The LA Kings have unveiled their new home and road uniforms for the 2024-25 NHL season.
Let’s start with the hype video:
Woven into the fabric of Los Angeles.
📲 https://t.co/0vaApVA21I#GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/X5nuorj4Oz
— LA Kings (@LAKings) June 26, 2024
As you can see, the team is sticking with the black/white/silver colorscheme first made popular during the Wayne Gretzky years.
HOME
The helmet, jersey, and breezers are black. The crest is redesigned, and you can read more about the new logo here.
Jersey sleeves feature a thin silver/thick white/thin silver striping pattern, which is repeated on the lower portion of the sweater. That same silver/white/silver pattern is repeated on the socks. The collar is mostly white, with a slight black section on the front.
TV numbers are on both sleeves in high contrast silver, with a double outline border of black and white.
The back of the jersey features NOB in a block font, with high contrast silver lettering. Jersey numbers are the same style as the TV numbers.
Here’s an additional look at the jersey.
The white sweater is almost identical to the black, with just the colors being swapped. Sleeve, hem and sock stripes are all in a thin silver/thick black/thin silver pattern. The helmet is white. TV numbers are black with a double silver/black outline.
NOB is a block font, rendered in black. Rear jersey numbers have the same colors and style as the TV numbers.
Both jerseys feature an intricate crest pattern.
Your thoughts?
I wish they had put the sleeve numbers within the sleeve piping. I always thought that was a cool feature unique to the Kings from the Gretzky-era. But overall, really nice improvements
Would have preferred Forum Blue and Gold, like you, Phil, but man is this a massive upgrade. I can see the argument for not going back to the old colors, btw, considering their two Cups came in the silver and black and have as much or more club history now as the other colors.
I was coming to the comments section to say essentially the same thing. Well-stated, Brodie!
Gorgeous. This is another one where I can see the black helmet being worn with the road jersey and looking great
These may count as an upgrade, but the Kings are still in the wilderness, sartorial-wise.
You’re nuts. These are gorgeous.
I like the uniform generally, but gosh do I hate the font choice for “Los Angeles” in the logo. I don’t know what would be better, but my eyes immediately went to LA and I let out an audible “ugh'”
My only complaint on these: the white material used for the road jerseys appears to be see-through enough that you can make out the CCM logo on the breast plate of Doughty’s shoulder pads. I realize that’s not necessarily a new phenomenon with white fabrics on sports jerseys, but it still looks cheap to me.
Yeah, and seeing as how Fanatics has had a less-than sterling track record with MLB uniform transparency I could see this being an issue.
That’s pretty common with white jerseys from what I’ve seen. Especially after the players start sweating and getting snow/water on them.
These are one massive step in the right direction. The Kings finally ditched their horribly uninspired uniforms and improved every aspect of their jersey. The only remaining step is to go back to forum blue and gold. Then these will REALLY shoot up the rankings. These though are more than enough for LA to escape the leagues uni basement.
Is Forum Blue aka Purple?
Yes. Jack Kent Cooke loved the color purple, but hated the word “purple.” He called it “Forum Blue.”
It’s purple. Call it such. They don’t play in the Forum anymore, and Mr. Cooke has passed on.
He sold the team and the Lakers in 1979 to Jerry Buss. Hasn’t been called forum blue for over 40+ years.
“Forum Blue” is no longer used to describe purple for the Lakers and Kings. Haven’t been for over 40 years. When the Lakers moved into their new arena, “The Fabulous Forum”, the owner Jack Kent Cooke changed the colors to purple and gold (yellow). He didn’t like the word “purple”, so he called it “Forum Blue”. Chick Hearn, the famous Lakers announcer, hated saying this. Cooke also owned the Kings. They came in as an expansion team in 1967. Once Jerry Buss bought both teams they stopped calling purple “Forum Blue”.
Gee, feels like I was just commenting about teams moving “forward” by going backwards.
Their most recent uniforms were not great, to be sure, but this is a step in the wrong direction. I really want to write a long analysis/diatribe of why these are terrible, but my 1-year-old son is throwing his bottle at me for reasons unknown, so I’ll just say this:
For the love of all that is holy, why does everyone like the Chevrolet-looking logo so much??? It’s so dated and ’90s and… LOOKS LIKE A CHEVY LOGO. I just don’t get it.
The logo screams “Chevy” to me also. These would look great with the crown only.
Yep. A total missed opportunity. -C.
Thank you Chuck R.
Are the Adidas dimple shoulders gone in the new Fanatics template?
I grew up in the 80s/90s, so I’m fond of this look for the Kings. However, sometime down the road I’d like to see a mashup of their various looks and colors over the years – like hints of Forum Blue and Gold throughout.
I think these are a great improvement. Now stick with them and stop screwing with them every 10 years. Introduce a forum blue and gold third next year – not necessarily a throwback – and they’re done (change that up every few years if they need to goose jersey sales).
I wouldn’t mind seeing an alternate with purple and metallic gold, with the updated crown colored accordingly and serving as the jersey crest.
Looks like both helmets are matte finish (possibly an NHL first for both to be matte). Other than that these are an A. Road numbers would look better with Black and white then silver outlines. Massive upgrade though.
Love these but I’ll always have nostalgia for the home plate crest they wore when winning 2 Cups.
A++. This is the home run I’d been anticipating. I don’t even care the numbers aren’t inside the stripes like the Gretzky years. Sure, I like the purple and gold but I knew those were a pipe dream.
Pretty much perfect for them. I think the material details help make it a bit more interesting.
I like the matte helmet, and I think the texture for the silver is a nice touch.
I’d prefer a crown crest with the silver and black jersey. Maybe it’ll be an alternate or the next reverse retro…..
I like them going to miss the chrome helmets though
Pretty solid… except for those damned paneled collars! That hideous Adidas collar construction has got to go.
It probably will once Fanatics starts tinkering in two years. However, be careful what you wish for.
My thoughts? NHL uniforms are miles ahead of all other pro leagues. At least one league respects team brand identities and doesn’t feel the need to churn out endless jerseys that are nothing more than cringe-worthy cash grabs. Well done, NHL!
There was a time however when they made City Connect uniforms look good.
link
I know the info I want is easily searchable but having images of the jersey they’re moving on from and/or the version they’re using for inspo posted within the article would help illustrate what’s happening (and keep me on the page).
As close to that classic 90s look as we’re going to get. Maybe it’s the Raiders fan in me, but I love the Silver and Black.
Do we know if the NOB’s are still direct without name plates? That’s what it looks like but I’d take a journalist’s confirmation
I prefer their PURPLE and yellow look, just because it is unique in the NHL and gives them a distinct identity. But if I ignore what the uniform could have been, and just evaluate as is, it is a great uniform, and I suppose the 90s Gretzky era is their most famous look so it makes sense to go with that.
Yawn.
The uni-verse is a depressing place at the moment with so many attempts to modernise or do something different missing the mark completely (CCs) and so many teams just giving up and going with an old uniform full time.
And the Ducks have hit: link
It’s very orange.
PROMINENT EYEBROW
Hahahahahahahaha!
Does anyone know if there were any legal issues with Chevrolet over the logo shape?
They missed a great opportunity to go back to forum blue.
Purple is the color of royalty not black.
On balance, an upgrade.
I would have preferred a return to purple/gold and the crown as crest but this fixed a lot of wrongs.
– standard CCM number/name font is way better than the bespoke nonsense they have been trying
– the old crown on a revised Gretzky Era crest is nice
– love the double outline around the numbers, even if it makes the sweater 0.055 pounds heavier with all that embroidery… are you watching, Nike?
– the updated Gretzky crest looks better
I still have a hard time embracing the Silver & Black when it was pandering at the time (Raiders in LA, the dawn of the BFBS Era, a craven ploy to sell merchandise on the streets) but the Kings do have a history with the colors.
I still say hockey jerseys shouldn’t have words. Letters are fine (i.e. Habs, Whalers, Kraken) but not words. Just my particular hill that I choose to die on.
If I were “king,” I would have rendered the original 1967 sweater in black/silver and called it a day.
I get your point, but whither the Rangers then?
Hot take/unpopular opinion time!
I completely dislike, not only the Rangers’ diagonal, but all of the knock-offs from it (Pens, Bolts, Canes, UTAH)
I much prefer the Lady Liberty jerseys.
Also, I also think the Leafs’ don’t need to have words in their (beautiful) Maple Leaf, and the Stanley Cup would have looked much better with just a Panther on a shield and an flying Oil Sprocket.
As always, YMMV
I love these! Not much else I can say. I thought they’d never go back to something like this, and I am just so glad they did. Truly beautiful, in my opinion.
Good but stripes a bit too wide? Noticeable in waist stripe.
At what point do teams get scared to try a new logo? Personally I haven’t liked any of the kings logos through their team’s history, and going back to something old doesn’t do it for me. The base jersey is clean. I like it. It’s the kings look. I just can’t get with their logos ever and this is no exception. Ducks are the same, I like the old Disney logo, but it just fits the purple and teal look better. The duck foot D wasn’t great by any means, but it seemed to fit the color scheme better than the duck mask. Why not pull a sharks, and do the duck mask in a different style/presentation that looks better with the orange and gold scheme? Or, hear me out, go back to a version of the teal and purple or something that says “duck” a little more strongly?
No likey. Logo too big and looks cheap. Otherwise, Raiders!.
OMG, what is going on here??? These are actually great! They’re beautiful. Not a stupid gimmick in sight!
Dare any other franchise be great as well?
Keep hope alive!
Interesting that both Los Angeles and Anaheim are going back to classic logos.
White is by far 1000 times better because of no stupid chest ad. Now, get the stupid ad off the helmet and it’s perfect.
Perfection minus the ads. They finally look like the Kings again.
Love these!
Luckily for the Kings, there are too many teams with hideous uniforms for the Kings to rank last. They’ve settled for having the most boring uniforms in the league.
I seem to be alone in actually liking the previous Kings set. The Knights ran with basically the same design brief and did it better, so it was probably time for LA to change, but still. If the Knights are a solid A, the old Kings were a high B in my book. Particularly the crest and the piping. Everything the Caps are trying to do with their piping but failing, the Kings did successfully.
The overall design – colors, shapes, patterns, relations among the color blocks – work very well for me with this new set. But the crest. Ugh. I’m OK with word-dominant crests, if the design is good. On a scale from Rangers-level perfection to Caps-level excrescence, the new Kings shield is much closer to the bad end of the scale. On a giant crest centered on the chest, literally nothing can make big letters not look static. Italics and motion lines don’t help, they don’t make the letters look more dynamic or moving. They just serve to reinforce that the designer was trying, and failing, to achieve by overcompensation something that’s impossible to achieve. And the mismatched fonts! Lowercase, for the love of Saint Pica, why? The crown element is quite nice; blow that up, add appropriate outlining details, and make that element stand alone as the shirt-front crest. A crown is the ubiquitous symbol that stand for “king” or “monarch,” so let the symbol do the work. Adding text for the team’s name is like sewing giant black USA letters across the American flag and thinking you’ve improved the thing.
From the back, these new Kings uniforms will be quite good. A-minus maybe. From the front, these are C-minus mistakes.
I mean…sure. Why not?
To quote Coach JB:
Mediocrity is the new excellence
Major downgrade. I’m a big Kings fan; season tickets for years yada yada.
I like the logo and font update. The rest of it is really disappointing. Wide white stripes never look good, and now we’ve added one at the belt. Road uni is not as misguided, but still feels like a lazy nostalgia play.
Hard to improve on R. Scott Rogers’ analysis of the uniform. Just dump the Chevy and make the new crown the crest. It’s OK. They can redeem themselves somewhat by bring back purple and gold as the alternate next season.