Maryland Skipjacks Hockey Club

The Problem

A founder came to me with a hockey club that did not exist yet. No name mark, no colors, no website, no way to register a player or sell a jersey. The Maryland Skipjacks had to look and feel like an established program on day one, the club a parent trusts with their kid and a recruit wants to play for, before it had skated a single shift.

The Work

I built the whole thing, and it started with the identity. Skipjacks are the Chesapeake Bay's oyster sloops, so I committed to the nautical story all the way down: a ship's-wheel mark with the "Jacks" script cutting through the spokes, wrapped into a "Skipjacks Hockey Club, Established 2013" crest under the line "Take the Helm."

Then I stood up everything the brand needed to actually run:

• A custom website, hand-coded, not a template. A WordPress theme I built myself, with a WooCommerce store for team gear, online player registration, and the game schedule, so a family could find the club, sign up, and buy a jersey in one place.
• Print recruiting to bring players into the program.
• Broadcast graphics for game presentation, including the on-screen score bug.
• Email and announcements, including the press release for the Skipjacks joining the USPHL.
• A charity activation: the club's first Teddy Bear Toss, the tradition where fans throw stuffed animals onto the ice after the first goal, this one benefiting Children's National Medical Center. A brand-new club leading with something generous.

Impact

The Skipjacks went live as a finished brand, with the online store, the registration system, and the game-day look all in place, and it ran the club's identity across four seasons, from 2013 to 2017. The client handed me the entire thing, from the first pencil sketch of the wheel to the checkout button, then trusted me again with a second brand (see Pinnacle Performance). This was independent studio work under Maxim Digital: one person taking a club from an idea to a program that looked the part on day one.