WLD42 Posted June 13, 2021 Share Posted June 13, 2021 With the first year of the Reverse Retro program nearing its conclusion, I thought I'd share some alternate concepts for every NHL team that I came up with throughout the season. I feel that the actual Reverse Retro designs were very well-done and fun, at least the vast majority of them. So I'm not necessarily looking to "fix" anything; this concept series is purely a just-for-fun exercise of using the Reverse Retro rules, but picking a different historical jersey. (There are just a couple teams where I've reused the IRL choices in a different way, because of a lack of other good options from the team's history. I'm not using any of the Edge-era piping-covered messes, because a) they're generally ugly, b) they're not really "retro" yet, and c) they're not particularly compatible with the Adizero template.) There's a healthy mix of classic, (in)famous, and obscure jersey designs. All 32 teams are finished and ready to share, so the thread should move along at a pretty decent clip; I'll do my best to post one a day, though I may miss a day here and there. But it does mean that I should have plenty of time to take in any C&C and suggestions, and post revisions and updated versions. Since alphabetical order is so passé, I figured I'll post them alternating between the end of the alphabet and the beginning of the alphabet, and meet in the middle, just for the heck of it. Winnipeg Jets -- same jersey in modern Jets colors Anaheim Ducks Washington Capitals Arizona Coyotes -- new version Vegas Golden Knights Boston Bruins -- same jersey colored differently Vancouver Canucks -- new logo on sleeves Buffalo Sabres Toronto Maple LeafsCalgary Flames -- revised equipment colors Tampa Bay Lightning -- revised equipment colors -- new version Carolina Hurricanes Seattle Kraken -- revised "modernized" versions -- resized logo Chicago Blackhawks San Jose Sharks Colorado Avalanche St. Louis Blues Columbus Blue Jackets -- new version Pittsburgh Penguins -- two new versions Dallas Stars -- same jersey colored differently Philadelphia Flyers Detroit Red Wings Ottawa Senators Edmonton Oilers New York Rangers Florida Panthers New York Islanders Los Angeles Kings New Jersey Devils Minnesota Wild Nashville Predators Montreal Canadiens So first up is the... Winnipeg Jets The Jets 2.0 have now used the Jets 1.0's well-known WHA uniforms as throwbacks, and their first NHL jersey design was used for the IRL Reverse Retro jersey, so the remaining options are a bit limited. (One thing that I'm not doing is using past locations of a franchise, so we won't see any Colorado Nordiques or Carolina Whalers in this series; plus, I've already seen several Jets/Thrashers RR concepts that I wouldn't be able to top.) So I went a bit obscure, and used the Jets' inaugural WHA uniforms, which only lasted for the one season, '72-'73, before being replaced by the classic jersey that we all identify with them. This jersey has a shockingly generic logo, and a fun and unique NOB font with a contrasting nameplate, which appears to have extended from shoulder to shoulder regardless of the actual length of the name. I went with the blue jersey (without the shoulder yoke), and simply reversed red and blue, leaving white as-is. (In the spoiler tag: For posterity, the original version with an unfortunate technical mistake on the waist stripes, as pointed out by @B-mer). Spoiler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-mer Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 pretty good choice, I wonder if this were a real consideration if they'd have kept the blue navy to slide into the current branding a little more, or if they'd do something like they actually did with the gray. Probably some fun you could have with the colors. looking forward to the rest! A couple small points of feedback: 1. the Adidas logo should probably be white, but no biggy, and 2. the hem stripes on the back should follow the contour of the hem so you don't have the little flap anymore. that would also help align the stripes because as is the back stripes would be sitting lower on the jersey than the front if you had the front and back lined up horizontally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 14, 2021 Author Share Posted June 14, 2021 On 6/14/2021 at 9:44 AM, B-mer said: pretty good choice, I wonder if this were a real consideration if they'd have kept the blue navy to slide into the current branding a little more, or if they'd do something like they actually did with the gray. Probably some fun you could have with the colors. looking forward to the rest! A couple small points of feedback: 1. the Adidas logo should probably be white, but no biggy, and 2. the hem stripes on the back should follow the contour of the hem so you don't have the little flap anymore. that would also help align the stripes because as is the back stripes would be sitting lower on the jersey than the front if you had the front and back lined up horizontally. Duh! That's an embarrassing error on my part; I just forgot to change the shape of the stripes after copy-pasting them from the front to the back, which is honestly the first time I've ever brain-farted on that step, and somehow I still missed it every time I looked at it afterwards. Thanks for catching that "proofreading" error. As for the color of the Adidas logo, it was honestly a toss-up for me whether to make it white or blue; I don't know if there's a specific logic that goes into deciding its color, but I figured blue would be a better contrast so close to the white nameplate. But like I said, it really doesn't make a huge difference to me either way, and you're certainly right that white would contrast a little bit better against the red background. I agree that if this were a real-life jersey, the team probably wouldn't go with red for "brand synergy" purposes, and use the Jets 2.0's color palette like they did for their real Reverse Retro jersey. But in concept-land, I liked the look of a red jersey, and felt it was something unique for the team, as well as just being a concept that's significantly different from their real RR design. Using a team's alternate color as the base color for a third/specialty jersey is also something that I've always found myself drawn to. Later on in the thread you'll see that I went with blue jerseys for the Blues and Blue Jackets because the red jerseys they made just don't sit right with me, but there's nothing in the Jets' name that links them to blue, just their historical use of it. The next team on the list is the... Anaheim Ducks Anaheim revives their 2007 Stanley Cup-winning jerseys with a twist! Everyone's favorite color palette returns, but rather than recolor the '06-'07 wordmark crest, the actual wordmark from the jade-and-eggplant era makes an appearance. It does get a slight recolor, to better match the eggplant jersey rather than the black jersey it appeared on from '03-'06, but it's still a better fit than a recolored "Ducks" crest would be (as well as simply being a better jersey crest, in my opinion). And while we're at it, the MD monogram shoulder patch from those black '03-'06 alternates also gets included. I didn't really go with an "era mashup" for any other teams besides Anaheim, but I really liked how this one turned out, and it honors the Cup-winning jersey without bringing back the unfortunate Cup-winning logo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 15, 2021 Author Share Posted June 15, 2021 Washington Capitals The Caps' real-life Reverse Retro is a thing of beauty, but of course the point of this series is to take things in a different direction, and I have a fond memories not only of the '90s-'00s branding, but also the blue-and-bronze color scheme that goes with it. I didn't really care to blue-and-bronze-ify any of the team's red-white-and-blue jerseys, and since I'm staying away as much as possible from the jerseys that were used in the real Reverse Retro program, the only real remaining option was the Capitol Building jersey. (And while I put '97 as the year, teeechnically this is the revised '00 version with the straight nameplate. But putting '97 seemed more in the spirit of the Reverse Retro branding, rather than being nitpicky about small changes throughout the years.) The actual color replacement is another straightforward one like Winnipeg's was: black and blue swap places, while the bronze and the white stay put. While I'll be doing my best to replace every instance of a color on jerseys and socks throughout this series, I'm being a little looser with the other equipment's colors, sometimes reversing them too and sometimes leaving them be, depending on the general aesthetics and color balance of the full uniform. So for Washington, I left the pants black, but did decide to go with a blue helmet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne9109 Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 On 6/13/2021 at 9:32 AM, WLD42 said: With the first year of the Reverse Retro program nearing its conclusion, I thought I'd share some alternate concepts for every NHL team that I came up with throughout the season. I feel that the actual Reverse Retro designs were very well-done and fun, at least the vast majority of them. So I'm not necessarily looking to "fix" anything; this concept series is purely a just-for-fun exercise of using the Reverse Retro rules, but picking a different historical jersey. (There are just a couple teams where I've reused the IRL choices in a different way, because of a lack of other good options from the team's history. I'm not using any of the Edge-era piping-covered messes, because a) they're generally ugly, b) they're not really "retro" yet, and c) they're not particularly compatible with the Adizero template.) There's a healthy mix of classic, (in)famous, and obscure jersey designs. All 32 teams are finished and ready to share, so the thread should move along at a pretty decent clip; I'll do my best to post one a day, though I may miss a day here and there. But it does mean that I should have plenty of time to take in any C&C and suggestions, and post revisions and updated versions. Since alphabetical order is so passé, I figured I'll post them alternating between the end of the alphabet and the beginning of the alphabet, and meet in the middle, just for the heck of it. Winnipeg Jets Anaheim Ducks Washington Capitals Arizona Coyotes Vegas Golden Knights Boston Bruins Vancouver Canucks Buffalo Sabres Toronto Maple Leafs Calgary Flames Tampa Bay Lightning Carolina Hurricanes Seattle Kraken Chicago Blackhawks San Jose Sharks Colorado Avalanche St. Louis Blues Columbus Blue Jackets Pittsburgh Penguins Dallas Stars Philadelphia Flyers Detroit Red Wings Ottawa Senators Edmonton Oilers New York Rangers Florida Panthers New York Islanders Los Angeles Kings New Jersey Devils Minnesota Wild Nashville Predators Montreal Canadiens So first up is the... Winnipeg Jets The Jets 2.0 have now used the Jets 1.0's well-known WHA uniforms as throwbacks, and their first NHL jersey design was used for the IRL Reverse Retro jersey, so the remaining options are a bit limited. (One thing that I'm not doing is using past locations of a franchise, so we won't see any Colorado Nordiques or Carolina Whalers in this series; plus, I've already seen several Jets/Thrashers RR concepts that I wouldn't be able to top.) So I went a bit obscure, and used the Jets' inaugural WHA uniforms, which only lasted for the one season, '72-'73, before being replaced by the classic jersey that we all identify with them. This jersey has a shockingly generic logo, and a fun and unique NOB font with a contrasting nameplate, which appears to have extended from shoulder to shoulder regardless of the actual length of the name. I went with the blue jersey (without the shoulder yoke), and simply reversed red and blue, leaving white as-is. (In the spoiler tag: For posterity, the original version with an unfortunate technical mistake on the waist stripes, as pointed out by @B-mer). Hide contents Love this. I would really like to see Winnipeg break this out now that they've done a couple of throwbacks to the original NHL version . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 16, 2021 Author Share Posted June 16, 2021 22 hours ago, johne9109 said: Love this. I would really like to see Winnipeg break this out now that they've done a couple of throwbacks to the original NHL version . Thanks! I've had an appreciation for and interest in hockey jerseys and their history for quite a while, but doing research for this series has definitely deepened my knowledge, and that one-season WHA jersey certainly seems to be somewhat of a forgotten design in Jets history. And speaking of the Jets (kind of; that's a bit of a forced segue), next up are the... Arizona Coyotes With the Kachina jerseys being used at home this year for the anniversary season, and with them probably coming back full-time in the near future if we're being honest, it occurred to me that we've only ever had the black and white versions of them. So here's the inaugural Coyotes jersey, now in red! I took a few liberties in "reversing" colors, for the sake of aesthetics: While the design's main reversal is swapping red and black, the kachina pattern's green border moves from below the pattern to above, so that it's still on the red side of things. The shoulder yoke's border, while originally red, has been made sand rather than black, since I find that the green and the black have a tendency to bleed together. And the red "L" shapes inside the kachina pattern stay red, to preserve the integrity of that design element. I briefly considered doing something with the monochrome redesign that came with the howling coyote head logo, but while there's something nice about those jerseys in their simplicity, I just found myself more drawn to making a red kachina jersey, rather than trying to "force" something onto that plain of a jersey design. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne9109 Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 Don't get me wrong I LOVE these as a design and would totally love to see these on the ice; I don't know if they would do three Kachina jerseys at once. I would actually like to see these become the home jersey over the original Kachina design. These seem like a great combination of both eras of the Coyotes. Great job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 17, 2021 Author Share Posted June 17, 2021 On 6/16/2021 at 5:13 PM, johne9109 said: Don't get me wrong I LOVE these as a design and would totally love to see these on the ice; I don't know if they would do three Kachina jerseys at once. I would actually like to see these become the home jersey over the original Kachina design. These seem like a great combination of both eras of the Coyotes. Great job Thanks! You're right that three differently-colored variations of the same jersey is too much, and I tend to roll my eyes if a team does it. But hearing that you could see this as the main home jersey is high praise and I'll take it! The next concept is for Arizona's desert neighbors to the north, the... Vegas Golden Knights My commentary on this one starts out the same was as my Washington concept: Vegas's red Thunder-inspired Reverse Retros are one of the league's best and was definitely the best choice of the options Vegas had from the city's hockey history. So since the the real-life jerseys pay homage to Vegas's first pro hockey team (or at least the first that had any multi-season staying power), I went with the most recent pre-NHL team, the Las Vegas Wranglers. Like many minor league teams, the Wranglers seem to have had a fair number of jerseys throughout their history, and less-than-complete documentation, but while it's sometimes a bit hard to tell which jerseys were specialty jerseys and which ones were primary, this red-and-white design was the team's last home-and-away set, and appears to have had a fair amount of longevity for the team. So while I acknowledge that my concept is not at all an improvement over the Knights' real Reverse Retros, this charcoal jersey with sparkly gold arms and hem and a unique name and number font is a more traditional-looking homage to the city's longest-tenured minor league team. (I'm realizing that the way I ordered the teams has unintentionally caused me to lead off with some of the "safer" and perhaps underwhelming designs, but there's a string of designs on deck for the weekend that are a little bit more unconventional, I promise!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 18, 2021 Author Share Posted June 18, 2021 Boston Bruins Boston provides this series with its first encounter (but certainly not its last) with the wild and wacky '90s, and the league's introduction of the third jersey program. The Bruins certainly have an expansive history of jersey designs, but they've already done throwbacks to many of them, so I figured I'd go the route Anaheim did in the real Reverse Retro program, and revisit this odd-one-out sweater. The original Pooh Bear sweater was of course yellow, and with the logo being black and dark brown, white seemed the only real option for a recolor. From the original design, yellow becomes white, white becomes black, and black becomes yellow, including the "BRUINS" shoulder patch. Some of the dimensions of the jagged stripes required just a little bit of adjustment to fit the Adizero template, particularly the shoulder yoke, which I imagine would be sublimated (was it also in the original version? I know the '95 third jersey program saw the introduction of sublimated designs, but I don't actually know if the Bruins jersey was one of them or not). The end result is a very bright design with minimal black, a look that certainly would stand out among the Bruins' jersey history! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 19, 2021 Author Share Posted June 19, 2021 Vancouver Canucks The Canucks have no shortage of past jerseys, but when they had their 50th anniversary poll in 2019-'20, I was definitely pulling for the infamous V jersey. Since it didn't win that time around, I'm using it for my Reverse Retro concept! For as bizarre a jersey as it was, I've always had a particular fondness for it (possibly just because I wasn't actually around for it, but Australian rules football being my other favorite sport also definitely plays a role, since a V design like this is quite traditional and common there). The jersey got yearly revisions aside from its last few seasons, so I put '78 as the Reverse Retro year since that was the first year of the V, but the jersey design is really that of 1982-'85, with the numbers finally moved from the wrists (one of the weirdest things about the design) to a more traditional arm location, with the team logo patch between the numbers and the V-stripes, and with both NOB and number being trimmed in a secondary color. The socks, however, are from the original 1978-'79 season's design. The colors are updated to the Canucks' current palette, same as they did for their real Reverse Retro. Using the black V jersey as my template, the black obviously becomes green, yellow becomes white, and red becomes blue. Along with updating the colors from '70s to modern, I replaced the arm logo with the present-day logo as well, and I went with blue equipment to avoid too much of a monochrome look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 20, 2021 Author Share Posted June 20, 2021 Because I can be somewhat indecisive at times, the next team has two concepts that I couldn't choose between. The first is a true Reverse Retro, while the other may be pushing the definition a bit by making a few edits to the base design, ultimately creating something that I'd considered more of a complementary jersey to the original than a straight Reverse Retro design. Buffalo Sabres I've seen lots of other concepts do blue-and-yellow "goat-head" jerseys, so instead of just doing another one of those, I flipped that script and gave the Sabres' original (and now current again) jersey design the black, red, and silver color scheme of the goat-head era. The original blue and yellow uniforms got occasional updates throughout their life from 1970-1996, with the thickness of the stripes being adjusted and the socks getting complete redesigns from time to time, so to keep things simple, I just used the current away jersey that was introduced this 2021 season, since it's essentially the same design but already ready-to-go on the Adizero template. I went with '96 as the Reverse Retro year, since '95-'96 was the end of this jersey design and '96-'97 was the introduction of this color scheme, and I used the '95-'96 sock striping, and the width of the jersey striping is about the same as that final iteration as well. Because the black-red-and-silver has one more color than the blue-and-yellow, I added silver between the black and red stripes, which was originally left white. Other than that, blue becomes black, and yellow becomes red. I also changed the pant stripes that were originally white to be silver, just to give that color another place to be included. The recoloring of the logo doesn't follow the exact same scheme for color replacement; I just went with what I felt looked best, and making the sabre blades silver seemed like a natural fit, so I started with that and did the rest from there. The second Sabres concept is sort of a Reverse Retro of the 2010-'12 40th anniversary jersey, but might be more accurately described as a white version of that blue jersey. The biggest change is of course the addition of a blue shoulder yoke with a yellow border; aside from the Buffaslug jerseys, Buffalo has always had colored shoulders on their white jerseys (the only other exceptions being the white 50th anniversary jersey, and of course the real-life Reverse Retro), so it fits as far as team tradition, and I felt that the white jersey did indeed look a bit bare without it, especially with such thin stripes. The other small alteration in changing this jersey from a blue design to a white design is making the stripes blue-yellow-blue; if I'd done a straight color replacement of the original design, the middle stripe would have been left white like the jersey's base, but that didn't seem colorful enough, and it would have left yellow severely underrepresented and made the jersey pretty unbalanced in my opinion. I took a lot of those cues from the 2018 Winter Classic jersey, which was itself heavily inspired by the 40th anniversary jersey, so the striping decision is lifted directly from that Winter Classic jersey, but the shoulder yoke having a border is more in line with other Sabres jerseys, and of course the crest and the colored nameplate are from the anniversary jersey. I always thought that the 40th anniversary jersey was a really strong design, with the beautiful wordmark crest, and I wish it had stuck around as a more permanent third jersey, especially considering that it was an original design drawing inspiration from a few different sources, rather than a direct throwback to a specific jersey of the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne9109 Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 On 6/18/2021 at 2:13 PM, WLD42 said: Boston Bruins Boston provides this series with its first encounter (but certainly not its last) with the wild and wacky '90s, and the league's introduction of the third jersey program. The Bruins certainly have an expansive history of jersey designs, but they've already done throwbacks to many of them, so I figured I'd go the route Anaheim did in the real Reverse Retro program, and revisit this odd-one-out sweater. The original Pooh Bear sweater was of course yellow, and with the logo being black and dark brown, white seemed the only real option for a recolor. From the original design, yellow becomes white, white becomes black, and black becomes yellow, including the "BRUINS" shoulder patch. Some of the dimensions of the jagged stripes required just a little bit of adjustment to fit the Adizero template, particularly the shoulder yoke, which I imagine would be sublimated (was it also in the original version? I know the '95 third jersey program saw the introduction of sublimated designs, but I don't actually know if the Bruins jersey was one of them or not). The end result is a very bright design with minimal black, a look that certainly would stand out among the Bruins' jersey history! I like this, but I wonder how it'd look with the black and yellow swapped on the striping. Either way I'd buy it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 21, 2021 Author Share Posted June 21, 2021 18 hours ago, johne9109 said: I like this, but I wonder how it'd look with the black and yellow swapped on the striping. Either way I'd buy it It'd look a little something like this! My thought process behind doing yellow in the initial version was to make a slightly more drastic change to the original '95 jersey by rotating all three colors; this one leaves the black in its original place, and just swaps yellow and white. It feels a little unbalanced to me, personally; on a white jersey, black accents on yellow feels more striking than yellow accents on black, and especially with the logo devoid of yellow (aside from the outline), it leaves me wanting yellow to have a bit larger of a role. But that's just one guy's opinion, and either way, they're both definitely very Bruins! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne9109 Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 4 hours ago, WLD42 said: It'd look a little something like this! My thought process behind doing yellow in the initial version was to make a slightly more drastic change to the original '95 jersey by rotating all three colors; this one leaves the black in its original place, and just swaps yellow and white. It feels a little unbalanced to me, personally; on a white jersey, black accents on yellow feels more striking than yellow accents on black, and especially with the logo devoid of yellow (aside from the outline), it leaves me wanting yellow to have a bit larger of a role. But that's just one guy's opinion, and either way, they're both definitely very Bruins! Now that I see both next to each other they both look like completely viable options. I get your reasoning for having the yellow be the predominant secondary color. It works; either one works. I'd take one of each. You're right both are very Bruins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 21, 2021 Author Share Posted June 21, 2021 30 minutes ago, johne9109 said: Now that I see both next to each other they both look like completely viable options. I get your reasoning for having the yellow be the predominant secondary color. It works; either one works. I'd take one of each. You're right both are very Bruins Yep, I agree; they both work in their own way, but looking at them side-by-side does allow for some comparison that ultimately comes down to splitting hairs, to some degree. Next up, from the last concept for Buffalo, we take a drive up the QEW to the... Toronto Maple Leafs To a degree, I understand why the Leafs came up with the real-life Reverse Retro that they did; how do you reverse a jersey when your club identity is just one color + white? (See also, Detroit Red Wings.) But while they went outside the box in terms of the jersey's design and ended up with a strange mish-mash of different elements (and added gray for some reason??), I went outside the box in a different direction. The jersey design introduced for the 1967 Stanley Cup run remains intact, but I recolored it with the green from the club's St. Pats days, which also remained the team color after rebranding as the Maple Leafs for the conclusion of the 1926-'27 season before switching to blue. It's maybe an unexpected choice, but given the St. Pats throwbacks that are still part of the Leafs' current branding, I felt it wasn't an unrealistic direction to take things. I went with the white '67 jersey partly because I'm a sucker for colored shoulder yokes, but also to partly call back to that 1927 jersey with the green leaf as the crest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johne9109 Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 1 hour ago, WLD42 said: Yep, I agree; they both work in their own way, but looking at them side-by-side does allow for some comparison that ultimately comes down to splitting hairs, to some degree. Next up, from the last concept for Buffalo, we take a drive up the QEW to the... Toronto Maple Leafs To a degree, I understand why the Leafs came up with the real-life Reverse Retro that they did; how do you reverse a jersey when your club identity is just one color + white? (See also, Detroit Red Wings.) But while they went outside the box in terms of the jersey's design and ended up with a strange mish-mash of different elements (and added gray for some reason??), I went outside the box in a different direction. The jersey design introduced for the 1967 Stanley Cup run remains intact, but I recolored it with the green from the club's St. Pats days, which also remained the team color after rebranding as the Maple Leafs for the conclusion of the 1926-'27 season before switching to blue. It's maybe an unexpected choice, but given the St. Pats throwbacks that are still part of the Leafs' current branding, I felt it wasn't an unrealistic direction to take things. I went with the white '67 jersey partly because I'm a sucker for colored shoulder yokes, but also to partly call back to that 1927 jersey with the green leaf as the crest. I like it (I actually really like it and that's a lot coming from a Bruins fan), but I wonder if the comparisons to a pot leaf would keep them from doing this. It's still a great design though and is infinitely better than what they came out with Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 23, 2021 Author Share Posted June 23, 2021 On 6/21/2021 at 5:14 PM, johne9109 said: I like it (I actually really like it and that's a lot coming from a Bruins fan), but I wonder if the comparisons to a pot leaf would keep them from doing this. It's still a great design though and is infinitely better than what they came out with Thanks! I wouldn't go so far as to say that green is underrepresented in the NHL, but any opportunity to use it is worth taking, because something about green sweaters on the ice just looks really, really good. I suppose one could maybe make that argument, but I'd like to think that a maple leaf and a pot leaf look different enough that it'd be a non-issue, not to mention, maple leaves are naturally green too! A green jersey with a white logo would look just as good if it really was a concern, but as I said in the original post, I like the call-back to the white 1927 jersey. Calgary Flames Blasty was definitely a smash hit IRL (even if he and Lady Liberty stretched the definition of "Reverse" Retro), but I decided I'd revisit the Flames' most unusual jersey, the "pedestal" design. This 1995 redesign saw the introduction of black as an accent color for Calgary, so I went and made it the base color for this Reverse Retro. The red and white jerseys were subtly different, with the red one having an additional thin red stripe to separate yellow and white from one another, and that red jersey is the design that I used for this one. We've got three colors bumping each other into new places: Red becomes black, black becomes white, and white becomes red, while yellow stays where it is. Because the Flames are never shy about recoloring their logo, I used a red Flaming C, since on both the red and the white originals, the logo matches the color of the arms and the largest stripe. Changing the pants and helmet to red is a bit of a bold look, and not one that I'd do if I were making a primary set, but I think it fits for a Reverse Retro uniform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 25, 2021 Author Share Posted June 25, 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning For my Tampa concept, I ended up going with the same jersey they used for their real Reverse Retro; the only other options were the 2007-'11 Edge jerseys (which are one of the weird template-y piping designs from that period, so not a good choice in my opinion), the blue and the black "BOLTS" third jerseys (also somewhat uninspiring designs to me, as well as being a bit too recent to be "retro"), and the infamous 1996-'99 sublimated storm jersey (which was my next best option, but I didn't want to go the Anaheim Wild Wing route for every team that had one of those '90s thirds). Ultimately, as I looked over my options, this was just the one I was most interested in doing. Gray jerseys seem to be a mini-trend of the moment for alternate jerseys, so I jumped on that train and made the jersey gray, rather than the blue that they did for the IRL Reverse Retro. The other difference is that rather than designate the Cup-winning year of 2004 as the Reverse Retro year, I went with the team's inaugural season of 1992, because I opted to go back to that unique NOB and number font, which is a really neat look and something of a missed opportunity if you ask me. (So if you wanted, you could argue that I'm technically not reusing the same jersey as they went with in real life!) As far as reversing/swapping colors, gray doesn't appear on the original jerseys' striping, just the logo and the letters/numbers; it also pops up in one stripe on the socks and of course as the lightning bolt's drop shadow on the pants. (And also the victory stripes!) So if we consider the white '92 jersey as our original, white and the gray from the font get swapped, and we also have white replace blue, blue replace black, and black disappear aside from its original location in the font and as the pants color. (Black also replaces the sock stripe that was originally gray, since otherwise it would've been reversed to white... next to another stripe that also got changed to white.) Pants are unchanged, and I went with a gray helmet because I'd consider this a "light" jersey as far as color matchups on the ice, so I followed the logic of white helmet with white jersey = gray helmet with gray jersey. (Though it's also a dark enough shade of gray that it could potentially be worn against opponents in dark or white jerseys without causing any issues.) With the logo using all of the team's colors, I decided not to try and move any of them around and leave the logo as-is, with the gray-backgrounded roundel on a gray-base jersey just being a quirk of this design. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WSU151 Posted June 25, 2021 Share Posted June 25, 2021 I think the Flames set would look better with black helmets and pants (really like the jersey though). Similarly, the Lightning set would look better with black helmets and pants, or blue helmets and pants. Smart is believing half of what you hear. Genius is knowing which half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WLD42 Posted June 26, 2021 Author Share Posted June 26, 2021 12 hours ago, WSU151 said: I think the Flames set would look better with black helmets and pants (really like the jersey though). Similarly, the Lightning set would look better with black helmets and pants, or blue helmets and pants. Fair enough point on both counts. Especially in Calgary's case, I knew I was maybe pushing it with the red equipment, but the Reverse Retros felt like as appropriate a place as any to give it a shot, just for funsies. The red pants and helmet definitely stood out though, and I can admit that it maybe wasn't necessarily in a good way. I double-checked gray jerseys throughout the years in the NHL, and it doesn't look like there's ever been a gray helmet, so I'm happy to change that for the Lightning. I tried matching the helmet and the pants, both in blue and in black like you suggested, but something just didn't look right about the black helmet (which surprised me; with so little black remaining in the uniform, I thought a black helmet would balance it, but it just wasn't doing it for me and I couldn't tell you why), and I didn't care for the pants in blue either, so I went with leaving the pants black and making the helmet blue. I know you're "supposed to" have the helmet match the pants (unless you're the NY Rangers, apparently), but I've already broken that rule a couple times in this series, and there are a few other ones later on that do so as well. (Though I'll always be willing to be talked out of it!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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