2016-17 NHL Uniform and Logo Changes

[Cosmic]

2 hours ago, Bayne said:

It's green for the sake of green

First time for everything, I guess.

[ColeJ]

i, for one, think the shade of green is perfect. i like how jarring it is. it's a color you rally behind, and the fan base has done just that.

 

you can't rally behind black, unless you're the raiders, because as tom gaglardi said at the unveiling, "no one owns black." everyone wears it.

you can't rally behind dark and muted colors either. i've been a stars fan since they moved here. the old shade of green, paired with a ton of black, didn't inspire the level of visual interest that the new bright and jarring shade does.

 

forest green is actually one of my least favorite colors, but i wore a ton of it because my team wore it. kelly green, on the other hand, is less subtle... but it looks better on the ice.

 

i think the psychological aspect of it is part of why stars fans love it so much. you see a ton of people in navy blue cowboys or mavericks caps and shirts, and it doesn't stand out. it just looks like regular clothes. you'd never notice it unless you were right up on the person. the rangers gear is a bit more noticeable at a distance with their royal blue and red stuff. the stars stuff, you can spot from the other wise of the grocery store. without even seeing the logo. if you see a hat or a shirt in that "victory green" shade, it catches your eye and you know there's about a 95% chance that when that person turns around, it'll have a stars logo on it, and you'll be able to talk about how bad our defense and/or goaltending was last night with a new person.

 

 

 

basically, the stars gave the fans what they wanted. i was writing for defendingbigd.com when these uniforms came out, and actually got invited to the unveiling event to cover it as media. i had written a series of articles about polling the fanbase to decide what the stars future uniforms should look like immediately upon the purchase of the stars by the new owner, because we all knew new uniforms were going to be on the way. fans overwhelmingly said that the only things that mattered to them was that they were green. not black. not blue or red or anything else. they wanted green. when i asked what shade they wanted, it was about 66/33 in favor of kelly green over forest green. the results also showed that the most popular secondary colors were gold and black, but that those responding to the polls said the choice of secondary color was very low on the list of priorities, and that the only issue they really cared about was that we wear green.

 

when i got my first inside information that we were going to be kelly green, silver, and black, i floated that as an idea to the defendingbigd community as well (and hinted about it on this site as much as i felt comfortable to do), and people basically said "well the silver will take some getting used to, but that sounds amazing. i can't wait."

 

i felt the same way. ideally, the stars would be kelly green and athletic yellow... but the athletic yellow isn't a big enough factor for me to worry about it. the current stars uniforms are easily the best thing they've worn in their entire time in texas BECAUSE of the simple striping and jarring shade of green. they went from the worst uniforms in franchise history and bottom third of the league to one of the best uniforms in franchise history, and top 5 in the league, in my opinion.

 

you darken that green and you undo all the progress the stars have made in "owning" green and rallying the fans behind the intangible concept of "victory green" as an identifier of the fanbase.

 

just my 2 nerdy and overly passionate cents.

[wildwing64]

The Victory Green is amazing. You see this team in the highlights and there's no mistaking them for anyone else, full stop.

 

Admittedly I'd like to see a black alternate akin to their '93 uniforms, but they probably don't need one.

[ColeJ]

couldn't agree more. on both points.

[habsfan1]

4 hours ago, Bayne said:

In regards to analysing what they have now, I agree that the green they use is not pleasing to the eye. It's jarring and kind of crude when it's encompassing an entire jersey. It's like they've gone "hey, we get it - colour is back in vogue now so lets be the green team!" but it's not executed well. It's green for the sake of green without the jersey being a nice harmonious balance between their primary and accent colours. I also agree that the green should be darker; put a little bit more magenta and black into the mix.

 

Now they have a shade of green that's distinct from the Minnesota Wild and is a brighter and less jaded.

 

This match-up looks amazing. Much better than if they were both using the same shade...

 

[The_Admiral]

It's a very nice shade of green, but the single-layer stretched-out-varsity-serif numbers look like cheap crap. 

 

43 minutes ago, ColeJ said:

i think the psychological aspect of it is part of why stars fans love it so much. you see a ton of people in navy blue cowboys or mavericks caps and shirts, and it doesn't stand out. it just looks like regular clothes. you'd never notice it unless you were right up on the person. the rangers gear is a bit more noticeable at a distance with their royal blue and red stuff. the stars stuff, you can spot from the other wise of the grocery store. without even seeing the logo.

Yeah, sounds like Stars fans to me, need to set themselves off from the normies who just like the Cowboys.

[habsfan1]

Logos aside, looks like they don't want the black to touch the green, which is why every stripe is surrounded by white. If they wanted to outline the numbers while continuing to maintain that approach, they'd have to go with black numbers/white outline. Which would look bad so they went with single color instead. Silver outlines probably wouldn't work either.

[Bayne]

50 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

 

Now they have a shade of green that's distinct from the Minnesota Wild and is a brighter and less jaded.

 

This match-up looks amazing. Much better than if they were both using the same shade...

 

 

Forest green looks much more sophisticated and holds a sense of grandness. That Kelly green just looks kinda whack and 'Whoa! Look at me! Cool colour huh?"

 

I'm kind of trolling lol. I get it, not everyone will agree.

[hockey week]

35 minutes ago, Bayne said:

 

Forest green looks much more sophisticated and holds a sense of grandness. That Kelly green just looks kinda whack and 'Whoa! Look at me! Cool colour huh?"

 

I'm kind of trolling lol. I get it, not everyone will agree.

 

But their previous jerseys were pretty much the "don't talk to me, I don't even want to be here" of jerseys

 

Dallas broke out of their emo stage, and though the reversal is a bit loud, I think it's a good loud.

[IceCap]

I never got the "dark colours are sophisticated, bright colours are cheap" argument.

[Bayne]

34 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

I never got the "dark colours are sophisticated, bright colours are cheap" argument.

 

I don't think its a blanket rule, just that it applies in the case of the Stars IMO.

[habsfan1]

1 hour ago, Bayne said:

Forest green looks much more sophisticated and holds a sense of grandness. That Kelly green just looks kinda whack and 'Whoa! Look at me! Cool colour huh?"

 

I find it to be a refreshing change how they toned it down to something lighter.

 

The forest green does have some sense of grandness to me. But only nostalgia grandness.

[Bayne]

I don't know...this is a horrible analogy and I'm saying this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, but it's like the interpretations of Batman where he's 60's TV bright and colourful, verus the darker versions of him where you take him more seriously and he just look cooler and meaner.

 

I know, horrible analogy. 

[BigBubba]

2 hours ago, ColeJ said:

you darken that green and you undo all the progress the stars have made in "owning" green and rallying the fans behind the intangible concept of "victory green" as an identifier of the fanbase.

 

just my 2 nerdy and overly passionate cents.

 

That's a valid point.

 

But while the return to bright green is certainly welcome, I just can't rally behind a Stars identity that doesn't have gold in it. Sure, it had been darkened and marginalized throughout the team's entire history in Dallas, but so had the green — and I don't think anyone's opposing the switch to victory green on those grounds. 

 

I get that many Stars fans were really only concerned about the primary colour, but the secondary colour is nearly as important for me. It's sort of like when the Sabres half-assed the return to their classic colour scheme. Yes, a return to blue and gold was needed, but navy/gold/silver just doesn't cut it as much as the "full package" would have.

[jujubeans]

I don't think it's the green that's the problem I think it's the fact that their logo and jersey are so boring. Ultra generic striping pattern with nothing else to set the jersey apart. The logo is literally "well, let's take the star and put a D over it." Feels like they spent 20 minutes in Create-A-Team and called it a day. It's such an uninteresting look compared to the star jerseys of the 90s and obviously doesn't even come close to touching the North Stars stuff.

 

The odd shade of green is about the only interesting, individualistic thing in their identity.

[Bayne]

I don't quite get how the blame can be put on the jersey itself when it's essentially one of the better jersey templates as proven by the rangers and blackhawks.

 

It's the lack of gold, and to a lesser extent the weird green which would not compliment said gold.

[wildwing64]

2 hours ago, Bayne said:

Forest green looks much more sophisticated and holds a sense of grandness.

 

Which works in the context of the Wild identity because of the outdoorsy theme.

 

2 hours ago, hockey week said:

But their previous jerseys were pretty much the "don't talk to me, I don't even want to be here" of jerseys

 

That could be said for certain other teams too. The Dallas script jersey was more "we just don't care."

[IceCap]

The green isn't weird. It's arguably the shade they should have been using all along. The black and green bled into each other once they switched from kelly to hunter.

 

I would have preferred gold to silver, and they need to stick the Texas logo on the shoulders. All in all though? It's a pretty good look. The green pops, allowing a very basic but classy striping pattern stand out in a good way. 

 

I could take or leave black outlines on the numbers, so whatever. 

 

1 hour ago, Bayne said:

I don't think its a blanket rule, just that it applies in the case of the Stars IMO.

I just don't see it. The Wild's hunter green works for them, but it's also paired with wheat and red. Two colours hunter green plays well off of. 

The Stars though? They use black. They need a vibrant green for contrast. 

 

I'm also a fan of variety. We have two green-dominant teams in the league. One uses hunter, the other kelly. It's neat.  

[Morgan33]

The biggest mistake the franchise ever made was dropping Kelly Green in favour of Forest, back in 1993.  While still a downgrade from the previous look, the Stars had something special with their inaugural look.  The way the minimal amounts of Kelly Green and Gold contrasted with the black base was eye catching and unique.  Once they switched to Forest; the uniforms became dull, and almost monochrome, as there was little to no contrast with the Black.  Even the green-heavy, cup era set suffered from this muted palette, becoming stale and dated in short amount of time.

 

As for the Victory Green; what a stroke a brilliance.  Not only did it result in the teams freshest look since their inaugural year but it tipped the hat to their history, in way none of the other uniforms could.  It looks great on the ice and looks even better when you see the jerseys in person.

 

Where I agree with Bayne however, is when it comes to the absence of gold.  When your the Green and Gold team for 46 straight years, it's hard to justify replacing one of those colours with something as common as silver.  I understand that Gold comes with many reproduction issues but it was still a monumental mistake in my opinion.  You may not agree with me but I think the solution is as simple as switching the colours out.  The Silver is only there to add dimension to the logo, in the form of bevel, and I think gold could pull off that feat just as well...  Maybe better.

 

[CreamSoda]

Victory Green is probably my favorite color in the NHL.  Such a beautiful shade of green and it really stands out.