Today in the Ticker: A men’s soccer team with player names in a surprising spot, the new North American women’s ice hockey league is an aesthetic work in progress, and more.
Uni Watch News Ticker for Oct. 16, 2023
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Baseball
Softball
- We’ve mentioned Las Amazonas de Yaxunah on the site before, an all-woman Mayan softball team from Mexico that plays barefoot wearing traditional blouses. Their uniforms are one reason why they’ve grown their following, including coming to the US to play at the Diamondbacks’ stadium last month and perhaps playing in other countries as well. (From K.C. Kless)
Football
NFL
- NFL commish Roger Goodell says the league could one day play the Super Bowl in London.
- Kevin “Gashouse” Cearfoss’s latest wall hanging is particularly good. It’s called “Bengals on the Brain.”
College
- Recently, we had an item on a new helmet with an in-helmet display for Division III Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf in D.C. Here’s a video on it. (From Bryan Martin Firvida)
Hockey
NHL
- The Hurricanes are once again wearing red helmets on the road for their first road trip of the season. “The guess is that they’ll will likely wear red everywhere on the road except for Arizona, Detroit, and Calgary, the only teams that wear red lids at home,” says Gabe Cornwall.
More
- Dodgers president Stan Kasten is on the advisory board for the new Professional Women’s Hockey League and told the CBC that its teams will have names by the time the first season starts in January, but may not have logos. The league itself doesn’t have a logo yet, either, and has to figure out teams’ arenas, illustrating the aesthetic perils of starting a new league with only six months’ notice.
Basketball
NBA
- NBA home teams can wear whichever uniform they want during the regular season, but home teams almost always wear white during the preseason. A rare exception came last night, when the Kings wore black at home. (From Antonio Cee)
College
- Iowa’s women’s team played an outdoor exhibition against DePaul at football’s Kinnick Stadium yesterday. Saturday was spent setting up the court, which was specific to the event and different from Iowa’s usual court. Notably, the center circle was surrounded by a black rectangle for some reason. The game ended up setting a record for the highest attendance at a women’s basketball game. (From Nick Pfeiffer)
- Virginia’s women’s team debuted new blue uniforms at their intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday, the white versions having appeared at the team’s photo day.
- It looks like Ohio State’s men’s team might be adding a 125th-anniversary patch. (From Ben Teaford)
Soccer
USA
- The NWSL’s Washington Spirit added a new accent color that can best be described as tennis ball in a hoodie and a giveaway hat available at yesterday’s game. If anyone from the Spirit is reading this, all I ask is please don’t subject us to a repeat of the old highlighter and black kit for the then-Seattle Reign.
- The NWSL had its first “Decision Day” yesterday — like many other soccer leagues the last games of the season (regular season, in this case) were all played simultaneously, at 5 p.m. Eastern. The name is borrowed from MLS, as is the practice of giving the day its own logo.
- The Orlando Pride wore their second kit at home yesterday and added pink ribbon patches and pink numbers and NOBs. Striker Marta became the first to reach 100 appearances for the team and got a framed No. 100 shirt.
- Meanwhile, Angel City attempted to police flags and banners, as well as what fans were wearing, which seems to have been read by fans as aimed at preventing Palestinian or Israeli flags or other symbols.
International
- England: Here’s an interesting story on how Liverpool, having sold their former men’s training facility, bought it back from a housing developer and just finished turning it into the training facility for their women’s team.
- Netherlands: This is a new fact to me, but AZ were apparently one of the first men’s teams to add players’ names to their shirts before NOBs became common. But the names were on the front, not the back. That picture may be from the late ’70s, so it predates the common use of NOBs in soccer by at least 15 years. (From Jeremy Brahm)
Rugby
- Reader Tim Dunn’s men’s Rugby World Cup tracker is updated through the quarterfinals and also has a knockout stage-only version. We mentioned yesterday that Welsh players’ numbers were falling off in the first half of their game. Adding to the bizarre scene was (a) they seemed completely fine for the second half and (b) around the time the problem became noticeable, referee Jaco Peyper injured himself and had to be replaced by assistant Karl Dickson, leading to a delay while Dickson’s equipment was set up.
Grab Bag
- College field hockey teams that wore pink included Duke and Wake Forest (socks) and Georgetown (full uniform).
- Here’s an overview of all the Australian Football League’s women’s Indigenous designs for this season’s round, which started Saturday and goes through next weekend. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags were also painted on the field. The round comes with the backdrop of a referendum that would have enshrined Indigenous peoples in Australia’s constitution and given them dedicated representation in government, but failed on Saturday.
Comments (7)
Playing a Super Bowl in London is stupid and won’t happen, but how perfect would a 2:30p CT start time be? It’s 1972 all over again…
Going by the style of the shirts the AZ picture looks to be from the 77-78 season, though if my reference book on Dutch kits is correct it seems names appeared on the front of their shirts as early as the 74-75 campaign.
Apparently AZ owner Cees Molenaar was inspired to do this on a trip to the States, where he saw player names displayed on team jerseys and decided to use them at his own club, albeit on the front.
The Wales numbers were fine in the second half because they put on new jerseys at halftime…I guess with different adhesive on the numbers? Not a good showing for Macron, the Welsh uniform supplier.
In the England v. Fiji game, Marcus Smith went through 3 jerseys because of blood injuries to his mouth. Two had his #15 on them.
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The final was an un-numbered spare. link
Missed the Ticker. We got a full look at the new Anaheim Ducks anniversary uniforms on the ice last night.
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Put the original logo on the front and we’ve got what should be adopted as the primary uniform moving forward.
Question is….. did the fans at Kinnick (at some point in the game) do “The Wave” to the kids at the Cancer Research Center? :) That’s customary at the end of the 1st quarter during football games (and a great tradition too).
They did, but not sure when.
Yes, at the end of the first quarter…just like at football games. It was an amazing experience.