nighthawks
• 8/5 - Saskatoon Sharpshooters
• 8/6 - Detroit Motorheads
• 8/7 - Boulder Beasts
• 8/10 - Tampa Bay Barracudas
• 8/11 - Alaska Huskies
• 8/12 - Montreal Olympiques
• 8/13 - New Orleans Gators
• 8/14 - Minnesota Mammoths
• 8/17 - Salt Lake City Scorpions
• 8/18 - Quebec Armada
• 8/19 - Regina Renegades
• 8/20 - Milwaukee Lagers
• 8/21 - California Wave
• 8/24 - Hamilton Steelcats
• 8/25 - Calgary Cavalry
• 8/26 - Baltimore Blue Crabs
• 8/27 - Houston Hellcats
• 8/28 - Atlanta Arsenal
• 8/31 - Seattle Aviators
• 9/1 - Chicago Hitmen
• 9/2 - Edmonton Kodiaks
• 9/3 - St. Louis Archers
• 9/4 - Portland Pioneers

This schedule, created at random, is subject to change but the goal is to stick to it as close as possible.

As you'll notice later today when I post the Boston Colonials poll, I'll be doing something different with the voting. After your vote has been cast, you will not be able to view poll statistics. In other words, you won't be able to see which logo has the most votes.

I'm hoping this will cut down on any potential bias in the balloting. Some people tend to look at the voting results before voting so that they can either pick the most popular or least popular one. Doing it this way puts every logo on an even playing field. In addition, no comments will be permitted on the polls. We can discuss them after the final vote has been tallied.

Once a poll has ended, the winning logo will be revealed via the team's very own Icethetics page within a day or two. I'll explain more how that works as time goes on.