By STEPHEN WHYNO, AP Hockey Author
The NHL on Monday is unveiling a brand new brand for the Stanley Cup playoffs and Closing that replaces the one used for the final 13 years.
League officers say the method of designing the brand new brand and phrase mark started greater than two years in the past, earlier than the beginning of the pandemic. It’s going to debut in earnest when the playoffs begin in early Could.
“This seems like the suitable time to launch the mark and actually set up the mark within the panorama that we’re at the moment in,” senior design director Greg Mueller mentioned. “With two new (U.S.) broadcast companions and the thrill concerning the upcoming Stanley Cup Closing and followers within the buildings, that is the time.”
The design encompasses a sensible rendering of the Stanley Cup set towards a championship banner. Paul Conway, the league’s vice chairman of artistic companies, mentioned many various designs have been workshopped earlier than deciding on having the trophy straight up, prefer it sits on the desk earlier than it is introduced.
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Mueller mentioned it is about “celebrating the journey that will get to the second.”
One font was derived from the Victoria Cougars etching on the trophy from 1925. The opposite is predicated on the signal outdoors the Windsor Resort in Montreal, the place the NHL was fashioned in 1917.
Chief model officer Brian Jennings oversaw the rebranding course of. Conway mentioned Commissioner Gary Bettman gave his enter earlier than the ultimate choice was made.
“All gamers dream of getting their identify engraved in immortality and it’s each NHL workforce’s mission to lift a championship banner, and we needed to visually seize and evoke the majesty of Lord Stanley in a way that each respects the historical past and represents of the way forward for this nice recreation,” Jennings mentioned.
The 2022 playoffs are set to be a return to the usual, 16-team Jap and Western Convention format final utilized in 2019. The postseason was expanded to 24 groups and contested in quarantined bubbles in 2020, and all divisional play was used for the primary two rounds in 2021.
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