[Editor’s Note: Today we have a guest article from reader Dillon Scibelli, who is a lifelong New York Rangers fan, and noticed an interesting design journey for their white sweaters. He takes a look at those. Enjoy! — PH]
A deep dive into the New York Rangers’ white sweater striping
by Dillon Scibelli
The “Broadway Blueshirts” as they are called have played at home in white sweaters from 1971 to 2003. I however noticed that the spacing of the white striping has been ever changing since the white sweater’s inception in 1951.
The white sweater had always been a counterbalance of the touching stripes of the traditional blue sweater. The jersey has also featured a contrasting shoulder yoke.
When the white sweater debuted in the early 1950’s the red shoulder yolk striping, arm stripes, and hem stripes were very tight, leaving very little negative space between them.
This formula continued into the late 60’s and early 70’s. After GM John Ferguson’s ill-fated experiments of the late 70’s (which he would bring later to Winnipeg), the Rangers returned to a more traditional look.
Featuring a brand new V-neck collar, with thin the red shoulder striping retained, but a more spaced out arm and hem design. In the 1989-90 season the red shoulder striping became a little thicker and more spaced.
After the success of 1994, the Rangers returned to a pre-Ferguson look in the late 90’s and early millennium with a tie down collar, tight arm/hem stripes, and wide spacing along the shoulders with thin red stripes.
This continued until the end of the CCM/Jofa era.
With the advent of Reebok Edge the striping pattern stayed mostly consistent.
However 10 years later in the Adidas era, the hem stripes became slightly more spaced, with the hem stripes following the curvature of the sweater’s cut. Personally, the Adidas striping is the most visually appealing to me, a happy medium between the wide spacing of the V-neck era, and the tight stripes of the tie down years.
And it seems this style will be retained in the Fanatics era.
What do you Uni Watcher’s think? Also can you think of a team that kept a mostly consistent uniform design but futzed with striping, spacing, and collar’s design?
I’ve always preferred the 1990s thick, spaced stripes, on both the white and blue jerseys. I didn’t like them reverting to the pre-Ferguson era – or, as I like to think of it, the height of their 54-year Cup drought. The modern white jerseys are okay, though I’ve never been a fan of the tie-down look, especially with modern collars where they have no functionality whatsoever – at least when the tie-downs were initially revived by the Rangers, the collars were actually split like their 1970s counterparts, so the laces had some function of keeping the collars together.
I can’t think of another team that had a similar situation, but side note/opinion: I’ve always thought the blue sweaters should have shoulder striping similar to the whites. It’s a pretty unique look and would look very nice on the blues.
Agree, it would look great.
Do you mean white striping on the blue sweater or the same style as the white sweater? CKA Moscow (KHL) has done the latter link
Perhaps something like the WHA Phoenix Roadrunners had for a bit:
link
I remember the Rangers were the team that brought back the throwback lace-up collar to the NHL in the late 1990s after so many years of it being absent from hockey jerseys in general.
Never gave much thought to the changing width of the negative space, but yes, I think the thin lines of the original on the sleeves and hem are too small. The balance of white-red-white on the shoulder yoke of today is off (again, my opinion); like with the Phillies’ powder-blue racing stripes, the white is there to separate the colors, shouldn’t be nearly as wide as the red stripe.
Also, I know that this covers just the white sweaters, but in 1978 when the Ferguson designs were shelved and the classic ‘Blueshirts’ returned, the blue sweaters had the same negative space stripes as the white.
Thank God for the NHL. Making up for the endless uniform garbage being churned out by MLB, NBA, and NFL.
The Stars and their black-with-neon-snot-green uniforms would like a word…..
…as would the ridiculous “yolk” collars of the Adidas era…
question: ccm/jofa era was the nhl logo on the back bottom? also before that era was there no nhl logo on jersey?
When CCM was the supplier, the logo was sewn to the tail of the sweaters on the wearer’s right side, between the stripes and the hem (or in the stripe, if it was at the bottom). Sometimes the store that outfitted the teams (Rangers = Cosby, Wings = East Side, Hawks = Gunzo’s) would have their name on the left side. The obvious exception to this was Gretzky; because he always tucked in the right side in his pants, the CCM logo would go on BOTH sides.
that was very insightful, thank you Paul
Fascinating – Nice job, Dillon!
“…can you think of a team that kept a mostly consistent uniform design but futzed with striping, spacing, and collar’s design?”
OTTOMH, the Green Bay Packers?
I wish they would bring back the full v-neck. The stripes look so much better than what they have had since the change. Requiring the pentagon with the NHL logo made every jersey a little bit worse.
This always reminds me of Stay Puft. Think they could ditch the red shoulder stripe for a Ghostbusters appreciation night:
link
Lifelong Rangers fan here. Always loved the white jerseys, especially when I’d get to see them at MSG when they were the home uniform. I even got to see the Ferguson-era unis with the Rangers shield, which I’m glad they got rid of. Thanks for the deep dive, Dillon.
Great article !!!!!! I still hate that home teams have went away from white at home in the nhl.
Life long Rangers fan…..what a great rabbit hole this was…thank you..! I was so upset and struggled to want to love the Rangers during the Ferguson fiasco…!
Is anybody gonna mention that nightmare fuel of a mannequin on the right? Jeebus.
You do know that the NHL did not require teams to officially have a home and a jersey until after World War II. And the dark jerseys were always the home jerseys until 1971 when the home teams would wear white jerseys, except the Los Angeles Kings, which wore forum gold
They added the second sweater for the same reason the red line was dashed and the blue lines solid: looked better on TV. Easier to tell the teams apart.
Magnificent! These are such great jerseys, in all of their incarnations.
I’m personally not wild about the V-neck, and I go back-and-forth on the lace-ups in general. With some teams it has seemed gimmicky, but I think NYR is one of those teams that looks great in laces.
I suppose I like the wider stripes better, but I like them all.
This is peak Uni Watch, and I love it! Nice job, Dillon!
The Rangers whites are right up there with Chicago’s whites as the best sweater in the league.