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Making an Expansion Team (Yeah, its the branding too)
#1
(This post was last modified: 01-16-2019, 01:47 AM by JKortesi81.)

I’m not going to lie. Being selected the be the GM for an expansion franchise in the SHL was such a rush. It’s truly an honor to have this team given to me. Contrary to popular belief, this was never a given. I honestly didn’t know until the rest of us found out. Actually, I found out half an hour later when you consider that I was playing hockey at the time of the announcement. Either way, it was still an incredible moment for me, chock full of happiness and relief. My SHL journey had finally come to its peak. Like it or not, you’re about to hear about some of it. I’ll make it quick.

I started my SHL career in July of 2016. I was lucky enough to be a part of the S30 reddit draft, where had I not made so many amazing friends, I might not have stuck around this long. I was lucky enough to be drafted by the Calgary Dragons. That’s where I met Esa. If you’re going to end up with an SHL role model, he’s the one to have. I didn’t know it at the time, but his guidance would set the foundation that would get me to this point.

A few seasons later, in S32, I’d get my first GM gig being the Federation Head of Team USA. We’d end up winning 3 Gold Medals during my reign. That’s pretty nice. In S34, Ryan finally smartened up and hired me to be the St. Louis Scarecrows’ Co-GM. I’d almost immediately take control of most operations from him, which was okay by him. He knew I was intense from the get go, so it worked out pretty nicely. From S34-now we’d win 2 Four Star Cups (S39 and S44) while ending up with the best record by a decent margin over that span of time. The Scarecrows have been consistently one of the best teams in the junior leagues, and I hope that continues when I’m gone. I loved being in St. Louis. Still do, obviously. Over the years people had been giving positive and negative feedback. I remember when people would start to give me grief about being “The Island of Misfit Toys” because we’d have players like kit or wiki and then later on Logan. I didn’t mind it though. Just because those guys can be outspoken doesn’t mean they’re bad people. I’m a big fan of those guys that others deem questionable, and I’ll never regret having them in St. Louis. It helped me learn that the most important thing to me as a GM is making the LR a family. While a lot of people on the site roll their eyes about Buffalo, or Texas, or whoever, you can tell that those teams are closely knit with each other. That stuff matters. I want my team to eventually be as close as they are. On top of it all, I learned so much over the seasons playing with STHS, and it’s because of those nights being up until 3am testing lines and learning how the sim works that will help me succeed as an SHL GM. Hopefully.

Once expansion was officially announced, I knew it was my time. I had never really wanted to leave Calgary and told Esa a few times that the only way I’d ever leave the Dragons was if I had a chance at an expansion franchise. Honestly, the only way I’d have ever left St. Louis is for that too. Needless to say, I got to work on my potential franchise bid right away. I talked to Esa, and he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me potentially leaving Calgary. But he was incredibly supportive of me and gave his blessing. Which was even harder for me to ask the next thing, if I could have permission to talk to TDZ to see if he was interested in being my Co-GM. Esa, to his credit, didn’t immediately have a heart attack! He was as great as he always was, and even though it was ANOTHER high TPE Dragon he could lose, he still was a tremendous human and let me talk to TDZ to see if he was interested.

In the least shocking thing I’ll say all day, TDZ was incredibly in for being my Co-GM. I guess this is the “official announcement” for that thing everyone already knows, that he accepted and is coming aboard. Anyway, we got right to work. I showed him my vision for a team branding, and he never once argued it. We proceeded to go over potential places to put our team. It was crazy fun to go over all of this. I’ll get into what we decided in a few. Relax.

Finally, it was time to submit an application for expansion. I typed up all of my thoughts on the matter, from my logos, to my location, to the branding, to the potential jerseys, to the expansion draft, to how I’d build my team from the inside out. When all was said and done, I submitted a 3,459 word application. I think I touched on every single possible thing they would ask about.

The next few days were pretty stressful. I wasn’t allowed in any talks about the GM applications, and neither was TDZ. I was announced as one of the 5 finalists for the GM. That was a nice win, but I could see that there was some pretty good competition. Once I got into the closed interviews, I was asked a bunch of questions, and I had to switch my branding colors a little bit. I answered my interview questions as best as I could and waited.

Needless to say, I was awarded the 15th franchise in SHL history. I, again, could not be more excited. It was a crazy journey, but here we are.

Anyway, onto what you guys really give a shit about: The branding.

TDZ and I listed a game plan for our city. First thing was first: Fuck the West Coast and the North East. Let’s face it, there’s way too many teams in those areas of the country, and this was a great chance to spread it out a bit. That pretty much left the South and the Midwest. I also didn’t want a “traditional” hockey town. That eliminated the Chicagos, Philadelphias, and Pittsburghs of the World. We looked a little bit at Atlanta, but that didn’t feel right. For the Midwest, we had decided that Kansas City was a great option. I liked Kansas City, and it was our #2 option. But our first option was so much better.

The city we chose was all sorts of perfect. It was a place that I personally love to visit. It has a great history. It wasn’t in the Northeast/West Coast, and it wasn’t a traditional market for hockey. It also fit our branding perfectly. I’m happy to announce that our franchise will be located in. . .

New Orleans.

New Orleans was perfect, not to mention that it didn’t matter to me which conference we’d be in, it would give us a geographical rival in either Texas or West Kendall. As for the branding itself, I wanted something a bit different from what we already have. We have a ton of animals, and a few random brands like the Riot, Blizzard, and Rage. Growing up, I’ve always been a fan of haunted things. I like ghost hunts, I’ve always loved ghost pokemon (shout out to Haunter), and things of that nature. When I started my own hockey team in real life years ago, I wanted to name my team in that realm. Ghosts was too obvious, Phantoms overused. So I went with the coolest one to me with that theme.

Our team will be known as the New Orleans Specters.

Specters clearly fit the haunted history of New Orleans. Seriously, if you haven’t been to New Orleans with all of its voodoo history and what not, go visit it. There’s a haunted tour on every corner it feels like.

As for the logo, I reached out early to Wasty and Karey for some submissions. Both of them created some amazing logos for us, but ultimately we ended up going with karey’s. I give you the logo for the New Orleans Specters:

[Image: 3oEk9uh.png]

If you couldn’t tell, the team’s main color will be black, with purple and white secondary colors. I love this logo. It has the fleur de lys in the background, which is a huge symbol of New Orleans of course. I love the creepy hooded guy. I love the colors (though I’d understand if some didn’t like the purple). To be fair, for transparency, I wanted the purple to be a very bright green (kind of like Slimer from Ghostbusters) to enhance the ‘ghostly’ theme. I feel like this purple is the next best thing.

Here’s our cool banner:

[Image: specters-banner.png]

and the emote!

[Image: specters.png]

Finally, all that’s left are the jerseys, so let’s knock these out now too. I’d like to point out that the jerseys aren’t a fully finished product and some changes could be made along the way.

Home:

[Image: Lre7G8S.jpg]

Away:

[Image: e8UKPrf.jpg]


We have a plan for some crazy third jerseys, but that will be a project for down the line. Let’s just get this set up for now. For the jerseys, click the link, it’ll give you a much better look than this post.

Well, that’s all. I just wanted to take this time to properly thank everyone that helped me in this process. Thank you @Wasty for making a great logo right away for me. I really liked it, and I’m sorry we didn’t go with it. Thank you @karey for your hard work with your logo and for never being upset when I asked for changes. Thank you @Steelhead77 for, well, everything. This whole thing is possible only because of what you’ve taught me in this league, and for allowing me to pursue my dream. Your letter of recommendation was amazing, I’m very appreciative. Thank you to @TheDangaZone for agreeing to go on this journey with me and helping make these awesome jerseys. And just thank you to all of you who’ve I’ve talked to along the way here. The SHL has some really great people here, and I’m thankful for all of you.

As for the team itself, we have a rare opportunity to completely start from scratch. We will design our Locker Room how we want. We’ll have new players that will have the first crack at being our “best player in franchise history.” If you’re ever a member of the New Orleans Specters, be it from the expansion draft, free agency, the junior draft, trades, waivers, or however else you can get a player, I want you to know that I’ll do just what I did in St. Louis: Spend countless hours testing lines and strategies. You put hard work into your players, and I know its my job to put them in the best position I can to have them succeed. We may not be the best team right away (honestly I have no idea what my roster will look like just yet) but no one is going to out work me to get us to improve as much as possible.

I’ll see you all out on the ice. And again, Thank you.

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#2

Love the name, city, and colors!

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#3

01-16-2019, 01:00 AMjcfbey01 Wrote: Love the name, city, and colors!

Thank you!

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#4

yayyyy

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#5

Worth the wait!

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#6

Control F’d Blizzard and only found you call us random :(

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#7

01-16-2019, 01:05 AMKeygan Wrote: Control F’d Blizzard and only found you call us random :(

It qualifies as a random team name Smile

Wait until i write my goodbye Edmonton article, sheesh.

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#8

Damn, when I first saw New Orleans I was on the dense, but it makes sense. But looks pretty good

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#9

@JKortesi81 said it a thousand times, i'll say it another thousand.

great work on this. excited to see where you'll take new orleans.

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#10

Love it




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#11

I don't know if it's because of the colors, maybe, but I don't dig the away jerseys. Name, logo, location, all of it is amazing and I absolutely love the idea there. The home jerseys are great to me. Just something about the aways strikes me wrong, I'm not sure if it's the awkward swap for the pants to be purple and so the lines don't match like they do on the home that way or if it's just bright to me maybe.

All in all, fantastic team and concept. Just one thing I'm not much of a fan of. Have to say, you definitely hit the nail on the head and killed it here.

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#12

welcome our purple bros

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#13

@JKortesi81 will you reach out to the Second Line for potential NSFL-SHL New Orleans promotions?

Also great location. Looking forward to some southern rivalry.

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#14

Looks awesome Joe!

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#15

01-16-2019, 01:10 AMJayWhy Wrote: I don't know if it's because of the colors, maybe, but I don't dig the away jerseys. Name, logo, location, all of it is amazing and I absolutely love the idea there. The home jerseys are great to me. Just something about the aways strikes me wrong, I'm not sure if it's the awkward swap for the pants to be purple and so the lines don't match like they do on the home that way or if it's just bright to me maybe.

All in all, fantastic team and concept. Just one thing I'm not much of a fan of. Have to say, you definitely hit the nail on the head and killed it here.

We actually had white pants for a while, and switched it. Not entirely sure if we'll go back or not.

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