"All the World's a Stage"

Today end's the year on a good note for BNG! Our last member of the year has joined us (and none too soon).The hat atop my head I found yesterday. To clarify the jersey, this is the one in which the crest is outlined in the vintage white and not the plain white. A little heavy on the tags, but it is what I would expect.

On a more serious note, we hope that 2015 was bountiful for you and the next year to bring you more of the same. The next time you'll hear from us will be in 2016, so we hope that you will be refreshed. Templates for concepts I create will have a new look for the immediate future, but that is the only order of business. As for this quote: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances - and one man, in his time, plays many parts..." Simply put - aloha!

-Ricky

2016 NLL Preview and Pre-Season Power Rankings with Picks

I cant believe it's that time already! As you've seen here, both the turmoil ridden Minnesota Swarm and defending champs Edmonton Rush moved to Georgia and Saskatoon, respectively. The legendary Hall-of-Famer-to-be John Tavares retired after twenty-four seasons, the only player for the Buffalo Bandits to have suited up in at least one game in each season of the team's history while also becoming an assistant coach with the team under Troy Cordingley.

Also, the big news is that Commissioner Daniel stepped down to pursue a personal law venture, at we didn't say was who would take his place, a still vacant position. Today, I will make my decisions on who should make the playoffs and highlight the power rankings.

Courtesy of the NLL.

If anything, on would think the preseason power rankings are about who made the best moves, but with me that is not necessarily the factor. My opening week predictions have some influence in that.

1. TORONTO: The Rock surprised me by playing better than their record showed as last year's divisional regular season and playoff champs. It happened even after Rochester won all four meetings against Buffalo. The big question is whether or not TO will platoon Nick Rose and Brandon Miller guarding the twine tent.
2. SASKATCHEWAN: Disappointing the team has to leave from somewhere after they've just won a championship. Then again, it's hardly a province over but make me miss the battle for Alberta even though it's always Calgary's province). It took ten seasons, but now the Rush find themselves looking for a third straight final and second consecutive Champions Cup.
3. ROCHESTER: As far as I'm concerned, Matt Vinc is still the best goalie in the East. Though some key players didn't show up too often, Knighthawks found themselves both second in the East and in the division final. The real test will be will their good fortune against Buffalo continue?
4. BUFFALO: Though Tavares traded his jersey for a clipboard, grabbing Daryl Veltman from Calgary via trade is good for the Bandits considering the circumstances. Buffalo needs to play better against archrivals Rochester and Toronto if they want to grab the division, regular season or playoffs. Out side of a poor 1-6 against those teams, the Thieves (I wish that name would catch on already) were 10-1 against the rest of the league.
5. COLORADO: The Mammoth are a team that is difficult for me to get a read from. I have no idea how things will go. Though the had a solid team last season, there always seems to be a pattern of finishing middle of the pack which can go in cycles from one end of the spectrum to another and back in a four or five year span.
6. CALGARY: This is not you're mom and dad's Riggers team. The 'Necks are still with some of their stars and hoping that last year was just a hiccup after that horrible first half start. But it appears that head coach Curt Malawsky is getting Sciggy with it by allowing previous back-up Frankie Scigliano to start over Mike Poulin in front of the cage.
7. VANCOUVER: Statistically speaking, the Stealth were the least stealthy team. Beside goalie Tyler Richards and forward Rhys Duch, I see a Edmonton Oiler-esque perpetual stagnation at the bottom. The franchise as a whole deserves better performance, but it may just never happen for a long time.
8. NEW ENGLAND: Leaving Philadelphia was not easy for the new franchise, as they appeared the same as they arrived - lacking star power. That surely didn't help their dismal record. Now that they're firmly nestled in Uncasville, perhaps they can see some more cash flow to make some acquisitions.
9. GEORGIA: The Aroltta/Minnesota Fan-base debacle is really what spurred the move, as we covered somewhat extensively. But everything that followed in Georgia wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Well see if they can muster a fight for the final Eastern playoff spot, but don't count on it.

Week 1:

         

  Def. by                 Def.

         

You can read the IL Indoor staff's season preview here.

-Ricky

Enjoying the Festive Period

Not quite as formal for the pre-holiday shoot (though I missed it four our Hanukkah-celebrating readers), but nonetheless a photo is a photo. Pardon the fake Latin, I was watching Cartoon Network's "Big Game" between Coyote and Roadrunner before I took the photo.

We hope that the greeting of the season has welcomed you with loved ones and significant others, as we at BNG raise a toast to you all. From Brad, myself, and the rest of the staff we wish you a happy healthy festive period. Kwanzaachristmakkah and Festivus are considerations too as well as Orthodox Christmas. These are just a few celebrations, but whatever it is, we celebrate with you in spirit.

-Ricky

RoboPenguin: The Movie

I apologize for those of you that have been closet watching (checking for updates to the BNG closet and posts). Though I've only known for two or three days I was getting it specifically this weekend, my most recent addition to the family has arrived. I'll let you see for yourself...

Look familiar? It might if you knew that this is one of the original five NHL third jerseys from the third jersey program and among the first to be mass produced (we're not counting the third jerseys from a century ago). As like many others, it is a blank. I am currently debating on a few others which I had not previously considered. I'd say something but it will likely give to much away and ruin any suspense. I will at least mention that I have sought other jerseys regarding these teams, but not one of the aforementioned. At least you are somewhat in the loop now. Stay tuned to find out!

-Ricky

Footy and the Beast

I have been working on getting a footy template for some time, and most have failed - until today, sort of. I think I've got it down. If you remember Fernando Moreno (S2dio) then you'll recall his wonderful hockey templates including the (original) one used for the Buffalo Wings from the other day. This is what I came up with, keeping in mind it is simplified.

I was hoping this would be good enough for at least the short term, but also for me to use in design competitions. I would be fine with keeping the above version available while keeping hold of the advanced version for myself at Big Footy. Here, I did a mock Buffalo Bills uniform as to say they were Aussie rules instead of gridiron football.

I'm glad it turned out okay. While it probably isn't the best, it does look better than the template you're used to seeing here for other footy concepts.  Tell me what you think of the template and how it compares to others you may have seen. We look forward to it.

-Ricky

Winging It

You all will see from Saturday that I put use for the Buffalo Wings as my re-branded fantasy football team. I decided to create a hockey relevant design on the premise that it is a roller hockey team and academy. This is a little simpler, but it works just as well.

Again, I decided that this color scheme was in need of love. However, I used the light green instead of purple as the primary color. The lack of purple on the white jersey may have hindered the jersey itself more than the overall concept, but it is better than having the pants in the light green or white. Arm striping may have been the difference to make it look somewhat better, but what you do to one you must do unto the other. Overall it would still be a little tricky. In any event, I'm confident on the premise of the colors I was given.

-Ricky

It Only Took Sixteen and a Half Years...

The title, well... I think it would make more sense to a non Western New York English speaker. We used to have a professional roller hockey team, the Wings, who now have a youth league. They had a logo change to reflect the change. The Buffalo Wings eventually stopped competition due to both leagues going defunct (not concurrent with each other). Being the home of wings, many in the English speaking world call them "Buffalo wings" while on the contrary, the local community calls them "chicken wings." Even the motto of its birthplace, the Anchor Bar reads "home of the original chicken wing."

As some of you may recall, I made a spoof of a set of Buffalo Destroyers jerseys in the late fall of 2013 for Robert Griffin III, who was the opening week quarterback for a fantasy football league in which I was competing. Well it went from one month trial league through a friend in 2012, to me still getting updates despite that, winning the league, me commissioning a new one that led me to the above concepts, progressively posting worse records and now setting the worst record in league history of one to two wins out of fourteen pending tomorrow and Monday. So I decided that a change was in order, but nobody voted in my new nickname poll in our league forum. Other choices were based on other sports teams that had generic enough logos based in Buffalo (Sabres, Stampede, Gamblers, and Gladiators). Even though it has a small sized half a puck in it, the puck isn't defined enough but was not the deciding factor. I wanted to utilize the under-used color scheme of purple and light green.

The lime green and the purple were back and forth as to which was the alternate, I figured green since this will already stand out and the green becomes more flair. Maybe it'll be better than the Seahawks one day jersey...

-Ricky

Flo Rida Panthers?

Okay, maybe not so much about Flo Rida owning the team, but the big news from last night is that the NHL will stay committed to the Florida Panthers. To further implement that, the team's rebrand will keep the current color scheme. This is not wholly surprising, though I personally was not leaning either way. Let's go to the way-back machine and see what has spawned of this from my personal concepts.

Both concepts were submitted for the same HJC competition in the summer of 2012 in which all participants were allowed up to two entries to create new alternates for the team. The first was based on their most recent set of alternates, except with the lighter blue as the primary and the darker blue as secondary compared to the other way around. I liked how they did the numbers for it and HJC founder Ryan like them even more (an attempt for brownie points, before he added additional staffers like myself).

This second one here saw me bring the original navy team jersey back slightly altered for the Reebok cut of template. I have wanted better use out of the crest that I chose. Looking at Jovo's "A"  over the hear, it's not centered the same as the number on the opposite side but you should still get the idea. Neither of these won though the latter probably had a much better shot. I hope they continue to keep the crest logo as an alternate. I'm sure that one of the original jerseys will be brought back for commemoration, but only time will tell.

-Ricky

Laziness or Uncertainty?

I'm quandaried over whether or not the Buffalo Bandits rushed their design because the new anniversary stuff looks a bit lazy just slapping the logos on the pre-exiting jersey or they had no ideas what the commemorative jersey(s) should look like. As a result, we got this...

I like the idea of the logos, But since the NLL doesn't do real patches anymore, it's kind of pointless. And we've all seen how stupid the forward facing shoulder patches look league-wide. I'll give these an a for effort (in logo), but failure in execution (of uniform). Overall, generally disappointing, unlike the throwback from season twenty (which can be seen our our closet tab). Tell us what you think below!

-Ricky