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jackkmart · 04-30-2025, 07:52 PM

Expansion is on everyone's minds as of late. Which is fitting, seeing as the League is adding new teams in Denver, Ohio (?), Madison, and Nashville. Even today, we saw an advanced sneak peek of what the final team could look like, and it was very exciting. With all this talk of expansion and the further addition of 4 new teams to the SHL, the total number of teams across both the J and the SHL proper is up to 40. That's a lot of teams! Of course, all of those teams occupy a certain market, and with every team being constrained to North America, we are simply running out of meaningfully populated, untapped markets where new teams can call home. Some places are doubled up, and there are a handful of meaningful omissions - some of which will be remedied by the upcoming expansions - but broadly, we are running out of room!

Enter the Twilight Zone with me, to a world where the league continues to grow until it's doubled, or even tripled in size. Where do we put all these people? Where will the new teams be? 4 teams in Montreal? 5 in California? Nay... We must go abroad; welcome to SHL Europe.

Much like the failed NFL Europe - but for the Simulation Hockey League, of course. I'll present some tentative ideas, or concepts for teams, where they might go, and what they might look like. Some of these will be out there, or even dumb, and I'm not sure how many I plan to post, but for today, I have at least 3 basic ideas for teams. I'll try to keep it to a maximum of 2 per country, but most will only get 1. However, some countries or regions are certainly far more fit to host a hockey team than others, and as such might get more attention.

Anyway, here's team 1.

[Image: MX2X9mA.png]

The first team is admittedly a little boring, and basically just rips off the Eisbaren Berlin of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. However, I've taken their identity and made it fit within the more North-Americanized sports aesthetics that are present on the SHL. While Eisbar refers to Polar Bears, I've decided to translate the name more literally as the Ice Bears for troll fun. Further, their name and color scheme pretty much exactly line up with the Milwaukee Ice Pups of one of my previous media posts. Perhaps there could be some connection between the two? I don't know, and I'm certainly not padding the word count.

The logo itself is just a slight change of a logo I made a long time ago for the Great Falls Grizzlies as part of a tentative rebrand project that never came to fruition. The bear mark is very similar to the Memphis Grizzlies logo, which I based this on, but I think this version is a little more 'modern' and fits the 'Ice Bear' moniker well after being recolored. The jersey, meanwhile, is a direct reference to the Eisbaren kits, which feature a tri-color stripe of red and white across the chest; here, the red is replaced by the 'Ice Blue' seen in the logo.

I don't love this idea, but all the other good ideas I had for Berlin we're taking too long, and it's just a silly media at the end of the day, so I pulled the plug on those.

Next team.

[Image: KzWUZ3N.png]

Nightwolves is a stupid name, but it feels good for a team in Riga for some reason. Hockey is a big deal in Latvia (or so I've been told; I've never been), and I think they deserve a team of their own. Why the Nightwolves for Latvia? I guess they have dark forests and wolves, so y'know that works. It was more that I wanted a unique identity than it being specifically tied to the location. This team, too, is similar to one I've posted in a past media in the Houston Spacehawks, perhaps there is also a connection between these teams, then? Mostly, I just really like purple and black color schemes, but I will try to be more creative in the future. The logo is pretty self-explanatory. It's a wolf in a forest at night. I think the roundel is a better primary logo, but the head isolated works much better on the front of the jersey. As for the jersey, I like the new Kings look a lot (their on-ice product, not as much) so I pretty much ripped it and replaced silver with purple here. Another ground-breaking move.

[Image: 88gO1yP.png]

Ok, this one is silly. Had to get at least one silly one in there. I promise at least one silly one per post. I promise.

Romania, or Transylvania more specifically, is well known due to the numerous gothic legends surrounding vampires and other monsters. This team references Nosferatu above all, mostly because I liked the remake that just came out, and I feel like monsters are generally underrepresented in team branding, despite being really imposing and iconic.

This logo does look kinda dumb, but a lot of good logos look dumb, and recreating Nosferatu in logo form isn't exactly easy. I guess I picture him here holding his cape or arm up, concealing his face partially, while the opposite half of his face is concealed in shadow, as it is for a lot his screentime in any rendition of Nosferatu. I wanted to highlight his fangs because that's kinda a vampire's whole schtick, but yeah, it does end up looking a little silly. Color-wise, I wanted to use some of Romania's iconic colors (typically Yellow, Red, and Blue), but I found yellow hard to integrate, so I just ended up binning it in favor of a mix of blue and red to evoke a shadowy feel while remaining somewhat true to typical Romanian national symbolism.

I don't know how Romanians feel about vampires or all the media surrounding Romania in that vein, but I think this fits, and because it's a sim league, we don't have to care (sorry Romanians). Also, I didn't spell it wrong per se, I just used the modern Romanian word for Vampires instead, because it sounds better!

I plan to cover most of continental Europe, and I will definitely cover the Scandinavian countries, Germany, and other typical hockey powerhouses in Europe eventually, but...

First are some ideas for the next few teams that I plan to do. Feel free to give more ideas if you have any!

- Dublin Morrigans or Gaels
- Prague Wizards
- Amsterdam Merchants or Oranje
- North Rhine (Rhine-Ruhr area) Bastion, Steelguard or Volt

Ok, that's it for now. Bye.

***Seany148*** · 04-30-2025, 07:56 PM

Give me fuel give me fire give me Latvia Nightwolves

***luke*** · 04-30-2025, 08:09 PM

Woah. the nightwolves are cool. Nice work!

***HabsFanFromOntario*** · 04-30-2025, 09:02 PM

I actually really enjoy the Vampir team

*Dash* · 04-30-2025, 09:14 PM

This is dope! That Vampir team goes hard

***sve7en*** · 04-30-2025, 09:18 PM

I'm gonna move one of these teams to Toledo

ACapitalChicago · 04-30-2025, 09:23 PM

04-30-2025, 09:18 PMsve7en Wrote: I'm gonna move one of these teams to Toledo

NO

S66 Damian Littleton

***sve7en*** · 04-30-2025, 09:26 PM

04-30-2025, 09:23 PMACapitalChicago Wrote: NO

Wym, you're like just on the other side of Gary, you could easily come visit

*slothfacekilla* · 04-30-2025, 09:33 PM

Wow all of these are so sick I love it. Especially the Vampir.

LordBirdman · 04-30-2025, 10:18 PM

Missed opportunity for Sweden Swedish

jackkmart · 04-30-2025, 10:20 PM

04-30-2025, 10:18 PMLordBirdman Wrote: Missed opportunity for Sweden Swedish

Wait until I get to SHL Asia. No one is ready for the China Chinese

***UptownCord*** · 04-30-2025, 10:36 PM

You crushed these Jackk. Time for an SHL Retirement league in Europe?

*Carpy48* · 05-01-2025, 03:38 AM

Admittedly the Berlin one seems disappointing because it's just an Eisbären copy (btw DEL teams change their jersey designs pretty much every season so there is no stripe on the original at the moment), but I like the overall idea and would like to see more of them. Hoping for one in Finland too, not just Scandinavia.

Urq660 · 05-01-2025, 04:17 AM

Loch Ness Monsters is right there smh

***Ace*** · 05-02-2025, 08:47 AM

EEL was already a thing

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