2022-2023 NHL Jersey Changes

[Chromatic]

13 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

I can't really get a read on the Canucks fanbase as far as what they want. It seems like they're never happy with what they have, and no matter what the current look they just want some sort of throwback. It seemed like the switch back to royal & green 15 years ago was a unanimous hit, but all of a sudden in the last few years people want to bring back the skate logo full time. On twitter I've even started seeing some replies hoping for a return to the West Coast Express era colour scheme.

The majority of Canucks fans are very happy with the current look and want more than anything for the team to finally settle on an identity and stop screwing around with the uniforms.

 

The issue is that the team has had so many looks that there are vocal minority camps of people advocating for the one they want in particular, creating a lot more artificial noise around the subject than there really is. And the look they want in particular is almost always the one the team wore when they got into following the Canucks or feel some sort of nostalgia for, not because they like it for the design merits.

 

You also have a lot of non-Canuck fans hyping up the skate because we’re in an era that’s fetishizing 90s nostalgia and it’s “fire bro, lit AF”, so I don’t really care what they have to say on the subject. When the team wore the navy and maroon Orca people did the same thing with the blue and green stick. When they went back to blue and green, people did the same thing with the millionaires. It’s just trendy.

 

 

[PlayGloria]

10 minutes ago, Chromatic said:

The majority of Canucks fans are very happy with the current look and want more than anything for the team to finally settle on an identity and stop screwing around with the uniforms.

 

The issue is that the team has had so many looks that there are vocal minority camps of people advocating for the one they want in particular, creating a lot more artificial noise around the subject than there really is. And the look they want in particular is almost always the one the team wore when they got into following the Canucks or feel some sort of nostalgia for, not because they like it for the design merits.

 

You also have a lot of non-Canuck fans hyping up the skate because we’re in an era that’s fetishizing 90s nostalgia and it’s “fire bro, lit AF”, so I don’t really care what they have to say on the subject. When the team wore the navy and maroon Orca people did the same thing with the blue and green stick. When they went back to blue and green, people did the same thing with the millionaires. It’s just trendy.

 

 

 

 

My issue with the current Orca is it's origin. It was made in reference to Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment who owned them at the time. So not only was it a huge departure from any other previous branding, it also doesn't really represent the team name. It represents the owners of the franchise at that time. Once I learned that, it has always just felt too corporatized to me. 

 

All this being said, I'm not sure any of their previous logos are very good either. I love the nostalgia of all of them, but all of them seem flawed in a way. I think one thing that should absolutely stay is the blue/green color scheme and balance they are currently using. It's sharp and clean. The crest is really my only issue but I have no solution to offer to fix it. 

 

 

[Chromatic]

2 minutes ago, PlayGloria said:

 

 

My issue with the current Orca is it's origin. It was made in reference to Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment who owned them at the time. So not only was it a huge departure from any other previous branding, it also doesn't really represent the team name. It represents the owners of the franchise at that time. Once I learned that, it has always just felt too corporatized to me. 

 

All this being said, I'm not sure any of their previous logos are very good either. I love the nostalgia of all of them, but all of them seem flawed in a way. I think one thing that should absolutely stay is the blue/green color scheme and balance they are currently using. It's sharp and clean. The crest is really my only issue but I have no solution to offer to fix it. 

 

 

The Canucks have never really had a truly good logo, so people just pick their flawed favourite.

 

I started following the Canucks during the West Coast Express years with the navy, royal and red look, and I do feel a pretty strong sense of nostalgia when I see those uniforms. However I recognize they’re inferior in pretty much every way.

 

My biggest thing is keeping the actual uniform design they have right now. The striping is perfect. The colours are perfect, the logo and font aren’t great but I’d hate for them to switch to something more generic and less locally fitting because it’s trendy, because I guarantee you within a few years there would be a groundswell of people clamouring for this look, because that’s what happens every time.

 

I think the solution that would please the most people is to keep the current home and away as is and leave the skates in rotation as a third.

[Ridleylash]

The only real gripe I have with the Canucks' look at this point is their insistence on keeping Agency around as their team font; other than that, I think they've hit the perfect balance, and changing again would just be rebranding for the sake of rebranding.

[Chromatic]

6 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

The only real gripe I have with the Canucks' look at this point is their insistence on keeping Agency around as their team font; other than that, I think they've hit the perfect balance, and changing again would just be rebranding for the sake of rebranding.

Yup. I also hate the toilet seat half collars.

 

In the end though I’m okay with it because every time you open the door to them changing the uniforms you run the risk of them ruining what is ultimately a really good look by overthinking everything.

[Mingjai]

17 hours ago, M4One said:

 

This jersey would only rank above the flying V.  Giant front numbers and a wordmark do not belong in hockey.  

 

2 hours ago, chcarlson23 said:

Clearly you’ve never watched any college hockey…

 

 

Wonder how he feels about diagonal letters or cursive word marks… 

[VancouverFan69]

4 hours ago, Sport said:

 

I wanted this Johnny

 

 

I also prefer the current skating Johnny Canuck but as a Reverse Retro, the original WHL version had to be used.  That's the JC logo that was used back on their early 60's sweaters along with the striping.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see a future navy blue or a green 3rd jersey with the current version of JC.

[Ridleylash]

5 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

I wouldn't be surprised to see a future navy blue or a green 3rd jersey with the current version of JC.

That'd mean prying the skate from the fanbase's hands, and we all know how that'd go lmao

[AFirestormToPurify]

On 7/24/2022 at 11:38 AM, IceCap said:

The Jackets may be a younger franchise but between their nickname and locale it feels like they could have been around longer. They're in the hockey hotbed that is the Great Lakes region, their name references the fricken Civil War... yeah. Sure. Absolutely. They can pull off the fauxback look. Florida? Not so much. 

Yeah such a classy and timeless franchise. Could have sworn they'd been around since the 1700s when they starting wearing that generic pseudo-retro trendy cashgrab alternate lol

You're grasping at straws

"Loud, bright jerseys and agressive logo" You sure you're talking about the Panthers?

 

[M4One]

4 hours ago, chcarlson23 said:

Clearly you’ve never watched any college hockey…

 

 

 

Is this the college hockey thread?  Even then, I still say wordmarks don't belong on the front of a hockey jersey.

[M4One]

2 hours ago, Mingjai said:

 

Wonder how he feels about diagonal letters or cursive word marks… 

 

No professional team should use a wordmark or diagonal letters on their jerseys instead of an actual logo.  The Rangers get grandfathered in, but they are the only team.  Even Pittsburgh, unless it's their retro jersey, should not have a jersey with diagonal letters on it.  Why go through all the trouble of coming up with a logo, but not put it on the jersey?  

[monkeypower]

1 hour ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

 

 

Apropo of nothing, and I am probably just showing my childhood nostalgia, there is something about the Stinger logos and the original Blue Jackets logo/brand that I miss.

I don't think they are all that good of logos, but I like them.

 

Looking at the NHL shop right now, there's a decent amount of clothing with this logo on it.

[Sport]

1 hour ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

Yeah such a classy and timeless franchise. Could have sworn they'd been around since the 1700s when they starting wearing that generic pseudo-retro trendy cashgrab alternate lol

You're grasping at straws

"Loud, bright jerseys and agressive logo" You sure you're talking about the Panthers?

 

 

That logo from 1997 using navy blue and light blue together demonstrates that it wasn't a completely out-of-nowhere color scheme for the Blue Jackets to use for an alternate. That combined with the Union soldier's uniform I already shared and you can see more meaning behind it than the Panthers alternate of the same time. The Panthers alternate was 100% "And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp." 

 

Also that's a humorously deliberate misreading of Icecap's point. 

[uniformity]

15 hours ago, Sport said:

 

I wanted this Johnny

 

I hate the modern logo. It's ugly, poorly executed and poorly researched. The head is based on a caricature which was never stitched on a Canuck uniform or used in print. It somehow was plastered all over the internet after being uploaded to hockeydb years ago. This thing was not the WHL Canucks logo:

 

 

I think people like the idea of these Canuck logos, not the actual renderings.

 

 

 

[IceCap]

17 hours ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

"Loud, bright jerseys and agressive logo" You sure you're talking about the Panthers?

You didn't even post a logo they wore on their jerseys. And you're accusing me of grasping at straws

 

The Beej' neon green days are a bit of an aberration in the grand scheme of their identity. Since those early days they've been leaning into the Civil War and Ohio imagery. 

 

I mean the Wild are their expansion cousins and their entire brand is Olde Tymed Iced Hockey. No one seems to care except for the people who can't accept that the North Stars aren't coming back. 

 

Columbus isn't as much of a traditional hockey hotbed as the Twin Cities are, but again... Great Lakes region, old time-y nickname... they can make faux retro work. 

 

What do you want? Force them to wear neon green forever as a monument to the sin of being founded in the early 2000s? 

[MrOrange]

22 hours ago, Chromatic said:

The majority of Canucks fans are very happy with the current look and want more than anything for the team to finally settle on an identity and stop screwing around with the uniforms.

 

The issue is that the team has had so many looks that there are vocal minority camps of people advocating for the one they want in particular, creating a lot more artificial noise around the subject than there really is. And the look they want in particular is almost always the one the team wore when they got into following the Canucks or feel some sort of nostalgia for, not because they like it for the design merits.

 

You also have a lot of non-Canuck fans hyping up the skate because we’re in an era that’s fetishizing 90s nostalgia and it’s “fire bro, lit AF”, so I don’t really care what they have to say on the subject. When the team wore the navy and maroon Orca people did the same thing with the blue and green stick. When they went back to blue and green, people did the same thing with the millionaires. It’s just trendy.

 

 

 

 

I'm a Canucks supporter and I prefer their 80s colors - which I grew up with -  especially like their 85-89 dark jersey design but I prefer the Orca logo over all others by far.

 

Thus this years First Nation themed merch was almost made for me

 

Too bad there wasn't an official jersey though*

 

*other than the player issued warm up ones, that if somehow available, would be still way above my means.

 

[bowld]

As a Canucks fan myself, I like the current colors but prefer the Bure/Linden Era colors the best. 

[Sport]

18 hours ago, monkeypower said:

 

Apropo of nothing, and I am probably just showing my childhood nostalgia, there is something about the Stinger logos and the original Blue Jackets logo/brand that I miss.

I don't think they are all that good of logos, but I like them.

 

Looking at the NHL shop right now, there's a decent amount of clothing with this logo on it.

 

CJB

 

Never loved this logo. It's a ribbon (I think?), it's busy, the initials are in the wrong order, etc. It's a big nothing. I think the second primary does a much better job trying to do a similar thing.

 

I think if we could do it again and had to stay with the Civil War theme then there's a lot better names they could've gone with than Blue Jackets, which is too long, too obscure, and too curricular. It doesn't roll off the tongue. It doesn't sound good. I would name the team something other than Blue Jackets like Columbus Cavalry, Columbus Cannons, Columbus Brigade, etc. 

[tBBP]

25 minutes ago, Sport said:

 

CJB

 

Never loved this logo. It's a ribbon (I think?), it's busy, the initials are in the wrong order, etc. It's a big nothing. I think the second primary does a much better job trying to do a similar thing.

 

I think if we could do it again and had to stay with the Civil War theme then there's a lot better names they could've gone with than Blue Jackets, which is too long, too obscure, and too curricular. It doesn't roll off the tongue. It doesn't sound good. I would name the team something other than Blue Jackets like Columbus Cavalry, Columbus Cannons, Columbus Brigade, etc. 

 

I think Cavalry could work due obviously to the military tie, but also due to alliteration (and I, personally, do love me some good alliteration). Admittedly I'd have to do some more research into the history of the Ohio military, particularly around the time of the Civil War, to get a more accurate read on things before making any of my own team name suggestions.

 

I will say this, though--and I don't know if this was their thought process back then or not: considering some people may still be a bit uncomfortable about certain particulars of the Civil War era (more so when you start digging into the details), not to mention to add a little fun into it, I think the Stinger was sort of a bone thrown at lightening up a brand with probably more serious undertones, not to mention a play on "yellow jackets", itself also a bee/hornet/wasp/whatever. (And while we're on this, let's acknowledge the Beej for being the first major pro sports club to use lime greem/volt in their colorway. ) I guess TL;DR: a doggone lime-green bee/hornet/wasp/whatever dressed up in Civil War-era military garb is about as fun an identity as one can get with a name like that. Part of me wishes Stinger was still around.

 

And now that I think about it...I'm curious as to what a navy, slate blue (or whatever that lighter blue is called), off-white and volt colorway would look like for the Beej...

[WSU151]

Blue Jackets was not only a play on Yellow Jackets, but also was based on the Augusta Green Jackets' popularity in MiLB, no? 

 

I enjoy seeing Stinger on goalie masks and other tertiary items even if neon green/volt no longer fits the identity.