San Jose Sharks Gameday: New Jersey Ducks

This is it, folks. The final game of the year between the San Jose Sharks and the Anaheim Ducks (until they meet in the playoffs and the Sharks win in an upset). All season long, Jer and I have been doing our best to make gamedays between our two teams special. Here's a rundown of how things have gone so far:

January 29th, 2013: Sub-Zero vs. Scorpion. Sharks win 3-2.

February 4th, 2013: Meg's Awesome Bands vs. Jer's Stupid Bands. Ducks win 2-1.

March 18th, 2013: We Want Winnik vs. Brent Burns Needs Our Help. Ducks win 5-3.

March 25th, 2013: Pirates vs. Family Circus. Sharks win 5-3.

Obviously, my posts were better than Jer's by FAR every single time. It's not his fault, he's new.

As far as the hockey action goes, though, the season series couldn't be closer. Two wins and twelve goals for each team have set the stage for this final showdown between our beloved Sharks and the cruel, dishonest, and racist (probably) Ducks.

There have been a lot of harsh words and hurt feelings surrounding Sharks-Ducks games this year, both on the ice and here on our own blog. So Jer and I thought that it would be best to use the final gamedays of the season to present peace offerings to the opposing teams and fan-bases: we're each going to design new 3rd jerseys for the other team.

That should take care of everything, right?

Thanks for the suggestion, Earl, but I think I can do better.

You can go have a look at what Jer has designed for the Sharks here, if you're some kind of masochist.

I'm well qualified to design a new 3rd jersey for the Anaheim Ducks. Since I am a hockey fan who lives in Orange County, I'm automatically one of the Ducks' top 500 biggest fans.

Since ducks don't really have that much to do with Anaheim, I considered going with a completely different logo for my 3rd jersey design. A jersey featuring a picture of a half-empty arena, for example, would be a perfect fit for the team. I also considered using Richard Nixon's smiling face, since nothing says "Orange County" like a picture of a conservative cheating asshole.

In the end, though, I decided not to stray from the duck as the symbol of the team. It's been a proud part of their long history, and has just the right amount of embarrassing ridiculousness to fit in with everything else about the franchise.

Here is my design for a new 3rd jersey for the Anaheim Ducks:

• I ditched the predominantly black look of the current Ducks jerseys, since everyone is sick of that garbage, and instead went with a base of the team's current metallic gold accented with orange. I used jade, from the team's original look, because I felt the jersey needed some cooler colors to balance out the harsh Halloween tones.
  
• Lace-up neck, because everyone loves those.
• The black lines on the sleeves are slightly wavy because 1) it suggests water, which fits in with "duck" style and 2) I couldn't keep my hand steady.
• The logo is a duck's butt sticking out of the water as it looks for food. This image suits the team well because you can imagine that the duck is hiding because somebody mentioned stats.
  
• That's not a Battle of California copyright watermark on the bottom of the image - that text would actually be on the jersey itself. The Ducks would be thrilled to connect with a blog as famous as this one, since we actually have more fans than the Ducks do.

So what do you think, folks? Do you like it, or do you love it?

Prediction: Sharks win 6-2, because Regression.

Today's book is The Closing of the Western Mind. It's about how Emperor Constantine ruined everything because he was a fucker.