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4 Nations Face-Off Jerseys Officially Unveiled

Back in October, the NHL teased their 4 Nations Face-Off jerseys, and today those jerseys have officially been unveiled. If you’re not aware, the 4 Nations Face-Off is an international tournament set for Feb. 12-20 in Montreal and Boston and featuring NHL players. Players from Canada, United States, Sweden and Finland will compete in the tournament, competing for their national teams, and will play each other in a round-robin format, followed by a one-game final between the two top-placed teams. The teams will involve only NHL players, and the 4 Nations Face-Off will temporarily replace the NHL’s annual All-Star Game for 2025.

Throughout the duration of the 4 Nations Face-Off, each team will wear the same uniform in all games.

Now that the jerseys have been officially unveiled, let’s take a closer look. I’ll include the NHL’s press release descriptions for each jersey and have some of my own thoughts after that.

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Canada

“Canada’s jersey is red with maple white colored accents, a nod to the country’s rich tradition of maple harvesting. Its front crest is highlighted by a 13-point maple leaf, inspired by the first representation of what would become the iconic Canadian flag. An arced Canada wordmark sits inside the leaf, and the sleeves feature debossed maple leaf vines, weaving communities coast to coast to coast.”

Additional photos here:

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Finland

“Finland’s jersey is white, inspired by the country’s vast winter landscape and deep passion for the outdoors. Its front crest features a split-colored wordmark which reads ‘Suomi,’ the Finnish word for Finland, as well as a contemporary take on the national coat of arms with its iconic crowned lion set against the backdrop of the Finnish sky. The split-coloring in the wordmark and on the sleeves represents where the sky meets the horizon. Additional details include Convallaria Majalis, the country’s national flower, debossed on the sleeves and on the interior neckline.”

Additional photos here:

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Sweden

Sweden’s jersey is highlighted by the country’s iconic colors of yellow and blue. Its front crest features a modern redesign of the iconic ‘Tre Kronor,’ or three crowns, which is historically worn by the nation’s hockey teams in international competitions. This textured ‘Tre Kronor’ design draws inspiration from the Swedish artistry of crown and armor craftsmanship. Additionally, a sleek stripe design, inspired by the Swedish flag, is subtly incorporated on to the jersey’s sleeves.

Additional photos here:

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United States

“The jersey for USA draws inspiration from the American flag and features navy blue as the primary color, with red and white striping on the sleeves and base of the jersey. Its front crest features a modern USA block wordmark with silver chisel detailing. On each shoulder is a single white star patch. There are 13 tonal, sublimated stripes on the chest and back, each representing one of the original 13 colonies. ‘E Pluribus Unum’ — Out of Many, One — from The Great Seal of the United States, is debossed on the jersey’s sleeves.”

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In general, I really really like all these jerseys. That they closely resemble the four nations’ team uniforms is a big plus — granted each team is only wearing one uniform (jersey), so the NHL didn’t need to create any second or third jerseys that aren’t necessarily a classic look (like seeing Team Canada in all black uniforms).

All the details on the jersey are described in the storytelling, and in that regard, they don’t really go overboard. Of course, most of the subtle details won’t be visible to the viewer when the team is on the ice. Things like Canada’s stitched Maple Leaf vines or the United States’ e pluribus unum won’t ever really be seen by fans in the stands or even TV viewers. Even the USA’s 13 sublimated tonal stripes, while a nice touch, are barely visible.

I love the colors of the teams represented, and I like that Finland is using Suomi (which means “Finland” in Finnish) rather than the English equivalent, and of course Sweden’s “Tre Kronor” (three crowns) serve as their national identifier. I love that Canada uses the Maple Leaf. Even the subtle beveling on the USA wordmark looks good!

About the only thing I’m not a fan of are the ad patches each jersey will have. You can see them in that photo. Rogers (Canada), Discover (USA), and SAP (Finland and Sweden) branded jersey ads “will be prominently featured on the jerseys NHL players wear for all 4 Nations Face-Off games.”

I’ll be most excited to see these on the ice (and the full uniforms as well), but so far, so good.

Your thoughts?

 
  
 
Comments (26)

    Too bad we don’t have more photos of the USA the way we have more photos of the other three.
    For the most part, yeah I really like the jerseys, and I love the way each team has only one jersey but they all contrast well enough. Not sure I’ve ever seen the whole packages, i.e.: helmets, gloves, socks, etc…but I don’t predict any aesthetic nose dives. Unless the fonts don’t work for me on TV. Fonts these days, they easily go bad in action, even if they’re awesome on a mannequin.
    If I could have just one quibble, I simply don’t care for “just a ‘USA'” on the USA. It’s a missed opportunity for a real logo. Some kind of shield with a stars and stripes could be a beautiful crest. I can respect that the 1980 jerseys just had USA in a radial arch, but any USA hockey uniform would look better with a real logo instead of letters.

    Agreed on the unfortunate lack of a USA logo, Mike. Especially since they created a very sharp looking shield specifically for this tournament, and they aren’t using it as the main logo.

    Even the NHL can’t seem to get a USA hockey sweater right. Nike came close for the 2010 Olympics, and this 4 Nations version comes so close but due to some small mistakes with big impact it falls so short. My biggest gripe is the lettering. I like the general approach to the USA lettering; the beveling is nicely done. But the flat top and arched bottom of the lettering just doesn’t do it for me. Aside from the unnecessary distortion of the letterforms, the prominently implied curve undercuts the more linear visual effect of the beveling. Are we chiseling USA in stone or are we distorting it with late-1990s QuarkXpress tools? It should be a binary choice, one or the other. Pick a lane.

    The modernized version of the 1960 jersey the World Juniors USA team wears is perfect. That should be USA hockey’s jersey for every level, every competition, always.

    I don’t agree. I’m a Bruins fan, I don’t see it as a Rangers jersey. I get how one could extrapolate that, but it doesn’t bother me.

    I wonder if there are any players from other countries that have bonuses tied to making the All Star game? I’ve always thought that the best NBA All Star game would be Internationals vs USA.
    And in your first sentence you say “NFL” instead of NHL.

    No problem.
    You may want to have a look at the Utah HC article, though. Can’t figure out why the mobile format is wonky.

    More important NHL news, Utah HC has subbed Outlaws in and pulled Wasatch. Hopefully that means fans were smart enough to want a reasonable sounding nickname instead of all the singular minor league ones the team was pushing.

    The jerseys are really nice.

    Major miss by faux pas by Fanatics for only getting these out less than 2 weeks before the event.

    Strange, no mention of Russia whatsoever. I’m sure that there are enough Russian players in the NHL to field a team. But I guess politics prevail…

    Though they had enough NHL players to create a roster, Russia and Czechia — ranked third and eighth, respectively — were not included in the tournament, with Russia specifically excluded due to the ban imposed on it by the IIHF for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

    I’ve always been a fan of countries using the name that they call themselves, not what English speakers use. Suomi instead of Finland, and the old CCCP instead of USSR always come to mind.

    For what it’s worth, the Cyrillic characters that look like “CCCP” are actually that alphabet’s equivalent of “SSSR”. So our English “USSR” was not too far off.

    I was a kid back when the USSR existed, and even though I studied Russian for years in high school and college, I could never kick the habit of reading the initials as “see see see pee” instead of “ess ess ess arr” as a Russian-speaker would read them. In either case, they’re the first letters of the same four words. Сојуз на Советските Социјалистички Републики (or in Latin-alphabet transcription, Soyuz na Sovetskitye Socialisticheskih Republikih) translates literally and word-for-word as Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. So CCCP really does = USSR in a way many English transliterations don’t. Like Japan for Nihon, Germany for Deutschland, Greece for Hellas, etc.

    If the Czechs had been involved, it would have been neat to see a jersey reading Česko, which I personally prefer to Czechia. Even if it has to be anglicized as Czesko, I’d rather we called it that if the Czechs really do want us to give up the Czech Republic name.

    R. Scott, what Cyrillic orthography is that? Serbian? Makedonian? I’ve never seen a Russian speaker use the letter j in Cyrillic like that; I thought the USSR was Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (Soyuz Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik), with ю (not jу) for the “yu” in “soyuz”.

    I agree that I like seeing countries use their own names and not their English names. Some of the Japanese teams use “Nippon” but most use “Japan”. Go ahead and use your own language! Most people know the local names of culturally significant countries and if you’re a lesser-known one (like Hrvatska, “Croatia”), sports are a good opportunity to make yourself known.

    I think they did a great job. Though the descriptions made my roll my eyes, I do appreciate a lot of the little things they did.

    I think the US sweater is meh, but the other three are very nice. The embossing (debossing?) is useless, and unless you buy one, you’ll never see it. The descriptions read like they were churned out of AI: what is “maple white”? Nothing on or about a maple tree is white. And maple vines?

    honoring the iconic 1980 USA miracle squad (with a replica jersey) would have pretty cool, would have been at least inspiring, if anything at all.

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