NHL 2017-18

[PrimalCookie]

Let me throw my 2 cents in.

 

Strictly aesthetically, the C-mountain logo, I feel, is better than the A. However, I feel that both are bad logos. The A is a case of 90s over detailing, and the skewed circle just looks bad. The C-mountain is too generic, even if you ignore the fact that the previous NHL team in the city (not affiliated in any way to the Avalanche) had an almost identical logo. I don't want the Avalanche to go back to the overly cluttered Cup-winning set, but I don't want them to go to the Rockalanche set either. Start fresh. Incorporate things from both logos - similar to the C logo that Rollins Man posted above. 

 

Now, the Panthers. Do I believe that they are going for O6 dress-up? Yes. Is it a clone of the Canadiens? No. The only thing they have in common is the chest stripe and kind of the neck tie (they aren't even the same type). Montreal does not own the concept of a chest stripe. Now, is their original look good? Absolutely, and it is easily the best look in their history. Is it untouchable, anything other than this is a travesty level? Absolutely not. Look, I hate O6 dress-up (and non-traditional teams going traditional at all - check out the Lions thread for more on that ), but I don't believe that 90s teams should look like 90s teams and nothing else. Because then we would have, I don't know, 15 teams in the B4 with either purple, teal, both purple and teal, and gradients. And that kills the idea of "the 90s introduced creativity!" argument. Also, kind of unrelated, but I think the original Panthers logo was way too detailed - the update is much better, and should be on the sweaters. Actually, speaking of the new, updated leaping panther, I don't like the argument that "the new Panthers logo looks like a soccer crest". And, your point is? Many soccer crests look very good. I would say myself that my ideal Panthers jersey would be something like the 90s template, with the updated leaping panther on front and the new "soccer" logo on the shoulders.

[monkeypower]

35 minutes ago, Morgo said:

There's a cut off because from the early 1900's to 1990's we saw very few innovations. The biggest thing to happen was the addition of colours like Purple, Green and Orange in 1967. 

 

Aren't you forgetting the pinnacle of hockey uniforms?

 

[IceCap]

14 hours ago, Morgo said:

The Blackhawks and Bruins 20's and 50's looks are all based off traditional hockey aesthetics.  They are interchangeable.

Not at all.

 

14 hours ago, Morgo said:

There's a cut off because from the early 1900's to 1990's we saw very few innovations.

That's not true. There's a world of difference between 1920's sweater design and 1950s sweater design. Barberbole, multiple striping patterns, even incredibly plain sweaters with maybe a logo and some off-coloured cuffs were normal up through the 50s, when the "traditional" hockey template as we know it began to assert its dominance.

In 1967 the Flyers introduced their classic/current template. Which was nothing like anything else up to that point. 1978 gave us the flying V. By the 1980s the full sleeve yoke was a full-blown trend. Even the O6 Rangers and Maple Leafs got in on it. The 80s also saw the Penguins really lean into the contrasting sleeves, taking an element that was unique to Detroit and spreading it around. The Pens wear the same template today, and the Coyotes share the design concept.

 

The 90s certainly saw more innovation than previous decades (thanks to technology finally catching up to the imagination of designers), but it's incorrect to say that 1920s design and 1950s design are interchangeable, or that there was no innovation in design for nearly ninety years.

Here're the Bruins from the mid 20s. Now the mid 50s. And the mid 80s. There's definitely an evolving aesthetic. The period from 1900-1990 wasn't one of stagnant uniform design.

 

Further...let's assume the NHL expanded in the mid/late 2000s. Would you suggest that such a team would be bound to retain an ugly Reebok Edge templated look just because that would be a unique aesthetic from the decade of their birth? It seems silly to suggest that teams must remain tied to the aesthetic trends of their birth decade. No one expects the Bruins to wear brown and too many stripes to reflect their heritage as a 1920s team. The Avs shouldn't be forced to wear uniforms reflective of the 90s just because they're a "90s" team.

Now that being said...

 

14 hours ago, Morgo said:

...but no one will ever be able to convince me that the Avalanche' first set wasn't an instant modern classic.

...that is your opinion. And it's a valid opinion! If you want to argue that the Avs should wear that, then argue on the merits of its design. Ultimately it's gonna be an agree to disagree situation because design is subjective and not objective, but there's value in defending the design on its own merits even if you won't change any minds. I don't take issue with your preference for this uniform.

What I take issue with is the idea that the 1990s were a magical ten years and that teams from the 1990s ought to be bound by the design trends of the decade. We don't impose such restrictions on teams born in other decades (and it could be argued that the early 1900s barberpole trend would certainly lend a bit of design variety to the league), so why is it that when we get to 90s teams the discussion must be "they were born in the 90s so they should look it, end of discussion"?

 

It stagnates discussion, and it stagnates creativity by limiting teams to trends and aesthetics from a comparatively narrow ten year window.

[Rollins Man]

i think a good team to compare the situation colorado is in is phoenix. They came in around the same time and had a very 90's styled look, and in the early 00's decided to update their look the right way be cleaning up the jersey, designing new original logos and simplifying their color scheme by getting rid of purple and green. Colorado should look to do the same, if there going to try to look more classic they should find their own original, classic look like arizona did, until they screwed it up. 

[Sodboy13]

You do realize the Coyotes' update "done the right way" involved copying the 1960s Maple Leafs jerseys and swapping out blue for brick red, because that's the team Gretzky grew up watching, right?

 

I mean, I know that even if you do realize that, you don't care, because there's a mountain of evidence in this thread that you'll never let facts get in the way of your arguments. But still.

[Cosmic]

14 hours ago, Morgo said:

There's a cut off because from the early 1900's to 1990's we saw very few innovations.  The biggest thing to happen was the addition of colours like Purple, Green and Orange in 1967.  It can be argued that every team had a traditional set during the 1990/1991 season while during the latter part of the decade you saw things that were never done before.  Some were bad, some were good.  I just don't think the entire decade should be swept under the rug so every team can attempt a "classic" original six look.  I appreciate variety and creativity and there's nothing wrong with 90's teams embracing their own history instead of lazily copying the original six.  It's boring and it undermines the traditional aesthetic by watering it down.

Maybe it's because I know your approximate age, but it seems like everything before you were old enough to care is "traditional", and everything that happened since is "new and innovative".  I think the real innovation in the 90s was on the marketing side.  The idea of selling jerseys to fans had really taken off, and the NHL did things like the third jersey program to specifically put out more jersey designs.  Teams are naturally going to be more adventurous if they can have a third jersey that they only have to wear for a minimum of 20 games over two years, instead of ditching their look whole hog.  Also, teams will be more willing to rebrand if they know they'll sell a whole bunch of jerseys to recoup the rebranding costs.  It seems a little too obvious, but it's also worth mentioning that there were 12 teams in 1967, and 22 by '91-'92.  More teams = more new jerseys.

 

Still, the Kings and Flyers had a pretty nontraditional template back in '67 that would still hold up as "modern" today.  The Flyers came out with their "90s" Legion of Doom jerseys in 1982.  The Pens had baby blue in their color scheme in '67, in addition to the green, purple, and orange that came into the league.  There were also the Seals, but every picture seems to show a different shade of teal/green; I don't really know what's up with them.  The did have those football-like shoulder stripes in the 70s, though.  The Barons had wacky numbers-in-Ohio on their jerseys in 1976.  The Pens, Barons, and Whalers had angled stripes back in the 70s.  The Canucks had the Flying V jerseys, the Capitals had the stars near the yoke, and the Nordiques had the fleurs-de-lis at the hem all back in the 70s, as well.  The flying V jerseys are damn near as wacky as anything that came out in the 90s.  This was the dawn of the "you can do pretty much anything you want on a jersey" era.  The Canucks specifically picked their red/yellow/black color scheme to look cooler and meaner; they were BFBS all the way back in '78.

 

The 90s had their new things, to be sure.  But so did the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  And I think a lot of the things that we think are iconic to 90s design had their beginnings in different decades.

 

Edit: for some reason, didn't see Ice Cap's post on this page before I typed mine.  But yeah, that.

[imawalkingcorpse]

I really like the original Avalanche jersey's. 

[Rollins Man]

14 hours ago, Sodboy13 said:

You do realize the Coyotes' update "done the right way" involved copying the 1960s Maple Leafs jerseys and swapping out blue for brick red, because that's the team Gretzky grew up watching, right?

 

I mean, I know that even if you do realize that, you don't care, because there's a mountain of evidence in this thread that you'll never let facts get in the way of your arguments. But still.

now that i see that it doesn't seem so good anymore. But im not wrong about anything else. 

[Rollins Man]

14 hours ago, Sodboy13 said:

You do realize the Coyotes' update "done the right way" involved copying the 1960s Maple Leafs jerseys and swapping out blue for brick red, because that's the team Gretzky grew up watching, right?

 

I mean, I know that even if you do realize that, you don't care, because there's a mountain of evidence in this thread that you'll never let facts get in the way of your arguments. But still.

also outside of the waist and arm stripes they have nothing in common, different colors, no pants stripe, different socks stripes, no yoke or tie down collar on the white jersey. And the leafs only wore that jersey for 3 years, can;t compare that montreal who have worn that stripe for 100 years. 

[Toronto206]

1 hour ago, Rollins Man said:

now that i see that it doesn't seem so good anymore. But im not wrong about anything else. 

Again, that's an opinion, not a fact. There's nothing wrong with an opinion; we all have them, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Just simply not be used in an argument to prove a point.

[Rollins Man]

15 minutes ago, Toronto206 said:

Again, that's an opinion, not a fact. There's nothing wrong with an opinion; we all have them, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Just simply not be used in an argument to prove a point.

i still think the unis were ok, i don't really think toronto can hold claim that threes tripes are "their look" because they've mostly worn two stripes or just one thick stripe for 90% of their history. And im pretty sure i know how opinion work, im not using opinions, im asking for good comparable evidence, which i still haven't gotten.

[Morgan33]

18 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

That's not true. There's a world of difference between 1920's sweater design and 1950s sweater design. Barberbole, multiple striping patterns, even incredibly plain sweaters with maybe a logo and some off-coloured cuffs were normal up through the 50s, when the "traditional" hockey template as we know it began to assert its dominance.  In 1967 the Flyers introduced their classic/current template. Which was nothing like anything else up to that point. 1978 gave us the flying V. By the 1980s the full sleeve yoke was a full-blown trend. Even the O6 Rangers and Maple Leafs got in on it. The 80s also saw the Penguins really lean into the contrasting sleeves, taking an element that was unique to Detroit and spreading it around. The Pens wear the same template today, and the Coyotes share the design concept.

Fair enough.  Though the flying V is never a good example to make a point

 

Quote

Further...let's assume the NHL expanded in the mid/late 2000s. Would you suggest that such a team would be bound to retain an ugly Reebok Edge templated look just because that would be a unique aesthetic from the decade of their birth?

 

No because that change didn't happen organically.  The entire league was forced to adapt their designs onto restrictive and frankly, ugly templates.  If they hadn't it's highly plausible that many of the better designs from the 90's, that lasted until that implementation, would still be around today.                        
 

Quote

What I take issue with is the idea that the 1990s were a magical ten years and that teams from the 1990s ought to be bound by the design trends of the decade. We don't impose such restrictions on teams born in other decades (and it could be argued that the early 1900s barberpole trend would certainly lend a bit of design variety to the league), so why is it that when we get to 90s teams the discussion must be "they were born in the 90s so they should look it, end of discussion"?

Not all 90's teams, just the ones who got it right the first time.  You don't hear me calling for Nashville to bring their 98 set back.
 

Quote

It stagnates discussion, and it stagnates creativity by limiting teams to trends and aesthetics from a comparatively narrow ten year window.

Vanquishing uniforms that were actually creative in favor of click-and-fill templates used by other teams is stagnating creativity.  It could be argued the creativity is at an all time low in the NHL right now.

             
              

[Toronto206]

2 minutes ago, Morgo said:

Fair enough.  Though the flying V is never a good example to make a point

 

 

No because that change didn't happen organically.  The entire league was forced to adapt their designs onto restrictive and frankly, ugly templates.  If they hadn't it's highly plausible that many of the better designs from the 90's, that lasted until that implementation, would still be around today.                        
 

Not all 90's teams, just the ones who got it right the first time.  You don't hear me calling for Nashville to bring their 98 set back.
 

Vanquishing uniforms that were actually creative in favor of click-and-fill templates used by other teams is stagnating creativity.  It could be argued the creativity is at an all time low in the NHL right now.

             
              

The Sens is technically based off their own city's history, and not copying another O6 team. Same goes for the Avs, where their logo is based off of city hockey history and the jersey really isn't like any O6 team.

[Morgan33]

Just now, Toronto206 said:

The Sens is technically based off their own city's history, and not copying another O6 team. Same goes for the Avs, where their logo is based off of city hockey history and the jersey really isn't like any O6 team.

 

They're based off the history of different teams.  One of which is now the Devils and the other inactive for 50 plus years.  Yeah Jacob Barette's design is not like an O6 team... But its not very good either.  Give me the jersey on the left any day.  Plays up Ottawa's hockey history with the colours and striping while sporting a creative logo that has more substance than a Times New Roman 'O'

[Point1]

Did someone really just say that these are "actually creative"?

 

 

There are plenty of reasons to prefer 90s jerseys to current ones but pretending that these aren't "click-and-fill templates" is ridiculous. The Senators O jersey is a hell of a lot more creative than either of these. Some people just have constant nostalgia blinders on. There are plenty of cases where 90s jerseys are aesthetically more interesting than current ones (I'd argue Florida, San Jose, and Anaheim are great examples) but there are also plenty of 90s jerseys that were boring as hell or just plain ugly. 

 

 

[wildwing64]

1 hour ago, Morgo said:

Vanquishing uniforms that were actually creative in favor of click-and-fill templates used by other teams is stagnating creativity.  It could be argued the creativity is at an all time low in the NHL right now.

 

The old Lightning uniform is no more creative than the current one. It's still a basic striping design, and that logo really has not aged well. The new one's not perfect by any means but it's still an improvement over the original.

 

Unpopular opinion: I like the current Lightning uniform in spite of it being deliberately derivative. Something about that blue jersey just works for me. The white version less so because of the arbitrary "Tampa Bay" stuck on top of the logo. Note to Bolts management; that's not how you create an "iconic" brand.

[Rollins Man]

give me these with the updated 3d logo for ottawa any day. Never really liked the original set but these were cool.

Also, i actually prefer tampa with what they have now over the original even though its a detroit ripoff, the first jerseys were too dark and the logo is too heavy/blocky to represent something that's fast like lighting. I wish they had stuck with this and put the shoulder logo on the front instead of that wordmark. 

[IceCap]

13 minutes ago, Point1 said:

Did someone really just say that these are "actually creative"?

 

12 minutes ago, wildwing64 said:

The old Lightning uniform is no more creative than the current one.

Yeah I was just coming here to post that. If anything the Lighting's original look is peak 80s. Which makes sense. The team was awarded an expansion franchise in the early 90s, so it would hold that 80s aesthetics and design preferences would still be in vogue. Trends associated with decades rarely line up with the actual start of the decade.

 

That just looks so perfectly 80s to me.

[Cosmic]

The O logo is horribly boring, but what other team in the league even comes close to the pseudo-barberpole look? Plus, it's something from their city's history that no other team is going to claim (unlike Avs/Devils). I think it adds to the creativity of the league.

 

There is nothing about those original Tampa Bay uniforms that requires saving. The color balance was pretty good, but was there anything really special about them? The uniform was pretty standard, and the logo is "meh" at best.

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, Morgo said:

Not all 90's teams, just the ones who got it right the first time.  You don't hear me calling for Nashville to bring their 98 set back.

That's subjective. Bucfan56 admitted to loving Nashville's inaugural look for how off the wall it was. Some people here are claiming that Tampa and Ottawa's 90s looks weren't anything special either. I bet if we took every uniform that debuted between 1990 and 1999 and asked posters to divide them up between uniforms they like and dislike? No two people would have exact lists. 

You mentioned the Avs' 90s look and the Hurricanes' 90s look in the same breath. To me? The Avs' 90s look is tired and dated but the Hurricanes' look still holds up today. "Only teams that got it right the first time" is hard to quantify.

 

The same holds true the other direction. Tampa, Carolina, Dallas, Ottawa, and Colorado all moved, or are moving, in the same general direction aesthetically. I find Tampa and Carolina's new traditional looks derivative and boring, but I think Colorado, Dallas, and Ottawa's more traditional looks are rather sharp. It's all subjective, and trying to fit stuff into universally accepted boxes doesn't work.

 

21 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

The O logo is horribly boring, but what other team in the league even comes close to the pseudo-barberpole look? Plus, it's something from their city's history that no other team is going to claim (unlike Avs/Devils). I think it adds to the creativity of the league.

Ottawa's a city that contributed so much to hockey's early years. There's heritage there that the Sens are willingly invoking by using the "Senators" name. The =O= logo and pseudo-barberpole look represent that in ways a cartoon Roman centurion will never be able to represent it.

My only real issues with the Senators' heritage set are the widths of the waist stripes and the vintage white colour. Fix the stripes and go with regular white? That's a sharp look.