I am back with the recap for my FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Ice Hockey Concept series. I finished the groups the other day with my Group H concepts. This concept took me way to long to complete. In this post I will go over everything I did in this concept series. As well as adding some new things.
In part one I talked about the event itself. In that post, I talked about, logos, groups, brands, venues, officials, and pucks. Then did concepts for every team organized by which group they were playing in. Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E, Group F, Group G, and Group H.
The concept logos are close to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 logos. The only change I made to the event logo was getting rid of the soccer imagery. The FIFA logo was replaced with the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) logo. The center pice of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2022 logo is a soccer ball. I replaced the center hexagon with part of the logo that was used for the Australia–New Zealand 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup bid. For the event patches that go on the arms of the soccer kits, I changed them from what will be used in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Instead of just the primary logo with a colorful background, I created a circular patch for the light jerseys and an AU NZ 2023 patch for the dark jerseys. The gold badge is warn by the champion of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 until the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 final. The United States won in 2019 so they will have it on their jerseys. There are two badges that will be warn by all of the other teams in each elimination game. The last thing is the officials badge.
Above are the venues. For more about the venues check out my post about the FIFA Women’s World Cup venues. For this concept, I added what the rinks would look like in the venues.
The officials have the same uniforms seen in my Qatar 2022 x Ice Hockey concept. The difference here is the logos have been updated for the FIFA Women’s World Cup x Ice Hockey concept. I designed the pucks after the official match ball.
All of the groups will stay the same in this concept as they are in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. I initially said that teams would not be getting new logos. While I did not create any new logos for teams, logos were modified or recolored.
Adidas, Nike, Puma, and Reebok all make hockey jerseys. Puma and Reebok only make them for fashion now but have made them for teams in the past. Hummel and Le Coq Sportif have made ice hockey jerseys in the past. Castore, Grand Sport, KoPa, and Saeta do not make ice hockey jersey.
In this concept, The Nike jerseys are like the 2022 Winter Olympic jerseys. The Adidas jerseys are like the World Cup of Hockey 2016 jerseys. The Puma jerseys are similar to the Adidas NHL jerseys with laces. The Hummel jerseys are like the American Hockey League and Canadian Hockey League jerseys and are manufactured through CCM. The Saeta jerseys are inspired by the Canadian Football League and are manufactured by New Era. The Castore jerseys are like the Adidas NHL jerseys and are manufactured by SP Apparel who used to make the jerseys for the ECHL. SP Apparel currently manufacture Adidas, Bauer, and Fanatics hockey jerseys. The Reebok jerseys are inspired by the Reebok Edge jerseys that the NHL used from 2007 to 2017. Le Coq Sportif are inspired by the old hockey jerseys they made and are manufactured by Champion. The Grand Sport jerseys are inspired by the Adidas NHL jerseys and are manufactured in China. The KoPa jerseys are inspired by the 90s NHL jerseys and manufactured by Starter.
The jerseys were designed after the FIFA World Cup 2023 jerseys. Each team got at least two jerseys weather or not they had two jerseys in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. Each brand has its own template and style. Some of the designs take more creative liberties than others.
Here are all of the group-stage matchups. I did order them by date. I don’t think there is a bad matchup here. I think the best matchup here is Costa Rica versus Spain. Not all of the teams used their second or third jerseys during the group stage. Again I like that teams are not held down like in most North American leagues 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 Spain versus the Netherlands. I think the worst mactchup here was England versus Morocco. I based these off of what the teams wore. I rewatched 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. The final patch is gold.
This is my tier list of all of the jerseys. The jerseys in the F category were bad. That is largely do to the design of the soccer jerseys this time. It is not due to the concepts not turning out the way I wanted. All of the jerseys in the C category could have been improved on. Either with their soccer jersey design or on my end. The B category jerseys are good but they are just missing that edge one way or another. The A category jerseys are good. They are all ones I would buy. The S category jerseys blew me away. They all turned out amazing. Some of the jersey rankings were effected by teams continue to use their FIFA World Cup 2022 jerseys. I am actually surprised by the number of teams who did not create a second jersey design for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. The Shocking part is that it is not small teams or smaller manufacturers doing it. It should not be that difficult to get a second jersey designed or recolor the first jersey. My favorite is the red Switzerland jersey. My least favorite is the red and pink Korea Republic jersey.
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. Jamaica has the best jersey set. The Korea Republic has the worst jersey set.
The whole point of this concept was what if the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 was ice hockey? As part of that I looked at all of the International Ice Hockey Federation rankings and women’s ice hockey in each country. Unfortunately, a lot of these teams do not have ice hockey in their countries. If this was ice hockey, what would the outcome be? I simulated the event using the IIHF women’s ice hockey rankings. It is still the same teams. It still the same format. The group stage was simulated using the IIHF rankings. The top ranked team would be first in each group. The lowest ranked team would be last in the group. Unranked teams were lower than the lowest ranked team. Countries without teams were ranked lower than unranked teams. Teams how were ranked next to each other (ex. 2, 3 or 3, 4) decided their place by a coin toss. The elimination stage was simulated the same way.
The Group A, Group C, and Group F standings did not change. Group G is the only group to have the same group winner with different standings. Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Denmark, the United States, France, Sweden, and Germany all won their groups. Norway, Australia, Spain, China, the Netherlands, Jamaica, Italy, and the Korea Republic moved on to the elimination stage. Ten of the same sixteen teams made it to the elimination stage in both the FIFA Women’s World Cup and this simulation. The final four ended up being the USA, Canada, Japan, and Denmark. Canada won the final. USA won second place. Japan defeated Denmark for third place.
That is it for my FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Ice Hockey Concept series. This should have been finished last year around the same time that the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 ended. I did have a lot of fun doing this. Now I am trying to finish my AHL concept series, the second season of my RIAL concept series, and my Reno Ice Olympic concept. I will be doing an NCAA ice hockey concept series. That is coming soon. An ECHL concept series will be coming around the start of the 2024-25 hockey season. The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics are coming up. I am planning a another FIFA ice hockey crossover series for that. There will be less teams in that competition but there will be two tournaments. That will take place across France. Every team should be getting new jerseys. That will be in July. The next FIFA World Cup will be in 2026. The next FIFA Women’s World Cup will be in 2027.
Zac Electrifly 