I am back with another American Hockey League event concept. This time it is the 2023 AHL All-Star Classic. This is the first AHL All-Star Classic since the Ontario Reign hosted the event 2020. The AHL All-Star Classic being pushed back was due to COVID. The Laval Rocket will host the 2023 AHL All-Star Classic. They were originally to host in 2021 but again that did get pushed back.
For this concept, the AHL All-Star Classic takes place the second weekend of January. In this concept the AHL All-Star Classic is on Friday January 6th and Saturday January 7th. It is hosted by Laval Rocket at their home arena the 10,000 seat Place Bell. January 6th would be the AHL All-Star Skills Competition. The skills competition would include Accuracy Shooting, Breakaway Challenge, Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Tendy Tandem, and Ice Dodgeball. January 7th would be the AHL All-Star Challenge. The AHL All-Star Challenge would be a 3 on 3 tournament with teams made up of players from each division (like in the NHL). The games would be made up of two ten minutes halves. For the tournament format, each team would play each other once in a group stage. The top team moves on to the final. The second and third place teams play in a semi-final. The last place team in the group stage is eliminated. The winner of the semi-final plays the first place team in the final.
The AHL has released what the 2023 AHL ALL-Star Classic jerseys will look like. I was planning this before that. It is just a coincidence that they released the design and I released this post in the same week.
This is the logo for the 2023 AHL All-Star Classic. I did not design this. It was released in February of 2022. They did release a logo in 2020 for a 2021 AHL All-Star Classic. That of course did not happen. It is in French. It is a shield with a star shape. It has the event name, league abbreviation, city, and year on it. It is in the Laval Rocket colors.
One of the interesting things about this year’s event is that it appears that French will be the primary language of the event instead of English. The evidence for this is that the AHL appears to be using the French logos for the official game pucks. whether it is the case or not in the actual event, in this concept it will be what is going on.
The first logo in the top row of the first image is the English version of the main logo. The other two logos in that row are alternate versions of the main logo with sponsors. The bottom row of logos in the first image are other alternate logos for the event in English and French. The only logo without a french version is the Fan Jam logo. I did not design these. They are all part of the real 2023 AHL All-Star Classic branding.
I did make the logos in the second image. The top row of logos is divisional logos. They are all in French. Again here are the divisions. Their is the North (Nord) and World (Monde) divisions of the Eastern Conference and the International and West Coast (Côte Ouest) divisions of the Western Conference. They are shields in the same shape as one of the Laval Racket alternate logos. The shields are red, white, and blue. They have the league abbreviation, division name, and 2023 in roman numerals on them. They also have four stars on them. Each star represents a division. The four stars are also in a lot of the main branding. The division logos are meant to be just on the jerseys. The bottom row of logos is an AHL wordmark. It is based on the wordmark seen on the 2018, 2019, and 2020 AHL All-Star Classic jerseys.
For this concept, the Skills Competition, the teams would wear their own home or away jerseys. The Eastern Conference teams would wear their home jerseys. The Western Conference would wear their away jerseys. The jerseys used in the Skills Competition would have the Skills Competition logo patch on them. the location of the Skills Competition logo patch would be on the front or shoulders. Examples of this are on the first image.
The AHL All-Star Challenge jerseys are on the second image. They are all the same jersey just colored differently. The pattern on the sleeves and bottom of the jerseys is based on the elements from the main logo. On the front is the AHL wordmark logo. On the right shoulders are the division logos. On the left shoulder is the main logo. The collar has the AHL logo on the front with the “Tradition Of Excellence” on the inside. The phrase on the inside of the collar is also something dating back to the 2018 AHL All-Star Classic.
The jerseys for the North Division are red, blue, and white, similar to the Montreal Canadiens (the Laval Rocket affiliate) home jersey. The World Division jerseys are black and white. It is the only jersey not in the Laval Rocket colors. The West Coast Division jerseys are blue, red, and white. The color scheme is based on the Montreal Canadiens 2021 reverse retro jersey. The International Division jerseys are white, red, and blue. The color scheme is based on the Montreal Canadiens away jersey.
At the end of the day, I wanted to create jerseys that were more unique. The AHL All-Star Classic jerseys have a tradition of being somewhat unique. I think the red, white, and blue colors work really well. I might have used those colors even if Laval Rocket was not hosting the event. My favorite one is the International Division jersey.
Zac Electrifly 