Flyers question

[AndrewG70]

Is it just me, or do the Flyers actually wear two different shades of orange? It looks like the orange on their primary home uniforms is of a more pale shade, while the orange on their black alternates and white roads is of a brighter shade. Can any of my friends in the City of Brotherly Love (and the Eastern Conference champions) confirm this?

[uniformity]

The original Flyers uniforms were a totally different shade of orange. Actually, I don't think they were very orange at all, they were definitely more red. I don't know about the new uniforms however.

I've also noticed that the colours for the Canucks are really off. The current uniforms do not use the same palette as the throwback. The green on the reebok jerseys has more blue in it but it looks almost olive on nhluniforms.com. The yellow used on the Canucks from 1992 onward also needs to be fixed. It had a lot more green in it.

[capn89]

The orange on their current home (orange) jerseys is brighter. Not "neon" but considerably brighter. The road (white) and alternate (black) have darker shades of orange.

[BBTV]

The current home is annoyingly white. The previous poster was correct that back in the day, the orange was more reddish, but I think that was due to the solid poly used for the uniform (they didn't wear wide-holed mesh or air knit until relatively late after other teams had adopted it.) They may have worn the mesh when they were made by Eagle, but when they were CCM, they were the super-thick poly up until around the Lindros era, and there's a noticeable change in orange around that time (not saying the official shade changed, just the way it looked.)

But yeah - the orange on the white and black jerseys certainly appears to be different than on the orange homes.

[uniformity]

Actually, I believe the current home nails the colour of the flyers jerseys of the same style from the early 80's. The orange had more of a washed out look then - or brighter - less saturated.

They changed the orange again when they introduced the new set in 1982.

[TruColor]

These things rarely match up to the actual fabrics used, but prior to the 1999-2000 season, the Orange used in print was as follows:

...and in 1999-2000, it changed to this:

[philly97flyer]

Yes the Orange on the home jersey and Winter Classic jersey is brighter than the others and yes it drives me out of my effing mind. The logo with the thin white outline and straight edged wings also bothers me. Throw the real logo on there, darken the orange and youll have the true 70's look that they were going for. Oh well, itll look great with that SCF patch on there

[totc]

In the CCM era, the Flyers' orange almost became a burnt orange for the $50 fan jerseys. I think that was a lack of quality control, however.

[capn89]

Yes the Orange on the home jersey and Winter Classic jersey is brighter than the others and yes it drives me out of my effing mind. The logo with the thin white outline and straight edged wings also bothers me. Throw the real logo on there, darken the orange and youll have the true 70's look that they were going for. Oh well, itll look great with that SCF patch on there

I think the straighter-winged logo looks 100% better than the more curvy, not to mention the logo looks awful with a black outline. I also like the brighter orange. I think it's time for teams to move away from these darker "how close to black can we make blue/red/orange/etc" colors.

[TheOldRoman]

I have nothing to add to this conversation, but I wish the Flyers would go back to their 90's look. Both current sets are awful. The home set is so dated that they would be fun for a one off promotion, but are silly as a full time look. They might as well have screen printed the numbers and used thin mesh with giant holes. I saw the 90's look as a natural progression from the 70's look; a clean updated version.

[BBTV]

Yes the Orange on the home jersey and Winter Classic jersey is brighter than the others and yes it drives me out of my effing mind. The logo with the thin white outline and straight edged wings also bothers me. Throw the real logo on there, darken the orange and youll have the true 70's look that they were going for. Oh well, itll look great with that SCF patch on there

I think the straighter-winged logo looks 100% better than the more curvy, not to mention the logo looks awful with a black outline. I also like the brighter orange. I think it's time for teams to move away from these darker "how close to black can we make blue/red/orange/etc" colors.

I too prefer the straight-wing logo, but I'd say it's only around 45% better. It absolutely looks better on the white jersey without an outline. When I was a kid, you couldn't get replica jerseys that didn't have the white outline, and I always went crazy when I saw someone in an authentic, because you could point it out right away (in those days, it was extremely rare to see an authentic hockey jersey. There were only a couple of places that even carried them.)

[capn89]

Yes the Orange on the home jersey and Winter Classic jersey is brighter than the others and yes it drives me out of my effing mind. The logo with the thin white outline and straight edged wings also bothers me. Throw the real logo on there, darken the orange and youll have the true 70's look that they were going for. Oh well, itll look great with that SCF patch on there

I think the straighter-winged logo looks 100% better than the more curvy, not to mention the logo looks awful with a black outline. I also like the brighter orange. I think it's time for teams to move away from these darker "how close to black can we make blue/red/orange/etc" colors.

I too prefer the straight-wing logo, but I'd say it's only around 45% better. It absolutely looks better on the white jersey without an outline. When I was a kid, you couldn't get replica jerseys that didn't have the white outline, and I always went crazy when I saw someone in an authentic, because you could point it out right away (in those days, it was extremely rare to see an authentic hockey jersey. There were only a couple of places that even carried them.)

When I had the old CCM/KOHO style (Lindros era - replicas) jerseys (and started getting into jersey designs and logos and such) the black outline on the white jersey always bothered me. I'm glad they didn't do that with the new RBK ones.

[SteveR]

There's definitely a noticeable red lean in the current orange. (The Netscape named color orangered comes to mind)

With the shift to the WC jersey as the full-time road, the difference should be less noticeable.

BTW, they did the right thing in going to orange as the primary home jersey. The Flyers, to my eye, are an orange team, not a black team.

Imagine the Rangers wearing red jerseys. Yeah, it's in the palette, but they gotta be blue.

[BBTV]

Orange is better for them because monochrome really sucks as a home uniform in hockey IMO. I hate watching an all black (clothed) team play an all white (clothed) team all the time. Actually, I think mono red and blue suck too as home uniforms. There's just something better to me (in hockey anyway) about having contrast between the sweater, pants, and socks. Just go back to white at home, please!!

[SteveR]

Orange is better for them because monochrome really sucks as a home uniform in hockey IMO. I hate watching an all black (clothed) team play an all white (clothed) team all the time. Actually, I think mono red and blue suck too as home uniforms. There's just something better to me (in hockey anyway) about having contrast between the sweater, pants, and socks. Just go back to white at home, please!!

You got a good point. For me, mono-white (in football) isn't as irritating as the other colors but the rest just tests my ability to look at the game for long stretches. (Fave teams excepted).

I like the hockey variety even more when the helmet is included, like the Flyers' black helmet with orange jersey and black pants, the Caps' blue-red-blue, and Blackhawks, Sharks, Habs, etc.

BTW, think they'll ever scale back to a point where there's only one helmet for both road and home?

[philly97flyer]

This is the logo and shade of orange the Flyers should use to make their uniforms perfect, and ditch the black nameplate on the white jerseys.

[The_Admiral]

Yes the Orange on the home jersey and Winter Classic jersey is brighter than the others and yes it drives me out of my effing mind. The logo with the thin white outline and straight edged wings also bothers me. Throw the real logo on there, darken the orange and youll have the true 70's look that they were going for. Oh well, itll look great with that SCF patch on there

I think the straighter-winged logo looks 100% better than the more curvy, not to mention the logo looks awful with a black outline. I also like the brighter orange. I think it's time for teams to move away from these darker "how close to black can we make blue/red/orange/etc" colors.

The best part of this exchange is that each guy has his preferred version of the Flyers' crest as an avatar.

[Timaa]

http://www.flyershistory.com/cgi-bin/jerseyhistory.cgi

Febuary 7th, 1966, the group heading an expansion bid for the city of Philadelphia, was awarded a franchise by the NHL. One of the first orders of business was made on April 4, 1966. That day, Bill Putnam, a member of the ownership group, announced that a Chicago firm was hired to design the arena that would become the Spectrum. Also that day, he announced that there would be a contest to name the team and that the team colours would be orange, black and white. He said he wanted "hot" colours. Red was taken by Chicago and Montréal and orange was the closest thing to red. Putnam's almamater was the University of Texas, whose colours were orange and white, which influenced the decision. It also didn't hurt that Philadelphia's previous NHL team, the Quakers, also used orange and black. Putnam later realized that the NHL logo at the time was also orange and black. They offered to change the colours but NHL president Clarence Campbell didn't object to the team using those colours.

[bulldogbarks55]

http://www.flyershistory.com/cgi-bin/jerseyhistory.cgi

Febuary 7th, 1966, the group heading an expansion bid for the city of Philadelphia, was awarded a franchise by the NHL. One of the first orders of business was made on April 4, 1966. That day, Bill Putnam, a member of the ownership group, announced that a Chicago firm was hired to design the arena that would become the Spectrum. Also that day, he announced that there would be a contest to name the team and that the team colours would be orange, black and white. He said he wanted "hot" colours. Red was taken by Chicago and Montréal and orange was the closest thing to red. Putnam's almamater was the University of Texas, whose colours were orange and white, which influenced the decision. It also didn't hurt that Philadelphia's previous NHL team, the Quakers, also used orange and black. Putnam later realized that the NHL logo at the time was also orange and black. They offered to change the colours but NHL president Clarence Campbell didn't object to the team using those colours.

Back when the Flyers started their wasn't as much concern with Pantone shades as their is today. In those days teams accepted the shade provided by the manufacturer. The Flyers' early sweaters were made from Nylon/Durene by General Athletic. The Orange Nylon/Durene fabric is "lighter" in shade than what the team went to.

In 1982 they switched to the Pro-Mesh sweaters made in Philly by Zwickel for Bob Gastwirth of HSI. The fabric was purchased from GameTime Fabrics of Lowell, MA. GameTime used "SGMA Burnt Orange" as the shade. SGMA stands for Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assocition which is a watchdog group for the trade. SGMA colors were established to give a sense of consistency in the industry.

"SGMA Burnt Orange" has a definite "reddish" cast to it so that opinion amongst you folks is correct. Bob Gastwirth did all the lettering on the sweaters and conceived the wide borders on the base of the tackle twill numbers. Hope this helps clear this up.

[BBTV]

What's the story with Eagle? They had that on the hem of their sweaters for a few years in the mid '80s, but I never heard of the company before or after that time.