"It's a Little Off the Beaten Path, Al."

Thought professional soccer was played in stadiums? Think again. Multiple clubs across the Balkans have no such entities - not even stands for the spectators. While there are two teams in the city of Bitola in the Macedonian First League, one does play in a stadium in need of upgrade or replacement. However, the other team plays here:

Yes, that's a mule tied to the fence. The home of FK Heraclea doesn't actually have a name and is in one of the villages directly next to the ruins of the same name and the outskirts of the city limits of Bitola. It is of the beaten path in a part of the village I wasn't previously aware of on but a tertiary dirt road. I hope I haven't burned a despicable image in your minds but this is real life in a second-world country.

-Ricky

The Crow Hop Dance

For the purpose of a new jersey concept, I sought to use something old with slight alterations. Though the AFL's Adelaide Crows aren't a hockey club, I wanted to take the re-brand I presented last year and put it to a jersey, but I felt the current logo didn't do it justice nor did I feel I could work on fitting it into a concept. The striping is not something unheard of in all of sport, but it's not found too often on a hockey jersey. Especially where it's cut in half. While I wasn't thinking of any pro team. The Minnesota Swarm jersey I received last week has that pattern across the arms except strictly in alternation.

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However, I also thought that like the Swarm, I'd have to figure out how to make the TV numbers more visible. Instead of a single outline, I decided a double outline was more appropriate to help the cause. Between the Colorado Avs slternate lettering and the Buffalo Sabres cape numbers, it was a perfect mix of sharp angles and curvature to the respective fonts and works better than the font used in the original logo. It's not a collegiate representation, it it seems to work fairly decent here. But the striping only being used on the side would look better than all across the current home jumper. I might have to put that up to show the visual. We'll get there, but for now that's it.

-Ricky

Buzzing Across the Border

Our newest addition to the locker room arrived today! Three days ahead of time even. I guess this is probably it was only going two hours away from its departure city of Toronto. This is of another currently relocated team. But it features real laces, something hard to come by in the league of host.

The pre-honeycomb Minnesota Swarm jersey was one I questioned, but still had relatively liked. And it happened to turn out okay. Then the new jersey template came out with the introduction of the honeycombs as the first team to display the new template as the rest would go on to stay blank or ad shoulder patches. I happened to be wearing the navy shorts with yellow t-shirt as the mailman was approaching my front door with it, so I took this photo instead of getting the jersey independently or using a stock image of it. Keep checking back for more. There will be original content in the coming days.

-Ricky