Qatar 2022 Ice Hockey Concept Recap

With the event logo (top row) the only thing that was changed was FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association)  was replaced with IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation). The first two logos on the bottom row are patches for the jerseys. The third logo in the bottom row is the 2018 World Champions logo. France (defending champions) would wear the 2018 World Champions logo on their jersey until the final. The fourth and fifth logo are patches that would be worn by each team in the elimination rounds excluding France. The last logo is the badge the officials would wear.

Here is what the stadiums would look like. I do think it would be possible to have outdoor hockey in Qatar despite the weather. I also think the IIHF should have more tournaments outdoors. For more about the venues check out my post about the world cup venues. 

The official jerseys are based on the uniforms the officials wore during the world cup. The pucks are designed after the official match ball.

The jerseys are the heart of this concept. The jerseys are primarily based on the soccer uniforms for each team. Each brand has its own template and style based on a single template. In this concept, the brands that do not make hockey jerseys use outside companies (CCM, Bauer, Firstar, Athletic Knit, and Lutch) to manufacture the hockey jerseys. Some of the designs take more creative liberties than others. I did modify some of the logos to remove the soccer imagery. I modified about a third of the logos. I also recolored quite a few of the logos to match the logos seen on the soccer uniforms.

Here are all of the group-stage matchups. I did order them by date. There are some bad matchups in here but also some great ones. There are also a couple of great matchups in here. All of the group-stage matchups are based on information from Footy Headlines. They may not be one hundred percent accurate. Not all of the teams used their second or third jerseys during the group stage. I like that teams are held down like in the NHL where dark is home and light is away. Not having that creates some unique matchups.

above are the elimination stage matchups. I think the best matchup here is the Final. I think the worst matchup is the third-place game as both teams use a lot of red. There are some other good matchups here too. I based these off of what the teams wore and I rewatched the highlights to match the jerseys. All of the elimination stage stage jerseys have a patch with the stage of the tournament on it. The patch is changed for the third place and final games. The third place patch is bronze and replaces the Qatar 2022 logo with the trophy. The final patch is gold and silver like the 2018 World Champions logo.

This is my tier list of the individual jerseys. I think there are some pretty amazing concepts here. I also think some of the designs are bad. Most of the jerseys in the F category are there because they didn’t turn out the way I wanted. The C category jerseys I think I could have done a better job. The B category is the bar I tried to reach with all of the jerseys. The A category jerseys are good. The S category jerseys are great. My favorite is either the red Denmark jersey or the white Qatar jersey. My least favorite jersey is the black South Korea jersey. I spent a long time working on it. It continuously crashed my system. The final result was not as good as I had hoped for but by that point I was already way past when I wanted it done.

Here is my tier list for all of the jerseys as sets. One of the things to remember with this concept is the jerseys are not stand-alone. They are part of a group. When thinking of them as groups, it changes the overall outlook of all the jerseys. Just because one is good does not mean the whole set is. One jersey can elevate or destroy an entire set. When looking at it this way I think Denmark has the best overall jerseys. I think Cameroon has the worst. The vest design does not work.

The whole point of this concept was what if this was ice hockey? As part of that I looked at all of the IIHF rankings and what is all around the world. Unfortunately, a lot of these teams do not have ice hockey in their countries. So that got me thinking if this was ice hockey, what would the outcomes be? So I simulated the event using the IIHF rankings. It is still the same same teams. It still the same format. The group stage was simulated using the IIHF rankings. The top team would be first with the bottom team being last or not having a team. The elimination stage was simulated with the higher ranked team winning or if the teams were ranked close enough a coin toss.

This simulation proved to be a dramatic change from what happened in the world cup. The Netherlands, USA, Poland, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and South Korea won their groups. Qatar, England, Mexico, France, Japan, Belgium, Serbia, and Portugal also moved on to the elimination stage. The final four ended up being the USA, Canada, France, and Switzerland. Canada won the final. Switzerland won second place. The USA defeated France for third place.

That is it for my Qatar 2022 Ice Hockey Concept series. I am glad I was able to accomplish this. I had a lot of fun doing this. Now the focus will return to my AHL concept series. The FIFA Women’s World Cup is coming up. I am planning a similar series for that. There will be 32 teams again. The competition will take place in Australia and New Zealand. Some of the jerseys will be the same. Some of them I will rework. There will be plenty of new jerseys. Half or so of the teams will be different. There are still three spots for teams to qualify for the Women’s World Cup as well. That will be coming up in July.