About The Hockey Foundation's Logo

It took months of thought and review before the brainstorming session was even possible.  Once the session was scheduled, it took a couple of hours ot sifting through initial ideas & important imagery, and a couple of key concepts were hatched that ultimately resulted in what you see here.

I approached Kevin Sterling (website, twitter) to help with creating a logo for The Hockey Foundation based on the ideals and symbolism that is important to The Hockey Foundation, and by extension, myself.  He not only understood, he ran with it, and created an image I believe says it all.  Nearly.  I’ll help clarify…

What it doesn’t say, or what you may not realize it says, I want to share with you.

It’s clear what’s in the center of the logo: center ice of an ice rink.  That’s the major hockey component. The other hockey component is around the edge of the image, in the form of crossing hockey sticks at the peak of mountains.  Didn’t realize they were mountains?  They are.  Why?  Because The Hockey Foundation was founded through the work we started in Ladakh, a region in India that is 12,000 feet (3,500 meters) above sea level, in the Himalayan state of Jammu & Kashmir.  Needless to say, there are a lot of mountains there.

Those peaks with hockey sticks are dark green and number 8 peaks.  The dark green peaks are splitting lighter green peaks.  You may notice there are 8 black spokes in all of the cardinal directions.  The greens (trees), with blue (sky & water) in the background, represent earth colors, with the red (fire) being the center ice line.  The 8 spokes are in reference to the Wheel of Dharma, which has 8 spokes to denote the Noble Eightfold Path (the way to end suffering, as stated by Siddhartha Gautama, aka Buddha).  Ladakh is a predominantly Buddhist region, and as someone that appreciates Buddhist philosophy, this felt important and right to include.  Wheels are representative of movement and progress, and of the circle of life and symmetry needed to remain balanced in all we do.  These are fundamental to the teachings of The Hockey Foundation as it operates in India and as we expand to non-traditional regions around the world that hockey can help improve.

Placing the center ice image within the wheel of dharma was a way to combine the elements, and denote that hockey is at the core of bringing about peace and ease of suffering, the whole point of The Hockey Foundation.

If you are new to The Hockey Foundation, check out our organizational philosophy.

I sincerely hope this logo evokes the emotion in you that it does for me.  This is a personal venture that is fundamentally based on the cooperation of everybody to help make a difference in the lives of people in regions rife with corruption, religious/ethnic tension, sexism & meager infrastructure.  

Warmest regards,

Adam Sherlip

Executive Director