NHL Uniforms

NHL Adding Jersey Sponsors, Revenue in 2022-23

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Reports on Tuesday stated that the NHL will put ads on jersey starting in the 2022-23 season and thank goodness this dance is over. Thankfully, the NHL has come to its senses and realized that ads are not a bad thing and that they’ll just be following in the footsteps of most hockey leagues domestic and internationally by getting ads on the jerseys.

This has been teased for a while with every Chicken Little hockey fans proclaiming the sky is falling at every mention of it. Well, we’ll see how they hold up with it becoming a reality. Everyone claims purity of the sport, but that died when they started using aluminum sticks and goalies started to cosplay as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man. It’s about revenues, baybee, it’s about getting that salary cap up, baybee. They already have the sponsors on the practice jerseys, think of the money they could get for game jerseys.

It’s not greed, it’s capitalism, baybee, let’s go!!!

But seriously, this isn’t bad. This isn’t like a player going out to get their own sponsors to look like a NASCAR driver– though that’d be pretty awesome. It’s about activating more partnerships, getting money with the gates being down due to the pandemic that’s currently going on, and it’s about catching up with other sports leagues.

I can’t say with certainty, but I highly doubt the league would allow a sponsor to overwhelm a team logo, much like club soccer over in Europe. That’s not good for team branding and the NHL is all about that. The league will have parameters about contracts with sponsors and hopefully vet those sponsors; much like they did with the helmet ads. Plus, they don’t want to have teams switch sponsors year-in and year-out; though it would be a boom for the jersey industry.

To me, people who boycott the league for jersey ads are only using it as an excuse for not getting out of it earlier for much more heinous things that the NHL and their member teams haven’t addressed– either in part or as a whole.

The sun will come out tomorrow. Your team should have still shouldn’t have gotten rid of that one guy. Your team will still be one piece a way form a Cup. They’ll just have a little extra weight on their upper torso.

Helmet Ads Are Here and They’re Fine

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Photo via Washington Capitals

Stop bitching about company logos on helmets. Stop bitching about the idea of company logos on jerseys. This is the 21st Century and it’s an inevitability it was going to happen in hockey– so just sit back, grit your teeth, and let it take you in. The NHL is going from ads on practice jerseys to helmets and it’s just another evolution of the sports business. You’re not a traditionalist, calm yourself.

The Washington Capitals announced they’ll be one of the first teams to have sponsors on their helmet, with Capital One on their helmets. The New Jersey Devils also announced they will have Prudential on their helmets. Both of those sponsors are the sponsors of the team’s arenas.

The minor leagues have done this for decades and it’s what has kept them alive. Many minor league hockey fans may not even notice them today because they’ve been such a part of the uniform. Some junior league teams have ads on jerseys to help off-set costs and get their name out there more in the community. It’s how brands do things and it’s just a small part of how sports are done masquerading as a game and being more open about being an actual business– if you hadn’t figured it out before.

Nathan Fournier of the Lewiston Sun-Journal made mention of NASCAR drivers and if those fans were pissed off when company logos were displayed on cars and fire-suits for the first time. I counter with the fact they probably weren’t mad; but felt closer to the driver and team because they bought the certain sponsor or ate at the restaurant on the fire-suit.

Yes, the European sports leagues have logos every which way but loose, though that’s more of a situation where sports aren’t the big moneymaker there and the teams need everyone dollar to pay the players and survive from year to year. North America doesn’t necessarily have that problem, so they can make small patches doable. Of course, you’ll have people out there trying to make a mountain out a mole hill claiming traditionalism and the sanctity of the sports– but it’s a business. It needs to make money to survive. Until capitalism dies, this is how it’s gonna be. I will say, I don’t think the NHL is as stupid than to make their member teams have their crest be dwarfed by a sponsor on the jersey. They’re silly geese in the NHL offices, but not that silly.

The NBA has made plenty of money with it and the MLB have tried to dip their toes into the waters, why shouldn’t the NHL; especially considering the times we’re living in and the unknown of when they can have full arenas of people– not only by lifting of restrictions, but people’s willingness to spend money they may not have budgeted for and go out in public during a pandemic.

Your team is going to have the same color and pattern to their jerseys, they’re going to still have the same players out there, there’s just addition Hockey Related Revenue on their person to make the game more profitable, which raises the salary cap, which allows more players to get paid, which allows less transactions due to a stagnant salary cap.

To quote Gandhi (or was it Ric Flair), “Whether you like or don’t like it, learn to love it, because it’s the best thing going today. WOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Pretty sure that was Gandhi.

Reverse Retro or BS Cash Grab 2020

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When in need of revenue– make a new jersey.

That seems to be the tactic the NHL and Adidas are going when it comes to the new “Reverse Retro” jerseys that will be coming out for all 31 teams this upcoming season. Each team will have an imaginative retro jersey that will be a retro design, but the colors reversed. It’s not just a clever name.

While we’ve had some purported leaks when it comes to the idea of what could come from these (Pens, Flyers, Knights, Ducks, Bruins, Blue Jackets, and Caps), Adidas rolled out a teaser for every team. Chris Creamer of SportsLogos.net made a video about each team’s possible reverse retro garb.

There will be some hits, but there will be plenty of misses. I’m sure when it comes down to it, the idea of these will be in the eye of the beholder. Granted, this is great for the Hockey Relater Revenue that the NHL will need with the lack of fans in the stands, I don’t know if I like the road they are going down in terms of saturating the market with jerseys. It’s almost akin to the NBA and their “City” jerseys that Nike puts out every year for those teams.

I will concede that this is a new way to look at a retro jersey and that the actual retro jersey fad has been lacking any kind of excitement, I don’t know if this idea is any better or worse than the Stadium Series jerseys which basically are a “Turn Ahead The Clock” gimmick for teams playing in it. There’s only so many jerseys to look to and NHL has a lot of people claiming to be traditionalists that hate the idea of going too far outside of the box with retros.

Granted, I could be put into that latter box; but I feel myself more of the idea that these are going to look hideous and it’s just a Bullshit Cash Grab by the NHL and Adidas because they know people will clamor to these to be apart of the next wave of things.

Maybe it’ll be like the alternate jersey program in the mid-90s when it was just no-holds-barred and what was silly then will hold some kind of prestige after the fact. Hell, they may even be really, really good. But I won’t hold my breathe on either as of yet.

Remembering the Reebok Edge Rollout

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The Rbk EDGE Uniform System (Photo by Mike Fuentes/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

As I was going through YouTube, a clip came up from 2010 when the Flyers beat the Bruins after coming back from 0-3 down in the series. I didn’t think about the hilarious collapse of the Bruins, but more of how horrible those Flyers jerseys were. They came from the redesign of the NHL’s jerseys by Reebok and their Edge jersey system. Then I remembered the start of the roll out of those jerseys at the 2007 Draft in Columbus. With Reebok being the ultimate brand in the NHL, they needed to do something with the uniform system; especially after Nike came out with their Swift uniform system for the 2006 Turin Olympics (which had their own issues before the Games).

Before the big rollout, the NHL debuted the jerseys at the 2007 All-Star Game in Dallas– which happened to be the last time the NHL had a weekday ASG. The jerseys did away with the bulk air-knit jerseys of the past and make them more anatomical for the players, which was perfect for the new speed that the game had brought back post-lockout. Reebok touted the jerseys were 14% lighter and had moisture resistant technology, which absorbed 76% less moisture. There’s much more, including the core technology they had put together in this video here.

As for the rollout itself, it went team-by-team; though the NHL Draft hosts in Columbus debuted their look at the Draft itself, as did the Capitals There were some teams that did an entire overhaul– like the Capitals, Sharks, and Canucks; while other teams kind of fell into a templated nightmare with other teams. For instance, the Penguins, Senators, and Lightning used the same template as the All-Star jerseys; while the Predators, Oilers, and Panthers used their own template with the latter two having unnecessary piping on it. The piping was also noticed around the shoulder yoke of the Carolina Hurricanes, which stood out like a sore thumb. Not only that, but half the league went without the traditional bottom hem stripe on the jersey. The wide array can be found on the NHL Uniforms’ site.

Interestingly enough, the jerseys were starting to get leaked on the internet thanks to EA Sports putting out an unlock code for the game before teams officially put the jerseys out to the public. It was truly a fun time for people who were pining to see what their teams would do, but also a cringe time for some when their team underwhelmed in this situation.

I like to remember is how the first versions of these jerseys were trash. They only lasted about half a year before Reebok had to redo the whole thing because the first version was doing it’s job by repelling moisture…but into the gloves the players making sweat pool in their gloves. That made Reebok revert back a little to the airknit fabric and making them a bit less form fitting. We did have a glimpse into the look of the jersey, as the Ducks and Sabres each had a redesign in 2006-07 that was a format for what the new jerseys would look like with the collar being very pointed and where the NHL logo would appear on all the jerseys a season later.

Looking back, it was a huge step for the jersey era; especially with MSRP of jerseys going up because of the materials used. It was also a sigh of relief as rumors had the system using tucked in jerseys killing any kind of loose fit. The Edge system also was the start of the Icethetics website, where a lot of the leaks were posted for wider consumption.

The look itself may have turned off some people because it wasn’t traditional enough for them, but in the end; we all made it out and now move on with life in the Adizero era where the weight feels more like the older jerseys, which doesn’t seem to affect the play on the ice with the players.

Summer Reading: Heritage Jerseys, History, and the Forcing of Both

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I think I’m tired of the “Heritage Jersey” scheme that Adidas is going on about. The NHL has gone into the NBA territory by having fancy names for their alternate jerseys. While the idea of nostalgia is a great one and one that is a proven moneymaker; the fact we’ve seen some of these jerseys in the recent past proves that the NHL is all about the retread– as if you haven’t figured that out by who participates in the outdoor games. Already, we’ve seen the St. Louis Blues, New Jersey Devils, Arizona Coyotes, and the Anaheim Ducks (…kind of) that have put out their “heritage” jerseys. I’m sure we can expect the Capitals, Maple Leafs, and possibly Flames to join this trend.

While it’s nice to have this retro flare– it’s really all fake. If the NHL really cared about the “heritage” aspect of these jerseys; why wouldn’t they want to show off the Colorado Rockies or Kansas City Scouts jerseys that are the actual heritage of the New Jersey Devils instead of their white “Christmas color’ jersey motif.

Therein lies the problem with the NHL and the way they present their history. Sure, it’s the whole “to the victor goes the spoils,” but at the same time– you can’t bury the history of team’s past. Hell, those are the jerseys and logos that it seems that people crave. However, the NHL doesn’t want you to remember the past as it was. They want you to remember the history as they present– which is a raw deal for everyone involved.

Rarely do you hear about the Cleveland Barons, Kansas City Scouts, Hamilton Tigers, or St. Louis Eagles due to those teams not making any kind of positive impact in their few years in the NHL proper. People get force fed the “original” six forever and day, but that’s not really the history. Hell, they’re more like the surviving six over anything else. But that’s not what the NHL wants to portray, which I can understand. With the exception of the NBA, you don’t see many leagues touting the teams that have fallen off their radar. You might get fans talking about those teams, but rare to see the leagues promote the dead teams that relocated.

You rarely hear about players from the old days either. The lack of publicity that Joe Malone gets from the NHL is sickening, especially when you have baseball still hold up things that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig did. Malone was one of the greatest players and the greatest goal-scorer of his generation, but the NHL really doesn’t do much to profile their players before 1950. Newsy Lalonde is really talked about for his name, but his goal-scoring prowess was up there with Malone, but you only get his nickname of Newsy as something to remember him by rather than the 124 NHL goals in 99 games over his career and 288 goals in 207 games if you combine the NHA and NHL totals. But the NHL doesn’t even give them a passing glance unless they have to– which is rarely.

The idea of having a team historian is a thing that seems to be a hot topic amongst fans with some teams putting it to use. Granted, some of them have put in the work and then were unceremoniously shown the door after the fact, but the team got what they wanted. In all honesty, it seems that the need for a historian could be a “flavor of the month” for some teams and the league itself. With the NHL Centennial over, you have to wonder how much they’ll promote Dave Stubbs’ work since the history isn’t something they need at the forefront anymore.

Jen Conway (AKA NHL History Girl) and I discussed this on the FOHS Overtime on Patreon, so if you want to shell out of few duckets to hear it– then by all means. All the money goes back into the Media Faction for shows and stuff like that.

You can bet we’ll see more “heritage” jerseys– many of which we have seen in the past, many of which won’t be the real heritage of the team. It’s this idea of history that’s great in theory– but when you put it into practice and you dig up things that aren’t all rosy; that’s stuff people don’t want to hear or pay attention to– so they turn it and it becomes a waste for many. Here’s hoping that many hockey fans can take the good with the bad, but with how things work in this social media era– it’s unlikely to happen.

The Latest “NHL 100” List Could Be The Most Even

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logo_100_Uniforms_Landing_US_en

As I woke up today, I saw a tweet about a new list that NHL is doing for their NHL100– the Greatest NHL Uniforms.

My first thought was that somehow, someway– the final will be the Blackhawks and the Canadiens because that seems to be the way these jersey rankings often go.

My main thought after that was– what the hell with all the lists, NHL?? Especially in this fan voting format– which you hated enough to limit the way they can destroy the NHL All-Star Game.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s basically the same kind of randomizer that the NHL used when they did their preliminary “Greatest NHL Team” gimmick over the summer. They put two jerseys of a certain era against each other and you pick between the two. I’m sure they’ll weed them out and get down to 32 or so picks for the start of the final play-downs for who has the best jerseys.

Yet, my problem with it all is that it’s yet another subjective list the NHL is putting out there to get people “talking” (more like raging) when the final two are announced. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that Anaheim’s Wild Wing or LA’s Burger King jerseys made the cut because they were alternate jerseys, but Vancouver’s Flying V did make it in there– so rejoice for that.

In a time where the NHL could have done the leg work with their brain-trust and said, “Here’s the the top-ten greatest (teams, players, jerseys, stick models) in NHL History” and then spark debate after that. Hell, you’d have more than enough buzz from people making up their own top-ten list to warrant being very direct with their choices– because that’s what the NHL’s all about, right?? Getting people to engage and start a discussion?? No?? Okay…

However, a debate about which is the top jersey in history could be the thing that is the most talked about in all these lists. The eras don’t matter when it comes to jerseys– as they would with crowning a top player, moment, or team. It’s all about the aesthetic of it all and whether it’s pleasing to a person’s eye against another jersey. The record of the team doesn’t matter– though the longevity or lack thereof could spark some kind of love or hatred for a team. The want for a jersey to come back, as we’ve seen with some of the modernized retro jerseys and when teams do a one-night only jersey gimmick, is a huge marketplace for people.

While I hate the list idea to pick something out, the Greatest NHL Jersey list could be the one that is the most even across the board that the NHL has put out in their NHL 100 celebration.