Unpopular Opinions

[Ark]

I think this is a popular opinion but I don’t know where else to put it.

 

 The New Jersey Devils should be a red and green primary team. Red and green pays homage to their location (New Jersey is the Garden State and the Jersey Devil is from the pine barrens in NJ). Wear red and black on 90s/2000s Night and Halloween and that’s it.

[maz]

18 hours ago, Ark said:

I think this is a popular opinion but I don’t know where else to put it.

 

 The New Jersey Devils should be a red and green primary team. Red and green pays homage to their location (New Jersey is the Garden State and the Jersey Devil is from the pine barrens in NJ). Wear red and black on 90s/2000s Night and Halloween and that’s it.

 

A lot of people use success to justify wearing a certain uniform regardless of its design merits. Therefore, I think there is a lot of love for the red and black given the success they had during the  90s and 2000s, and Brodeur playing his whole career in it, whereas they made the playoffs in just four out of ten seasons in the red and green (they've also only made it in twice out of the past 12, but I digress).

 

Red and green matches the area, red and black matches the name. Can't go wrong with either one, IMO. I've seen a lot of support around here for going back to green, so at least on the CCSLC I think you're actually in the majority.

[OnWis97]

20 hours ago, Ark said:

I think this is a popular opinion but I don’t know where else to put it.

 

 The New Jersey Devils should be a red and green primary team. Red and green pays homage to their location (New Jersey is the Garden State and the Jersey Devil is from the pine barrens in NJ). Wear red and black on 90s/2000s Night and Halloween and that’s it.

The 1980s "Christmas" Devils is my favorite NHL look of all time. That said, I think your (our) opinion is extremely unpopular. When I first got on these boards, I figured a lot of people would agree with me...red/black is pretty overdone and the red/green look was unique. Turns out that 1) like pineapple on pizza, the red/green is polarizing and mostly not liked and 2) red/black is preferred to red/green because it's more "devilish."

[OnWis97]

1 hour ago, maz said:

 

A lot of people use success to justify wearing a certain uniform regardless of its design merits. Therefore, I think there is a lot of love for the red and black given the success they had during the  90s and 2000s, and Brodeur playing his whole career in it, whereas they made the playoffs in just four out of ten seasons in the red and green (they've also only made it in twice out of the past 12, but I digress).

 

Red and green matches the area, red and black matches the name. Can't go wrong with either one, IMO. I've seen a lot of support around here for going back to green, so at least on the CCSLC I think you're actually in the majority.

That's funny. I just replied that I think that opinion's in a fairly small minority, even though I agree with it.

From the name vs location perspective, I agree that both "work." I just happen to love the christmas colors and happen to think red and black is overused.

[spartacat_12]

23 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

The 1980s "Christmas" Devils is my favorite NHL look of all time. That said, I think your (our) opinion is extremely unpopular. When I first got on these boards, I figured a lot of people would agree with me...red/black is pretty overdone and the red/green look was unique. Turns out that 1) like pineapple on pizza, the red/green is polarizing and mostly not liked and 2) red/black is preferred to red/green because it's more "devilish."

 

Red & green is also one of my favourite colour combos, and I'd love to see it used more. However, with the Devils it isn't so much about them using "devilish colours", as it is about what the black & red represents. The red & green era was associated with an irrelevant franchise that Wayne Gretzky literally called a "Mickey Mouse" organization. The switch from green to black coincided with them bringing in guys like Brodeur, Niedermayer, & Stevens, and becoming a model franchise.

[maz]

The Avalanche looked better with black pants/glove/helmets.

 

Does it match? Does it make sense? No, I admit, it doesn't. But something about all the blue feels "wrong" to me. I can't put it into words.

[BBTV]

On 2/16/2023 at 1:49 PM, Ark said:

I think this is a popular opinion but I don’t know where else to put it.

 

 The New Jersey Devils should be a red and green primary team. Red and green pays homage to their location (New Jersey is the Garden State and the Jersey Devil is from the pine barrens in NJ). Wear red and black on 90s/2000s Night and Halloween and that’s it.

 

I was drawn to NHL hockey in the '80s due to the extremely simplistic logos (I could draw all but the Blackhawks nearly perfectly on my paper-bag schoolbook covers) and bright colors.  You had the Flyers in orange, Devils in red and green, Nordiques in light blue and red, North Stars and Whalers in kelly green and yellow/blue respectively, etc.

 

The Devils change may have been the beginning of the bfbs era of pro sports.  If not the beginning, then near it.  The timeline doesn't match up exactly, but their garden-state neighbor Jets also unnecessarily added black.

 

Tangentially related, the thread where we all tried to draw the blackhawks logo from memory was great. 

[IceCap]

33 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

The Devils change may have been the beginning of the bfbs era of pro sports.  If not the beginning, then near it.  The timeline doesn't match up exactly, but their garden-state neighbor Jets also unnecessarily added black.

The first "bfbs" thing in the NHL was the Minnesota North Stars adding black highlights to their home whites in 1981.

That being said it didn't really kick into high gear until 1988 when the Kings landed Gretzky and went full Raiders with a rebrand. Which is the same year the North Stars added the black highlights to their road greens.

 

By 1991 the North Stars had gone to black primaries very reminiscent of the Kings' black Gretzky sweaters and in 1992 Ottawa and Tampa Bay joined the league with black primaries. That's also the year the Devils switch out green for black. And while it's not strictly bfbs, 1992 was also the year the Whalers changed out their kelly green and royal blue unis for navy, green, and silver. Darkening a colour scheme was a trend that went hand in hand with bfbs.

 

So I'd say the Kings' Gretzky look kicked it off in the NHL, with the North Stars as a precursor.

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

So I'd say the Kings' Gretzky look kicked it off in the NHL, with the North Stars as a precursor.

 

Good call on the North Stars.  I guess I forgot all about it because I liked it so much (the pre-solid-black version) and didn't have any negative feelings towards it.  The solid-black ST^RS version was total ass, at least while the team was still in Minnesota.  But yeah that slightly predates the Devils switch as well.

 

I kinda put the Kings in a different category since it was pretty obvious they were mimicking the Raiders and essentially rebranding the whole franchise as the flashy "Hollywood" team with Gretzky.   I almost view it as a whole new team, but that doesn't change that they definitely added black to sell merch.

[BJ Sands]

The Saints and Niners should swap shades of gold. I always liked the more silvery-gold the Niners wore in the 80s, and the Saints need the more vibrant shade like the gold on their color rush. 

[spartacat_12]

On 2/21/2023 at 3:03 PM, BBTV said:

The Devils change may have been the beginning of the bfbs era of pro sports.  If not the beginning, then near it.  The timeline doesn't match up exactly, but their garden-state neighbor Jets also unnecessarily added black.

 

On 2/21/2023 at 3:36 PM, IceCap said:

The first "bfbs" thing in the NHL was the Minnesota North Stars adding black highlights to their home whites in 1981.

That being said it didn't really kick into high gear until 1988 when the Kings landed Gretzky and went full Raiders with a rebrand. Which is the same year the North Stars added the black highlights to their road greens.

 

By 1991 the North Stars had gone to black primaries very reminiscent of the Kings' black Gretzky sweaters and in 1992 Ottawa and Tampa Bay joined the league with black primaries. That's also the year the Devils switch out green for black. And while it's not strictly bfbs, 1992 was also the year the Whalers changed out their kelly green and royal blue unis for navy, green, and silver. Darkening a colour scheme was a trend that went hand in hand with bfbs.

 

So I'd say the Kings' Gretzky look kicked it off in the NHL, with the North Stars as a precursor.

 

I've never really considered teams doing complete rebrands that involved a change to black as 'BFBS'. No one calls the Penguins switch from double blue to black & yellow BFBS. If the Devils had kept the red & green, but just added some black trim the way the North Stars & Flames did, that would fit the definition a little better.

 

MLB seemed to be the most egregious offender. Around the turn of the century, the Royals, Reds, Mets, and A's had all lazily slapped black trim on their uniforms and/or come out with a black alternate jersey. 

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

 

I've never really considered teams doing complete rebrands that involved a change to black as 'BFBS'. No one calls the Penguins switch from double blue to black & yellow BFBS. If the Devils had kept the red & green, but just added some black trim the way the North Stars & Flames did, that would fit the definition a little better.

 

MLB seemed to be the most egregious offender. Around the turn of the century, the Royals, Reds, Mets, and A's had all lazily slapped black trim on their uniforms and/or come out with a black alternate jersey. 

 

The Penguins example doesn't work because they were aligning with the rest of the teams in the city, and predates when merch was big business.  A better example might be the Buffalo Sabers when they went to the goat.  It was a full rebrand, but there's no reason they couldn't have done it and kept their blue and yellow.  Instead they went black/silver/red, (presumably) in an attempt to be more fashionable, sell more jerseys, and be "kewl".

 

To be fair to them - it worked!  At least on BBTV, who saw the jersey in a local store (and out-of-town jerseys still weren't very common back in mid '90s) and was like "wow - I have no idea what team this is, but that's bad-ass and if I was to wear a non-Flyers jersey, that would be the one!"

[IceCap]

2 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

I've never really considered teams doing complete rebrands that involved a change to black as 'BFBS'.

That doesn't change the fact that the Kings' switch to black and silver prompted a lot of other teams to adopt black-heavy uniforms or replace a colour in their scheme with black. Or that the next two expansion teams after that rebrand went all-out on black sweaters with metallic logos. 

 

Maybe the Kings' 1988 rebrand doesn't fit your definition of bfbs but it started the trend in the NHL. 

[spartacat_12]

52 minutes ago, IceCap said:

That doesn't change the fact that the Kings' switch to black and silver prompted a lot of other teams to adopt black-heavy uniforms or replace a colour in their scheme with black. Or that the next two expansion teams after that rebrand went all-out on black sweaters with metallic logos. 

 

Maybe the Kings' 1988 rebrand doesn't fit your definition of bfbs but it started the trend in the NHL. 

 

I know I'm splitting hairs, but I just think there's a difference between a team saying, "We're doing a full rebrand, and people seem to like black so let's make that a main colour" (Kings, Sabres, etc.), and a team saying, "Let's just take our normal colours/uniforms, but add black" (like the Leafs Bieber jersey).

 

Both ideas are capitalizing on the popularity of black, but one is much lazier in it's execution than the other.

[AnPheitseog]

3 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

The Penguins example doesn't work because they were aligning with the rest of the teams in the city, and predates when merch was big business.  A better example might be the Buffalo Sabers when they went to the goat.  It was a full rebrand, but there's no reason they couldn't have done it and kept their blue and yellow.  Instead they went black/silver/red, (presumably) in an attempt to be more fashionable, sell more jerseys, and be "kewl".

 

To be fair to them - it worked!  At least on BBTV, who saw the jersey in a local store (and out-of-town jerseys still weren't very common back in mid '90s) and was like "wow - I have no idea what team this is, but that's bad-ass and if I was to wear a non-Flyers jersey, that would be the one!"

I wish the Sabres did BFBS.

 

They went to black and red because John Rigas (owner at the time) wanted the sabres to have the same colours as Adelphia, which he also owned.

[IceCap]

16 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

Both ideas are capitalizing on the popularity of black, but one is much lazier in it's execution than the other.

That's true, but practically speaking in the market place they're one in the same. The Kings going with their Gretzky look set the stage for what the Stars, Lightning, and Senators eventually did, and it probably very much played into the Devils switching green out for black and the Whalers switching royal blue for navy and adding silver. From there everyone else was trendchasing.

[KevinBeane]

This may be a repeat unpopular opinion given how long this thread is, but here's mine (actually 2)

 

1) Gaudy and garish logos and uniforms "work" for me more often than not, and I'd rather err on that side than too plain/vanilla.

 

2) The leader of the too plain/vanilla pack, and indeed my least favorite logo in all of sports, is the Nebraska helmet N.

[Krudler]

Not sure if this opinion is unpopular. But I wish the NHL would let teams designate a home and road set between their two primaries. To me, there are some teams where the white set is superior (Rangers, Sabres) and then there is a team like Winnipeg with the white out tradition, where white is the sweater I want to wear in front of my home fans. I know the league would probably never go this model. Just something I think would be cool to see.

[IceCap]

On 3/13/2023 at 11:38 AM, Krudler said:

Not sure if this opinion is unpopular. But I wish the NHL would let teams designate a home and road set between their two primaries. To me, there are some teams where the white set is superior (Rangers, Sabres) and then there is a team like Winnipeg with the white out tradition, where white is the sweater I want to wear in front of my home fans. I know the league would probably never go this model. Just something I think would be cool to see.

The ideal would be a primary/clash setup instead of a home/road setup. Where the clash sweater is only worn by the road team if both team's primaries are the same colour.

 

That would be a headache logistically though, and the NHL probably wants to sell as many sweaters as possible. Telling fans one of the two primary sweaters of their team is just the "clash" version may make it less appealing.

 

Plus, back to logistics. Hockey isn't like basketball or soccer where uniforms are just a set of clothing. You have helmets and maybe even pants shells and gloves to consider. One reason the league went to dark at home is because the vast majority of alternates were coloured sweaters. Teams wanted to showcase their alternates in front of home crowds so under the old white at home setup teams would have to plan for road trips where one opponent may want to wear a coloured alternate at home. Forcing teams to pack and transport both sets of uniforms for a road trip. Given the above-mentioned nature of hockey uniforms this was less then ideal. By going to a "darks at home and whites on the road" setup they avoided all of these issues. Now teams just have to pack white uniforms for road trips.

[Ridleylash]

Plus, it just feels more natural to have the color team be the team surrounded by their colored jerseys in the crowd, while the white jerseys are the ones that stand out and seem more like visitors. That is the more dominant stance in the history of the NHL, after all; they only went white at home pretty late into their history.