NHL teams to wear dark jerseys at home

[Guest starvenger]

Link to the article

 

Home teams are going to be a lot more colourful in the NHL next season.

 

Reversing a policy in place since 1967 expansion from the Original Six days, the board of governors has decreed that white jerseys will be used by road teams beginning in 2003-2004.

 

The change will allow home teams to wear dark jerseys regularly, and since popular third jerseys usually are dark, merchandising departments of all 30 teams applaud the switch because they know colourful jerseys sell better.

 

Team equipment managers are happy about it, too.

 

Most clubs want to wear their third jerseys at home, and they make arrangements with visiting clubs to allow for it. Visitors bring white in such cases. Trouble is, a travelling team then has to lug around two sets of jerseys because its next stop might be in a city where the home team will be wearing white.

 

The result: extra bags and extra laundry.

 

Extra bags have been bothersome due to tightened airport security in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and getting uniforms cleaned in time can be a hassle when a team plays a road game one night and a home game the next night.

 

Next season, teams will have need to travel with white-based jerseys only.

 

The proliferation of third uniforms that forced the change saw 14 teams enter the 2002-2003 season with the extra jerseys. The Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Islanders bumped the number to 16 in recent weeks. At the current time, no additional NHL teams are scheduled to introduce third jerseys this season, the league says.

It's about time that they got things right...

[Guest redbaron51]

Damn those Rangers for starting this trend...

[Guest Slingshot Suplex]

The Wings' road jerseys are so plain though....

[Guest dreamer420]

I think that is a great idea.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

I wouldn't mind teams moving to sets of four uniforms. A white, dark, alt white and alt dark. The Mighty Ducks did it for a couple of seasons a few years back where they rotated their uniforms.

 

As long as the Flames bring back their red sweaters with the flaming C for road games I'll be happy. I'm so damn sick of nearly every team in the leauge wearing black road sweaters. The Flyers moving to black over THEIR orange was the last straw for me.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

Third jerseys and alternate logos are a bunch of stupid crap. They're all ugly, whether they're Statue of Liberty heads, angry fishermen, coyotes, or what have you. Just wear white at home and colored away.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

I think we need an action commitee to get the Coyotes and Thrashers to change their wretched uniforms. There's nothing wrong with the colors or the crests but those little decorations around the sleeves and neck have gotta go. The Sharks' new third sweaters show how simplicity is still the best.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

I think we need an action committee to get rid of the "Dogz" altogether and reinstate the Winnipeg Jets, but that's just me.

[Guest gthureson]

Let the Jets rest in peace. Unless there is a hard cap of around $35 million Canadian put in place in the NHL, the league is too rich for Manitoba's blood.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

I'm starting to think that the NHL could benefit from some sort of cap so that Detroit and Edmonton can be somewhat in contention in terms of buying power.

[Guest starvenger]

Third jerseys and alternate logos are a bunch of stupid crap. They're all ugly, whether they're Statue of Liberty heads, angry fishermen, coyotes, or what have you. Just wear white at home and colored away.

You mean dark at home and white away, the way it was MEANT to be.

 

Some of the third jerseys are pretty fugly. Then again, teams like Vancouver have a history of ugly sweaters. They should go back to the stick-and-rink "C"...

[Guest Bob Van Darn]

They didn't do anything right. This is just so every team can make money with the 3rd jerseys.

 

I hate this whole "3rd jersey" trend that's creeped its way into all sports. Not even just because most of these jerseys are putrid, but it takes away from the tradition of a team. The Boston Bruins look tough with the black & yellow jerseys, not yellow jerseys with a teddy bear on the front.

[Guest El Satanico]

Well I'm not a major Hockey fan, but hopefully this leads to the Columbus Bluejackets releasing an Alternate jersey with their mascot(a bug) on the front. It's my local team so i'd like to have a jersey, but their regular jerseys are friggin ugly and too plain.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

Third jerseys and alternate logos are a bunch of stupid crap. They're all ugly, whether they're Statue of Liberty heads, angry fishermen, coyotes, or what have you. Just wear white at home and colored away.

You mean dark at home and white away, the way it was MEANT to be.

 

Some of the third jerseys are pretty fugly. Then again, teams like Vancouver have a history of ugly sweaters. They should go back to the stick-and-rink "C"...

No, dark away, white at home. That's what it's been for years now, except for a stretch recently when they went back to it. I believe the origin of the current setup is that with the advent of color telecasts, a larger variety of color could be presented from week to week, with the home team wearing white each game, and the different visitors wearing purple, yellow, red, blue, black, gold, green, what have you. But since that's what I'm used to, and because this is only to accommodate the damn third jerseys, I am against it.

 

An another note, the Canucks' ice-skate logo of the mid-90s was just fine, thank you. The rink logo was decent, though the color scheme was better suited to the Whalers. The orca sucks the most, I'd prefer the flying V over that crap. All third jerseys are fugly. That new Islanders one is hideous.

 

No, the CBJ should NOT have a freaking bug on their sweaters! A team of bug-wearing skaters would be a bigger embarassment to hockey in Ohio than the Cleveland Barons, who now reside in Dallas in a roundabout way.