2013-2014 NHL Uniform & Logo Changes

[wonderbread]

New sig and visual wishlist for 2014, in order of which jerseys need to go.

well you need to add carolina's from this year, and buffalo's

[Xodius]

I... I liked... Atlanta's jerseys...

[habsfan1]

I think Minnesota's home template is just fine.

[Sabrejeff]

I guarentee that jersey will not sell much. Who wants to walk around in a cape?

The Buffaslug topped sales charts when it was first unveiled, and that's probably the best case in the modern era of an overwhelmingly negative response changing management's mind. This thing will likely sell more then it should just because it's new, and hey, fans like new things. Especially dumb fans.

One BIG difference this time. The unveiling of the Slug happened right in between two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, including a Presidents' Trophy. Now the team is a tire fire of players that don't want to be there, overpaid bums, and fledgling youngsters being thrown onto the fire. And that's not to mention how dull and boring the product appears on ice, especially compared to the '06-'07 team.

Also, with the Slug jerseys, there were no other options until they shoe-horned a third in there (their original away jerseys). Now if people want a jersey, they can just buy the home or the away.

[capn89]

I want to take a step away from the typical "let's crack a joke and make fun of these ugly jerseys" commenting for a moment and ask a serious question. I mean, I don't think anyone here will really have a definitive answer, but it is worth bringing up.

The NHL is a professional sports league with professional sports franchises. (The same could be said for the NFL, MLB and NBA, etc). Most of us, from videos or blogs or whatever have a general idea of how a design process works, even those of use who design our own work know that you don't just slap some lines down and call it a day.

So my question is; (having a general understanding of how the process works) how in the hell can something like this (the Sabres, or the Jags in the NFL, etc) ever actually happen in a professional league? Surely they hire someone (someones?) to come up with pages of designs (we saw it with the Hurricanes in the video they released), the team looks at them, picks something or, with all hope then suggests tweaks to get it where they envision, and then it is manufactured and the rest is history. So how does this happen? How can something so universally loathed even get close to seeing the light of day, let alone becoming a "thing" at all?

Maybe I am just a logo and uniform geek, but I can't for the life of me figure out how such terrible designs happen. Carolina's, for example, aren't "bad" designs, at all, they look nice they just aren't uniform to each other and they're bland and stale in comparison to what we've all known the Hurricanes to be. As individual jerseys, they look fine, it's all the extra stuff that goes into play that gives us headaches, but this Sabres' jersey defies logic. On it's own, it is ugly and there is nothing, at all, that is redeeming about it.

Garble garble garble, yak yak yak. I am done.

[The_Admiral]

I can't speak for this monstrosity, but the Carolina Hurricanes are little more than one man's vanity project -- one man who decided he wanted his team to look "traditional," had some people make some traditional designs in-house, and picked the ones he liked. Th NHL doesn't seem to have the oversight of, say, NFL Properties, which for the most part has done a good job working as an intermediary between the caprices of individual owners and the caprices of ambitious jersey manufacturers.

[Xodius]

So my question is; (having a general understanding of how the process works) how in the hell can something like this (the Sabres, or the Jags in the NFL, etc) ever actually happen in a professional league? Surely they hire someone (someones?) to come up with pages of designs (we saw it with the Hurricanes in the video they released), the team looks at them, picks something or, with all hope then suggests tweaks to get it where they envision, and then it is manufactured and the rest is history. So how does this happen? How can something so universally loathed even get close to seeing the light of day, let alone becoming a "thing" at all?

I too wonder this fairly often as well. It makes me fairly sad to think this went through multiple steps of the process and continually got the okay from not only Reebok, but team management. I honestly cannot comprehend how a room full of men that run a team (if you can call it that, sorry Sabres fans) can look at this monstrosity and think "Yeah, this looks good, let's get this made." It gives me the impression something is wrong with the sport, where businessmen who have no business running a sports franchise are making decisions like these.

[Sport]

I have a civilian friend (Civilian in the sense that he's not one of us. He swears the Bengals once wore an orange jersey in the 80's for example. He refuses to believe they never did.) who is big into hockey. I asked him what he thought of Buffalo's new third jersey and he said through a text, "I think they're awesome. Way better than Dallas' ugly new jerseys".

There you have it. People on the outside are clueless doofuses when it comes to this stuff.

He's also a nascar fan FWIW. Maybe that's why he likes it, because it looks like a stock car.

[IceCap]

Well that settles it. We must rule over them for their own good.

[Xodius]

There you have it. People on the outside of clueless doofuses when it comes to this stuff.

I have a similar friend that swears the new Jaguars jersey is one of the best in the league. People just like new, fresh ideas.

[BBBDDD]

I guarentee that jersey will not sell much. Who wants to walk around in a cape?

Bobby Hill.

[BigBubba]

What the hell was ever wrong with these?

For one, it's a crappy Chinese fake. As for the actual design, there was the contrasting nameplate and the dumb stitching on the numbers. The motion lines above and below the script were pointless and looked ugly, and having a script in the first place was't a great idea. And of course there's the whole "Let's celebrate our 40th anniversary by wearing some fake throwback jersey!" thing.

I was suspecting a lot worse after the teasers. I actually like it. It's a third jersey, so it's all right to be inventive, especially with a lot of other teams going blander to make themselves look more respectable.

Why do people keep using "it's a third jersey, so it's supposed to be new/different" as an excuse for poor design? There are probably literally hundreds of ways Buffalo could've tried something new and looked way better than this. Yeah, it's cool to sometimes see new things, but above all, a jersey has to, you know, look good.

[Morgan33]

Call me crazy but I like the Sabres new alternate. After the unoriginal, yawn inducing unveilings by San Jose and Carolina, it's nice to finally see something different. The logo looks great on yellow (better than it does on Navy quite frankly) and the striping on the sleeves, collar and back are reminiscent of 'blades' tying in with the 'Sabres' monicker. Would it look better if the back was yellow? Absolutely, but the yellow panels greatly offset the "cape" effect people were so worried about. I can understand why people are bashing it as it's definitely "out there" but isn't that the entire point of a third jersey? If you already have a solid home and road set (yes the piping, pit stains and front numbers need to go but besides that it's solid), why can't you take some risks and think outside the box?

[Orgo]

New sig and visual wishlist for 2014, in order of which jerseys need to go.

No Sens?

[sportstar1212]

I have a civilian friend (Civilian in the sense that he's not one of us. He swears the Bengals once wore an orange jersey in the 80's for example. He refuses to believe they never did.) who is big into hockey. I asked him what he thought of Buffalo's new third jersey and he said through a text, "I think they're awesome. Way better than Dallas' ugly new jerseys".

There you have it. People on the outside are clueless doofuses when it comes to this stuff.

He's also a nascar fan FWIW. Maybe that's why he likes it, because it looks like a stock car.

One guy in my class is actually a Sabres fan so as you can imagine, I asked him today at school what he thought of it. His answer was shocking; he said he really liked it and that "it looks badass". I couldn't believe it!

[Sodboy13]

Your friend probably loved the Ville Leino contract, too.

[TorinK92]

Obviously, I think it's a complete cluster**** of a sweater, no, I'll break and call this a jersey; it's not fitting of the time honoured hockey-apparel title.

But there are three things that I can absolutely not stand about this jersey, first the different shades of grey on the arm stripes leading into the cuff blobs, why? It just stands out way too much and looks awful, I really hope that's a prototype thing. And the way they go into a point bugs me for that matter.

The second thing about this is that the numbers look awful in grey, and the font is atrocious. But I know people have other opinions on this.

Lastly, I'll leave this with a note about the back in general. Any of you guys know when you're making a concept and the alternate or away uses the same template as the home, and you start to colour it in? This looks about 1/3 of the way through that stage.

But I want to give this, if it comes out on the ice almost exactly like this, the distinction of worst jersey ever. That's right, even lower than the wild-wing.

[IceCap]

Call me crazy but I like the Sabres new alternate. After the unoriginal, yawn inducing unveilings by San Jose and Carolina, it's nice to finally see something different. The logo looks great on yellow (better than it does on Navy quite frankly) and the striping on the sleeves, collar and back are reminiscent of 'blades' tying in with the 'Sabres' monicker. Would it look better if the back was yellow? Absolutely, but the yellow panels greatly offset the "cape" effect people were so worried about. I can understand why people are bashing it as it's definitely "out there" but isn't that the entire point of a third jersey? If you already have a solid home and road set (yes the piping, pit stains and front numbers need to go but besides that it's solid), why can't you take some risks and think outside the box?

The point of a third jersey isn't neccecarily to be balls-to-the-wall crazy. That's the kind of thinking that got us a lot of the monstrosities from the mid/late 90s. Sure, we got some good designs in there as well, but if the Burger King and Wild Wing sweaters taught us anything it's that it's good to have a little bit of restraint. So I don't buy "it's a third jersey, it's supposed to be wacky!"

As for "taking risks," "being different," and "thinking outside of the box" in general, well I said this about the Jags' new look. Being different and unique isn't, in and of itself, worthy of praise. If you know what you're doing you only do something that's different if you know it's going to work.

Being different just to be different isn't enough and simply vomiting up an ugly monstrosity of a thing and saying "well no one's done THIS before!" doesn't win you bonus points. There's usually a reason why people hadn't done it before, after all.

[NYYNYR]

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2013/09/05/sabres-prez-has-no-comment-on-third-jersey/

[NYYNYR]

Obviously, I think it's a complete cluster**** of a sweater, no, I'll break and call this a jersey; it's not fitting of the time honoured hockey-apparel title.

But there are three things that I can absolutely not stand about this jersey, first the different shades of grey on the arm stripes leading into the cuff blobs, why? It just stands out way too much and looks awful, I really hope that's a prototype thing. And the way they go into a point bugs me for that matter.

The second thing about this is that the numbers look awful in grey, and the font is atrocious. But I know people have other opinions on this.

Lastly, I'll leave this with a note about the back in general. Any of you guys know when you're making a concept and the alternate or away uses the same template as the home, and you start to colour it in? This looks about 1/3 of the way through that stage.

But I want to give this, if it comes out on the ice almost exactly like this, the distinction of worst jersey ever. That's right, even lower than the wild-wing.

Is that an attempt at creating a sabre? If so, good gawd !