Good Saturday Morning! Hope you’re staying cool on this Summer day. There was a bit of a draft in the air (hockey-style) last night, as the NHL held the first round of its 62nd annual Entry Draft at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Rounds Two through Seven will take place today.
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Pretty cool logo, I must say. Gives me a bit of a disco vibe! Of course, every player got the chance to come up on stage and put on the sweater of his new team. And this year, all the sweaters are rookies too, as Fanatics is the new uniform supplier for the NHL.
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Here’s a closeup video of the sweaters, courtesy of Icethetics:
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Peek inside the Fanatics #NHL jersey suite today. I got to see all 32 in person and will share my thoughts in an upcoming video. Got some insightful interviews to share as well. Keep an eye out for that! pic.twitter.com/D0gGEHZoIQ
— icethetics (@icethetics) June 28, 2024
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Really sharp…especially since none of those have ad patches on them. In the above photo, the new Utah Hockey Club’s sweater is included, with the light blue and white stripes.
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However, the team’s first two draft picks, Tij Iginla…
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…and Cole Beaudoin received stripeless sweaters.
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They each had the number 24 (for 2024), complete with their names on the back.
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The first thing that popped in my head was, is Utah going to make the players “earn their stripes,” taking an idea from former Browns coach Hue Jackson? Instead, according to Icethetics, their new sweaters weren’t ready yet and these were fillers for the Draft.
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Closer look at the @utahhockeyclub jersey given to Tij Iginla tonight. Without the sleeve and waist strip, this is obviously not the final game jersey—just a generic black jersey with the UTAH crest. pic.twitter.com/7IJlX9lHmV
— icethetics (@icethetics) June 29, 2024
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At least they had the names on the back. Four teams – Phil’s Islanders, Paul’s Rangers, the Capitals, and the Stars – gave out nameless number 24 sweaters to their picks (sorry, I couldn’t get screenshots but I sat through every intro video on NHL.com to count them). Thirty-one players got the number 24, but overall number-one pick Macklin Celebrini of the Sharks got his college number 71 on his sweater.
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Ah, the perks of being Number One. Back to the Utah Hockey Club: they’re the first relocated team (although technically they’re a new team, just like the Baltimore Ravens) to not get an NHL-logo sweater for the Draft in twenty-eight years, according to Chris Creamer.
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Utah Hockey Club first recently relocated club to present a jersey with their team name or logo at the Draft since, ironically enough, the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996.
Colorado 95, Carolina 97, Winnipeg 11 all gave NHL logo jerseys to their picks pic.twitter.com/rVNI0BNk9l
— SportsLogos.Net (@sportslogosnet) June 29, 2024
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Wow…I knew there were a lot of relocations in the ’90s, but I didn’t realize it happened three years in a row! Anyway, let’s see how long it takes for the striped sweaters to arrive. Hopefully soon.
While I don’t/won’t miss the Phoen, err…Arizona Coyotes (does anyone actually believe they will be resurrected?), I really miss the old black/orange top-left-to-bottom-right NHL crest.
The Als/Argos game is a better looker than most recent Texans/Titans matchups…save 1:
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I believe it’s *possible* Phoenix will be resurrected. Not holding my breath.
I miss that logo, too.
At least the Titans never went all H-Town blue. Yet.
I would have liked the Argos’ combo better if the oars on the pants were Oxford blue instead of white. Bigger thicker numbers also would help.
Just realized… between the oars on the shoulders and the oar pants stripes, this is the perfect team for PJ Fleck to coach. Row The Boat!
“it’s *possible* Phoenix will be resurrected”
Well played, sir.
I think there will be another team in Arizona. The market is too big and Bettman has proven he’s adamant to succeed there.
The Atlanta treatment
Disappointed they couldn’t get a few Utah jerseys ready. The jersey design is unveiled and new Fanatics jerseys ready for other teams. Utah team officials wore matching suits and ties like they did for draft when they were Arizona.
One thing about the Argos in mono Cambridge blue last night. It is something you will notice if you follow CFL. The last few years opponents will not generally wear the same colour pants when they play each other. Alouettes wore navy pants (haven’t seen their white pants yet). Argos not wearing theie Oxford (navy) blue pants in this game.
The Cepeda poster has an apostrophe catastrophe.
The lighting in the Icethetics picture makes it look like the UHC sweater has a sublimated snow capped mountain.
*This post should be in no way construed as an endorsement of putting any sublimated anything on any sweater at any time for any reason.*
I love Cambridge/Carolina/powder/sky blue, but too much is not a good thing. Montreal looks sharp, and the argonauts in white pants would be the perfect complement. I am not sure that is an official combo for them.
Wade- do you know?
I’d love to see Cambridge/Oxford/Cambridge.
I don’t always need helmets and pants to match, although it would have improved the look of last night’s game.
It is not if, it’s when. Just a matter of time before the Argos get a third jersey in Oxford blue. Think Cambridge helmet, Oxford jersey, white pants would look amazing and would be a nod to the early 1960s look.
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The Argonauts have 3 sets of pants (white, light (Cambridge) blue, and navy (Oxford) blue).
When this new uniform design was introduced at the start of 2023 season, the mono-Cambridge was the primary home look and there were only 2 sets of pants. Partway through last season the navy blue pants were brought in and began to be used a lot.
Toronto will mix-and-match a lot during the season, but their primary home combo now is the light blue jersey over the navy blue pants. This is what they wore for media shoots before the season, indicating the primary home look and what you will see at home most often.
Very, very few things (sports) annoy me more than relocated franchises being treated as “expansion teams” for some idiotic reason when it comes to franchise histories.
Jim Brown is the leading rusher in Ravens history. The “Cleveland Browns” (as we currently know them) didn’t exist until 1999.
Jim Brown and all the Browns stats stayed with Cleveland. The Ravens were considered an “expansion team” just as the Utah Hockey Club will be. The Winnipeg Jets/Arizona stats will stay with the Coyotes franchise.
Exactly! The Ravens & Utah aren’t expansion teams—they’re franchises that have existed for decades.
When the Browns moved to Baltimore, did they steal the Colts history? Of course not—that followed the franchise to Indy.
The NHL needs to give the jets stats back to Winnipeg
That will either live on in Arizona if the branding ownership can find a way to get an arena deal done or …most likely… the true history of the franchise will suffer the same fate as the Barons.
Okay, but in the 1950s the NFL was really inclined to create “expansion” teams immediately after folding a team and handing its roster over. So are the Colts really the 1952 Dallas Texans (and were the Texans really the 1951 New York Yanks)?
There’s been a theory that if you go back far enough, you can link the Colts all the way back to the Dayton Triangles.
Just like when the NBA expansion is announced, IF Seattle gets one of the teams, it’s expected to have to have the Sonics history and banners back. Which would in turn make OKC an expansion team, circa 2008.
Will they also get a cryogenically frozen 20-year old KD?
The NBA’s deal with the Sonics/Thunder was that they’d “share” the records. That would mean that if Seattle gets a new team, they’d *both* be a continuation of the Sonics.
Can you clarify. Because the way I’m reading it (and I could be way off) is that say Seattle gets a team in 2025. They’d have their old (pre-2008) records and the current Thunder record? Do I have that right? And then, once Seattle starts playing they keep those records and the Thunder also keep those records? And they only start getting separate records once there are two separate teams? Or does Seattle keep all Seattle records, stopping when they went to OKC, and then adding to their pre-2008 record to the new one? I’m just confused (and it’s probably my fault, not yours).
Phil’s above reply is perfect.
Franchise histories staying with the franchise, regardless of location or name changes, is clean. There’s an obvious, direct thru line.
Trying to leave franchise histories with cities quickly turns into a convoluted mess.
In my brief search on argonauts uni combos I came across this uniswag.
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Very similar headlines, but content is all manufacture hype talk with links to purchase.
Folks complain about ads on uniwatch, but I way prefer them to the naked consumerism of uniswag which feels like a lazy and exploitative site.
Sigh….
I still say the vast majority of hockey sweaters look better in white (and ad-free of course),but those color tops do make a nice picture.
Nothing wrong with a color hockey sweater.
So long as it’s worn on the road.
^^^This^^^
The correct approach IMO is what some of the minor hockey leagues used to do (or maybe still do): Wear white at home during the first half of the season and dark at home in the 2nd half. Seems like a reasonable way to keep everyone happy.
Major junior hockey does this. They switch after Xmas break. I agree NHL should do this.
I agree. Reminds me of the old Playboy or SI photoshoots where they had the college football All-Americans posed in their color unis.
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Except for a couple exceptions, the NHL jerseys aren’t “new”.
They’re the same logos, colors and designs.
They’re all *new* in the sense that 1) they’re all made by Fanatics (albeit in the same factory adidas used) and 2) there are some different specs, the most *noticeable* being the removal of the adidas dimples on the shoulders.
But in terms of redesigns, yes, it’s only the Ducks and Kings. And of course, Utah is brand new.
What Phil said.
Yeah, most of them look the same, but they’re still new.
And of course they all have the Fanatics logo on the back (where a maker’s mark should be if you have to have one).
+1
Interesting to note the Avs used an old All-Star jersey.
What areas the logistics for this draft? Did they have a sweater for every possible player they might draft? Almost seemed like they could have had the draft earlier just between the teams, and then the televised one was just for show.
Can guarantee that San Jose only had a Celebrini sweater made up, and Anaheim probably only had the Sennecke sweater made up since that pick was so surprising. For the other highest picks, teams likely made up two or three sweaters.
Later in the round, when it’s a lot more of a crapshoot as to who’d be available, you could clearly see on the broadcast that some teams just had nameplates velcroed to the sweater, so they each likely had a number of nameplates made up.
The televised draft definitely was the real deal. Of all leagues, there’s no way the NHL would have been able to keep all the picks secret if it had been done earlier.
Just guessing, but they prolly use a similar method as the NFL…
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Man… I wish there was a light blue helmet in the NFL.
First, it’s just Sphere, not the Sphere (just like the band Eagles). Second, it’s too bad that UHC couldn’t have some “one offs” made for the draft, but then again they are the old Coyotes who moved from a NHL arena in Glendale to a skating rink in Tempe claiming that is where their fans were.