It’s been a whole year since the NHL and Reebok unleashed their new Rbk Edge jerseys onto the world of hockey, replacing the classic, baggier jerseys that pretty much all of us grew up with. The jerseys were designed to enhance performance, i.e. making players faster, etc, and as we all know the jerseys now look… well, slightly less baggy on the players. Now pretty much everyone has gotten used to the new uniform format.
As early as two years ago, rumours about Reebok’s new, performance enhancing and, most notably, form fitting jerseys were spreading all over the internet on places like the SportsLogos.net forum, leading to fears that hockey jerseys as we knew them would be Ruined Forever. Many of the earlier rumours suggested that players would have to tuck the whole jersey into the pants, which I can imagine now looking pretty stupid. And also, because of the idea of a tighter fitting jersey, one of the main fears in particular was that it would be very similar to Nike’s own Swift jerseys, used mainly by International teams, which also led to some people confusing the Swift with Edge.
Then came the 2007 NHL All-Star game, along with pictures of Sidney Crosby modelling the Eastern Conference jersey, when the new uniform was officially unveiled. Unsurprisingly, many hated it. And then templates of the jerseys started going around; this caused even more fear to come about as everyone assumed that every team would use that exact same pattern, again in a very similar fashion to the Nike Swift. Gone (apparently) would have been the unique uniforms that every team wore, and in would have been recolourings of the All-Star template for every team.
And then when all 30 teams officially unveiled their uniforms, they turned out to not be like that at all.
Most teams did in fact keep their unique uniform designs, while others like the Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks took the opportunity to rebrand their selves with new logos and jerseys. While many of the uniforms are in fact template based, there are actually a number of different templates that the teams are currently using, for example, the Pittsburgh Penguins use one that has panels on the arms and on the sides of the jersey. Some fans found the use of templates slightly annoying, but that annoyance pales in comparison to another common feature: piping, which for those who are unsure are really thin stripes that separate areas of the jersey, and which for some teams are coloured, which many feel ruin a jersey’s overall appearance.
Many teams benefitted from their selected templates, and as mentioned before some teams were able to keep their own designs. Some teams changed their own designs slightly to better suit their selected templates (like Atlanta and Colorado).
Other teams, however, seemingly suffered from the transition to Edge:
- The Anaheim Ducks logo, due to it being a wordmark, was shrunk so that it would fit on the front of the jersey. Also, as their hem stripes are diagonal, they get cut off as they reach the side of the jersey due to template or material restrictions. The logo has been made bigger for the 2008-09 season.
- The Dallas Stars, either because of template restrictions or personal choice, did not keep their popular ‘star striping’ pattern, instead going mainly black for the home jersey, almost eliminating green and going for a collegiate style appearance. This change in style has received mixed opinions.
- While not a horrifyingly huge change, the Detroit Red Wings had to move the captain’s letter over to the right side of the jersey, since the Wing on their logo takes up most of the space on the left side. During the Stanley Cup Final, the patch was placed directly next to the letter.
- The Edmonton Oilers probably suffered the most. They did not keep their traditional striping, instead they picked the same template as the Florida Panthers, who have a red stripe going down the arms; the Oilers did not colour this part, and their arm stripes only go around underneath the arms and are cut off at the top, giving the team a very bland appearance.
- While the Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys may look good in person, they look much different on TV. Since their black and blue are both dark colours and have been placed right next to each other, the Bolts’ home jersey looks almost as if it’s completely black.
- The Toronto Maple Leafs, for some reason, removed the hem stripes from their jerseys. This received criticism from some fans, with at least one going as far as to call it a “monstrosity”.
My personal opinion on the whole thing is that it was probably just the NHL’s attempt to grab some more fans with seemingly stylish uniforms, with the ‘performance enhancing’ stuff being nothing more than part of their marketing campaign.
But let’s face it, aside from the problems that some teams had, the unveiling wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it would be. And who knows, maybe a similar change will take place within the next 30 or so years and start the same kind of panic all over again.
If you, the fan, are still worrying about how the Edge jerseys will fit, I personally recommend reading our review.
