Indigo Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 So...question. As someone who is rather ignorant to sports not named basketball or football, I'd like to know what you guys consider basic knowledge for a hockey uniform fan. I'm hoping you guys can give me a crash course in hockey aesthetics (hence the thread name). Here are a few questions: What do tradional jerseys look like? What do modern jerseys look like? What is the Edge template, and why do we hate it? Who has the best uniforms in the league? Who has the worst? What is the best looking ice (court?) design? Do any of the design principals of bball and football apply to hockey? why or why not? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
officeglenn Posted September 16, 2022 Share Posted September 16, 2022 6 hours ago, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What do traditional jerseys look like? Solid colour jerseys with straight horizontal striping along the hem and at the elbows. Solid colour breezers (pants, but really shorts?) with straight striping down the sides. Solid colour socks with straight horizontal striping around the shin/calf. Bonus points if all the stripes match. Logo on the front, smaller numbers on the sleeves, bigger numbers on the back with names above. Captain's "C" or alternate captain's "A" on the upper left chest (player's left, not the viewer's). Shoulder yokes are also pretty traditional, as are stripes around the chest (though Montreal really owns that look in thr NHL). Block fonts for names and numbers. Quote What do modern jerseys look like? A lot more curved lines or stripes/shapes that taper to points. Mismatched striping, or stripes that get cut off in weird ways and places. Piping. Non-block name/number fonts. Vertical stripes. Numbers on the shoulders. Quote What is the Edge template, and why do we hate it? When Reebok took over the manufacturing of NHL jerseys in 2007, the company moved all teams to its Edge template. The template was a lot tighter of a fit than previous jerseys. It resulted in just about every team in the league redesigning its jerseys, and mostly not for the better. Its panels and seams meant that a lot of traditional uniform elements got thrown out the window. For other teams, it led to striping that just ended for no reason. Compare some of the designs from 2006-07 to those from 2007-08. Some of the biggest downgrades, IMO were Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton and Philadelphia. Quote Who has the best uniforms in the league? Who has the worst? Totally subjective. Have a look and see what you like the best. Quote What is the best looking ice (court?) design? A lot of ice designs are the same: Large logo at centre ice, not extending beyond the circle. Sure, circular logos like the Oilers probably look best in that configuration, but plenty of others look nice enough. Some teams have experimented with a logo on either side of the centre line, one facing the TV cameras and one facing the other way. Lots of teams are now adding embellishments to the red centre line as well. It's a nice touch, but most can't really be seen unless you're close up. Quote Do any of the design principals of bball and football apply to hockey? why or why not? Not really. Each of those sports is kind of its own thing, mostly because form follows function. Hockey teams tend to only use one breezer design for both home and away, so you might get "monochrome" more often than in other sports. But there's enough striping on the jerseys and socks to break it up and not make it seem as monochrome. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echo Posted September 17, 2022 Share Posted September 17, 2022 When Reebok originally designed the Edge system they intended for the jerseys to be tucked in to the pants. That's why so many of the original Edge designs did not have hem stripes. When players began to test the new uniform system they learned that tucking jerseys in trapped too much heat, so that idea was (thankfully) quickly abandoned. Additionally, the materials used for the first version of the Edge uniforms trapped more moisture from sweat than the previous jerseys did, which lead to sweat pooling in players' gloves. About halfway through the '07-08 season they switched to a slightly different template, which was a little looser and more moisture-wicking. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sky1324 Posted September 17, 2022 Share Posted September 17, 2022 2 minutes ago, Echo said: When Reebok originally designed the Edge system they intended for the jerseys to be tucked in to the pants. That's why so many of the original Edge designs did not have hem stripes. Isn't this also why the hems are curved like dress shirts? Quote the user formerly known as cdclt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echo Posted September 17, 2022 Share Posted September 17, 2022 10 minutes ago, CDCLT said: Isn't this also why the hems are curved like dress shirts? I would assume so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chcarlson23 Posted September 19, 2022 Share Posted September 19, 2022 Quote What do tradional jerseys look like? Traditional sweaters usually have vertical stripes on the sleeves and then across the hem, with a logo front and center for most NHL teams, (College hockey, high school hockey, and other lower tier hockey tend to have jerseys with wordmarks and sometimes numbers on the front. See Boston University, and look up Hermantown hockey, or Edina hockey, two high school hockey powerhouses in Minnesota). And a lot of traditional hockey sweaters will have shoulder yokes as well. Shoulder patches are also typically included on both shoulders. The big thing about traditional sweaters is that the peak design era of this “traditional” style is probably around the 60’s to the 80’s. Before this, the patterns on jerseys were often closer to what’s called the Barberpole style, and stripes were just every where. Take a look at the Chicago Blackhawks of the 40’s and 50’s and then look at them again in the 60’s. NHLUniforms.com is a great place to look at the past styles and designs. Some very traditional designs in the NHL today are the Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Of course, these are the “Original 6” teams, and will look the most classic. But other teams like the Buffalo Sabres and Calgary Flames both have really traditional uniform styles rn. Quote What do modern jerseys look like? Modern jerseys tend to in a sense, chase trends. Unique little details in the jerseys, like patterns in the stripes, custom number fonts, and usually curved, non-typical striping is included. See the Washington Capitals or Nashville Predators. But one of the newest trends on new uniform designs is heavier striping on the arms, and a little less on the hems. The Kraken, Golden Knights, and the Ducks third jersey follow this design style. That’s another trend that modern styles tend to follow, they’ll be missing tail stripes. See the New Jersey Devils, and the San Jose Sharks now previous set. The Sharks went as far as saying that the hem stripes added more weight and slowed players down, which of course is ridiculous. A lot of the reasoning with that is actually from the Edge template. Quote What is the Edge template, and why do we hate it? The Reebok Edge template was a new style of cut for hockey jerseys. They debuted when Reebok took over the NHL jersey manufacturing in 2007. (Ironically, CCM, the previous manufacturer, was owned by Reebok at the time, and both were owned by Adidas, the current manufacturer. Adidas is stepping down in a couple of years, and while most people are quick to assume Nike, CCM is actually owned by someone other than Adidas now, so don’t sleep on them.) It was much tighter, suppose to be better at moisture wicking, and the jerseys were designed to be tucked in. They even had rounded hems, similar to dress shirts that get tucked in. This lead to many NHL teams removing hem stripes on their sweaters, going to side panels, piping, faux-shoulder yokes, or some weird combo of all of them. Some teams even kept their previous designs, but only took off the hem stripes. A lot of people hated the lack of hem stripes, and the NHL even banned tucking in jerseys a handful of years ago, rendering the curved hem useless. Some teams quickly added back the hem stripes like the Maple Leafs, but many teams stuck with bad designs for a while. The other problem was the actual TEMPLATE that Reebok presented to people. It was literally click-n-fill unless teams said otherwise. The now-moved Thrashers’ road jersey was the same template as the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Penguins, Senators, and Lightning all had the same style jersey. (which was ridiculously ugly. It had colored under arms, and a blob of color on top as the “stripe”. It also had some weird back triangles that could be randomly colored at a teams digression.) So while the edge uniform cut was actually really nice once teams had the freedom to create their own looks, it was really bad to start, because it ruined the hockey aesthetic, trying to push random patches of color on the jerseys, rather than just some cut modifications. Quote Who has the best uniforms in the league? It’s totally opinionated, but some of the best are the Habs, Rangers, Red Wings, and Blackhawks. I personally also really like the Wild, Islanders, and Sabres sweaters. Quote Who has the worst? Also opinionated, but I would have to say someone like the Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators, or the New Jersey Devils. Quote What is the best looking ice (court?) design? Most teams only put their main logo across the center ice face off circle, and they’ll maybe change that up for an anniversary logo. Some teams like the Vegas Golden Knights have a lot of extra flourish on their center ice logo, but it can be hard to follow the puck if designs on the ice get too complicated. So most teams have fairly blank designs. Quote Do any of the design principals of bball and football apply to hockey? why or why not? And not 100%. Maybe in the sense of a traditional design for football including stripes on the sleeves, but otherwise their just very, very different sports. In basketball it’s considered ugly to have shorts that don’t match, but that’s not the case in hockey. In fact, white breezers (the hockey pants) are just about the ugliest thing teams can wear. And there are a lot of teams that have breezers that are their third color, and they wear these on the home and road. The Blackhawks wear black breezers with their red home jersey and their white road sweater. This certainly wouldn’t happen in basketball, and only sometimes in football, like with the Packers and Steelers. Another element is the gloves and socks of full sets as well. Teams typically wear one pair of gloves all across the board, but teams like the Golden Knights have experimented with different home and road gloves. And the socks of most teams generally match the base of the jerseys, but their are some notable exceptions. The Bruins traditionally have worn gold socks with their home blacks, despite changing to black socks a few years ago. The Anaheim Ducks also have socks that are more orange than black for their home look. Helmets also are typically the same color whatever’s darker, the breezers or the jersey. So the Rangers wear red breezers, but have blue helmets at home, while the Blackhawks wear black helmets with their red homes, matching their black breezers. And white helmets always go with white jerseys. At least in the NHL. At really low levels, or for teams that play a small number of games, like international tournaments, you’ll see only one color helmet between all the sets. Most teams will go with dark, but it depends on the aesthetics of the team. USA hockey has been known to rock the white buckets with their dark jerseys for a while now, and the Edina Hornets, (MN high school hockey) also tend to wear their white helmets with their green jerseys, which themselves have a lot of white. When you get to College hockey, a lotta teams also tend to have one helmet. Many will match their football program, with teams like Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn state, all employing stripes that mimic their football programs classic look, but other programs like the Minnesota Golden Gophers only wear gold helmets with all of their sweaters. (And yes, those are all Big Ten hockey teams ) Hopefully this is a good amount of information on the aesthetics of hockey!! 4 1 Quote "And those who know Your Name put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalms 9:10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnPheitseog Posted September 19, 2022 Share Posted September 19, 2022 A lot of what I would have said has been said above, but I want to focus on the EDGE question. There's nothing wrong with the edge jerseys per say. EDGE 1.0 was awful with the new materials, but 2.0 went back to traditional materials and was much better. The issue was that reebok forced template onto teams, and many teams looked awful as a result. However, the majority of these were fixed by the end of the edge cycle. 3 Quote Formerly known as DiePerske Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartacat_12 Posted September 19, 2022 Share Posted September 19, 2022 On 9/16/2022 at 5:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What is the Edge template, and why do we hate it? One of the things people hated the most was that Reebok pushed their new templates on teams, so there were a few who ended up with almost identical designs, just in different colours. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTConcepts Posted September 20, 2022 Share Posted September 20, 2022 Here are a bunch of examples for my visual learners out there. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What do tradional jerseys look like? Straight stripes on the arms and waist, and only two-to-three colors. The teams below (Blackhawks, Rangers, Canadiens) are the gold standard of classic, traditional jerseys in the league. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What do modern jerseys look like? Experimental color palettes, sublimated striping patterns, and — more recently — the inclusion of black as a base color. These three alternate jerseys encompass the new definition of "modern" in the Adidas era. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What is the Edge template, and why do we hate it? The 'Edge' templates were a bunch of overly modern and frankly bad looking looks introduced by Reebok when they took over as the league's jersey manufacturer in 2007. The post above did a good job summarizing the overall Edge templates, but here are three teams that all had their looks ruined by the Reebok Edge program. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: Who has the best uniforms in the league? That's a bit subjective, but these are my top three. I tried not to go with any classical looks that haven't been changed in the last 40 years, like the Blackhawks/Rangers/Canadiens/etc. These three jerseys (Avalanche, Wild, Coyotes) are all pretty popular among fans and jersey enthusiasts alike. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: Who has the worst? Again, subjective, but these are my bottom three. None of these jerseys are really all that bad, but they could all certainly be better. Adidas has done a pretty good job of giving NHL teams solid looks, but there are still some teams lagging behind. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What is the best looking ice (court?) design? Unlike football and basketball, hockey teams don't really have much ability to customize their playing surfaces. Aside from putting their logo at center ice and adding a pattern to the center red line, NHL ice surfaces are all pretty standardized. I do like the way the Rangers incorporate their logo, arena name, and brand at center ice without following the "Logo in the middle, arena name around the outside" template 99% of the league uses. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: Do any of the design principals of bball and football apply to hockey? why or why not? Truth be told, I can't answer this one. I'm in the inverse situation as you, in that I'm only familiar with hockey aesthetics and I'm clueless on most every other sport. Everybody above me had solid analyses, but I hope these visuals helped solidify what's already been said. 1 1 Quote "You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mingjai Posted September 21, 2022 Share Posted September 21, 2022 Vintage Minnesota Hockey storefront has some good examples of the evolution non-NHL jersey aesthetics: https://classicmnhockey.com/collections/frontpage https://classicmnhockey.com/collections/classic-mn-gophers-hockey-jerseys-1 Their history section also has some great charts showing the jersey evolution of Minnesota’s 4 primary hockey universities (sorry Bemidji and St. Thomas): Minnesota Minnesota-Duluth St. Cloud State Minnesota St.—Mankato 1 Quote Visit my store on REDBUBBLE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealPepman Posted September 28, 2022 Share Posted September 28, 2022 On 9/19/2022 at 9:51 AM, spartacat_12 said: One of the things people hated the most was that Reebok pushed their new templates on teams, so there were a few who ended up with almost identical designs, just in different colours. I'd like to agree, except we've seen instances of "same template, different teams" for traditional hockey jerseys. Like: Ok, the positioning of some elements may be different, but they basically look the same so my point still stands. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colinturner95 Posted September 28, 2022 Share Posted September 28, 2022 On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: What is the best looking ice (court?) design? DTConcepts touched on this pretty good, but a lot of teams have gone to customizing their red line at center ice: Arizona using their Kachina pattern from their jerseys. Vegas using their jersey stripe pattern as well on their red line, though that one might be a few seasons old by now. Those are just a couple examples. But its's pretty difficult for an NHL to really customize their playing surface. On 9/16/2022 at 3:50 PM, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said: Do any of the design principals of bball and football apply to hockey? why or why not? Basketball is different because the lack of sleeves usually means you'll end up with side panel designs. But football and hockey both agree to a point that vertical panels up the sides is usually not well received. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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