Talking NHL Ice Design With the World’s Premier Rink Historian
From center-ice logos to red lines, David Crabtree is the foremost scholar of hockey ice surfaces.
You probably know about most of the great uni-related online databases out there. For baseball, there’s Dressed to the Nines and Threads of Our Game; for football, there’s the Gridiron Uniform Database; for hockey, there’s the NHL Uniform Database and the WHA Uniform Database; for basketball, there’s the Basketball Jersey Database; and for logos across all sports, there’s SportsLogos.net. None of these websites is perfect, but they’re all incredibly useful resources that we’re lucky to have. I refer to each of them constantly in my work.
But there’s another database that doesn’t get as much attention, even though it’s every bit as essential as those other websites. I’m referring to TheFaceoff.net, the premier (okay, only) online database devoted to hockey ice design.
If you’re not familiar with TheFaceoff.net, it’s a lot like a uniform database, only for ice rinks. The site has decades’ worth of extremely accurate representations of NHL ice designs, broken down by team and by season. Plus there’s similar coverage for the minor leagues, NCAA teams, the Olympics and more, along with sections on such uni-adjacent topics as scoreboards and even goal horns. It’s a really fantastic site.
TheFaceoff.net is the brainchild of a guy named David Crabtree, who I really should have interviewed a long time ago. Here’s the transcript of a Zoom call we recently had, edited for length and clarity.
Uni Watch: Let’s start with some basics just about you. Where do you live, how old are you, and what do you do for a living?
David Crabtree: I live in Columbia, Missouri, I’m 37, and I work for a mortgage company as a data auditor.
UW: When did you first get interested in hockey ice graphics?
DC: I’ve always liked graphic design, probably even before getting into the hockey aspect of it. Around 2010, I believe, is when the two things kind of met. I just made a hockey graphic for myself for the desktop of my computer. I thought that was it, but it wasn’t — I started making different wallpapers and stuff. Some of them were ice, some of them were jersey-related or just little things to put on my desktop.
UW: So you’re also interested in other visual aspects of hockey, like uniforms, logos, goalie masks, all of that stuff?
DC: Yeah. I’m always on your site to see if there are any updates.
UW: Are you also interested in baseball and football field design, and basketball court design?
DC: I’m mostly a hockey guy, but I’m always checking on the other sports. Basketball is a fun one. I’ve even had some people reach out about soccer. At one time I did consider kind of branching out, but for now I’m sticking to hockey.