Good Tuesday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope you guys had a good Monday.
I’m back again this fine day with the one and only Leo Strawn, Jr. For the past two weeks, Leo turned his attention to Ice Hockey (Volume 1 and Volume 2), with a pair of awesome old time hockey posts. This one is a bit more recent, but still old. Old and gold, that is.
And now, here’s Leo with…
On Ice, Volume 3
by Leo Strawn, Jr.
I’m Leo…welcome to my world!
Continuing with the NHL…
When the Brooklyn (f.k.a. New York) Americans left the NHL ice in 1942, the “Original Six” era was born.
The league stayed that way until the great western expansion of 1967, following the NHL’s 50th season. That was a bold move by the NHL because it doubled the size of the league in one fell swoop. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and St. Louis were once again NHL cities and were joined by the California Seals, LA Kings and Minnesota North Stars.
The NHL Seals wore WHL Seals sweaters at least once in the 1967 preseason. Apologies because it’s hard to see details in the screenshot and photo, but the logo on the front of the sweaters looked similar to this yellow Seals jersey design and influenced the prototype modeled by Gerry Odrowski in the pic on the far right.
Before the calendar year had ended, in the midst of their first NHL season, the Seals changed the location portion of their name to Oakland because the team was drawing poorly at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena. This was done in the hopes that it would resonate more with fans from the east side of the bay. The name change did not help. In hindsight, the owner probably should have continued to play at the Cow Palace across the bay, where the WHL California (f.k.a. San Francisco) Seals played and were well supported. Of course, with a name change from California and a sweater logo that featured a “C”, the jersey logo had to be changed to an “O” for Oakland.
That wasn’t the only first season change among the expansion clubs. The North Stars logo seen on the 1967 Hockey Pictorial magazine cover above was not their first logo.
Re Pittsburgh: I know the reason behind their switch to black and gold, but I still think the ice blue & black color scheme was a better choice and representative of a team named Penguins. By the way, that guy on the right made a pretty good living selling coffee and donuts, too. Tragically, he was killed in a car crash the day after playing what would be his last game for the Sabres in Toronto, on February 21, 1974, 10 years after opening the original Tim Horton’s shop in Hamilton while he skated for the Leafs. He played with Pittsburgh for a single season, 1971-72.
Back out west, when Charlie O. purchased the Seals franchise prior to the 1970-71 season, things got weird in the hockey fashion world. First up, though, was another name change to the Bay Area Seals. It didn’t last long and they would play their first season under Finley as the California Golden Seals, the franchise’s fourth name in its first four seasons.
The addition of the word “Golden” is self-explanatory. The colors were changed from green, white and blue to Charlie’s signature green and gold.
Ol’ Charlie wanted to steal the handle in hockey as he has done in baseball. Thus, the white skate experiment was born. But, like his orange baseball experiment, it quickly died.
The next wave of expansion in 1970 brought franchises to Buffalo and Vancouver. With Finley changing the color scheme of his newly-purchased franchise to green and gold, the Canucks debuted in blue, green and white the season after the Seals stopped using it.
With the advent of the WHA and resultant escalating salaries, juxtaposed against the Athletics success, Finley finally had enough of hockey after three seasons and sold the franchise back to the league.
Finley didn’t lead the change in hockey fashion as he did in baseball…then the NHL proceeded to do this with California’s looks. Ugh.
That team went on to Cleveland to become the Barons two seasons later, proudly sporting the shape of the Buckeye state all over their uniforms. The Barons would then merge with the North Stars two seasons after that and a return to Charlie’s vision of green and gold.
Coming up: We’ll skate on over to the WHA.
Until then…
Cheers!
Thanks, Leo — this was another awesome one. Like Leo, I too am fully cognizant why the Penguins went on to match the colors of the Pittsburgh flag and their compatriots in baseball and football, but I wish they’d stayed those shades of double blue. And who didn’t love those wedding gown white, Fort Knox gold, and kelly green-clad Seals? Still one of, if not the top color combos in all of sports.
Readers? What say you?
The California Golden Seals and Minnesota North Stars – I think anyway – are two of the best uniforms in sports history. Our high school club sported the seals home jersey and at the same time I played for the (Florissant) Valley Stars in St. Louis. Our colors were the same – but our crest was a
“V” with a star rather than an “N” – they both were great unis. This was in ’76-’77. Everybody in this neck of the woods loved them – the girls were always asking me to get them one but that was before any kind of merchandising. We didn’t have white skates though. Mostly just classic CCM or Bauers with maybe the occasional Lange’s. We thought we were the cat’s ass.
Looking at those old Pens uniforms makes me wish for the same: they should have stuck with double blue, maybe a dash of gold somewhere. The Seals looked great in gold and green. I love that C with a skating seal logo.
Hey, I like the teal Seals jerseys with the shoulder loops! Not that there’s anything wrong with the green and gold unis, either.
The Canucks’ inaugural jerseys are my favorite of the franchise, especially with the big, bold 1970-71 numbers. Switching to standard block numbers was a downgrade, and getting rid of the V-stripes the next year was a further downgrade.
I’m fond of the black and gold Pens, but wouldn’t mind a return of the Columbia and navy blues in the form of the 1977-80 jerseys. I just really like the contrasting-sleeve design.
Having the sleeve numbers in an Ohio-shaped patch was one of the best things about the Barons’ 1976-77 jerseys. It’s a shame they got rid of that in 77-78 and put the numbers on the shoulders instead. I would love it if the Blue Jackets would adopt that element for a new alternate jersey, which they desperately need. (I just want to see the “vintage white”-trimmed cannon jersey go away, and yes, it’s because of that color specifically.)
I agree totally. I LOVE the teal Seals sweaters.
And here I thought I was the only one that liked the teal and yellow Seals uniforms
I loved them too! The colors and the shoulder loops were great.
As great as the red Atlanta Thrashers jersey:
link
Also loved the Barons jerseys. After reading this I had to look up “Penguins vs Barons” and found this great matchup…with Pittsburgh legend Bob Prince calling the action!
link
Thanks for the memories, Leo!
Points on the Blues- the Blue Note.
Interesting evolution of the stem of the note getting thicker over the years.
Being old school, visually will always prefer the original.
When the 2nd six teams came out, certainly built upon the tremendous outfits of the Original Six.
Thank you Leo…well done!! As always !
Thanks.
Cheers!
GTGFTS – April 10, 2005 – Phillies vs. Cardinals. The significance of that game? You tell me…
Another great post, Leo. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Growing up in Detroit, original 6 is huge. I kind of prefer the details of the original red wing compared to modern.
But Leo, thank you! I had no idea the history of the seals. Never knew about the O and C, A’s owner transcending White footwear, and most importantly had to look what the cow palace was…such a cool barn. Fascinating!
You’re welcome, Carson.
I loved the Red Wings when Hasek and Brett played for Detroit. First NHL game I ever went to was in Columbus, but I was there to see those guys play for Detroit. I still can’t really get on the Blue Jackets train, after all these years.
By the way, I thought Detroit’s Stadium Series helmets over the weekend looked amazing and I hope NHL helmets having more of a football helmet look to them is going to become the standard.
Cheers!
That 2002 team was really good! And I agree with you Leo, a small college team in our state called UofM has been doing the hockey helmet football look for awhile that looks good.
Actually the Penguin’s original colors were light blue and dark blue, not black. But still a great article!
Glad you enjoyed the article!
The penguin in the logo is black, not navy. To me, those two colors were representative of ice and a penguin and what I meant was the whole uniform set should have been ice blue/black, IMHO.
I worded it poorly. Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have tried to throw that the middle of an awkward paragraph.
Cheers!
It hasn’t escaped my attention that, with the notable exception of the Packers, green & gold (yellow) pro teams have a star-crossed record: San Diego Rockets, Oakland A’s, Golden Seals, Minnesota North Stars, Seattle Supersonics, did I miss any? And blue & green teams may last, but their uniforms sure don’t, with the Canucks being the only ones to return to that colorway.
Penguins were right in switching to black and gold as it meant Pittsburgh would be then, and still, the only city with at least three professional sports teams to all share the same color scheme. The blue/black would make a nice throwback to wear a couple times a year.
It is wild to think about how the Penguins changed their uniforms and colour scheme in mid-season. Timing of this absolutely would be impossible to do today in Big Four leagues. Likely any league.
Had no idea that The Flower wore a helmet his rookie year, great picture find Leo.
Always was a fan of Barons uni’s, very slick design.