Looking
Good on Ice
February 4,
2008 | Kevin
Zdancewicz
The news and speculation began two summers
ago and
during the course of the 2006-2007 National Hockey League season. The
league had agreed to allow Reebok to implement their new design
template for every team’s jersey in the 2007-2008 season. The new RBK
Edge system featured a thinner, water-resistant material, and a slimmer
overall fit. The fabric upgrade made sense, but from an aesthetics
standpoint, there was concern about how the new template would affect
NHL jersey designs. Would each franchise be forced to adapt its colors
and logos to a single template? Would the new designs lack originality
and uniqueness from team to team as a result?
As it turned out, each team was allowed to
implement whatever design it wanted. Many franchises did take the
opportunity to redesign their jerseys (and in some cases even
their logos), but others simply kept their previous
designs and put them on the new template.
Some hockey fans feared that the new template would affect the
customary and classic hockey look: oversized and untucked with
horizontal trim along the jersey's hemline. Many teams did do away with hemline stripes, but others
included the hockey trademark on their jerseys despite the new
template. Fortunately, the jerseys of the original six teams remain
essentially unchanged.
As a result of the redesigns, you get some
beauties like the Boston Bruins’ new
look and the Columbus Blue Jackets road jersey
pictured above. You also get a fair share of disasters like these Flames and Panthers
debacles
(notice the Flames’
crazy socks) and these ultra busy Blues fiascoes. The Columbus
look above is probably my favorite new jersey. It’s a modern and
stylish design, but also has a classic feel because it avoids the
unnecessary blotches of color that clutter
some other new designs. Rather than slapping their logo on a
widely-used template, the Jackets took their solid navy and red color
scheme and created a design that only they are using. The final product
is sleek and easy on the eyes, something that can’t be said for the
majority of NHL jerseys.
Photo Courtesy of BlueJackets.com
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