By Phil Hecken
It’s that time of year again — no, not the knockout stage of the World Cup, the nearing of MLB’s midsummer classic nor even the middle weekend of Wimbledon — it’s time for FOOTBALL again.
OK, not American football, but Canadian football — as the CFL has begun play for the 2014 season, kicking off their season this past Thursday with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers thrashing the Toronto Argonauts by a tally of 45-21. The rest of the league kicks off this weekend.
While still a fairly foreign game to Americans, the game has seen increased popularity and with greater USA television coverage, is now being seen by many more of us down in the lower 48.
I am once again joined by my buddy, Mike Styczen, whom I’ve asked to keep us up to date with the uni-happenings for the nine (that’s right — there’s a NEW team this year) teams who play their games up in Canada. He was reluctant…but I was able to threaten him with detention when he visits New York in July convince him that hey, Canadian Football deserves to have its uniforms recognized down here, if only for one day.
So now, here’s Mike with your…
2014 CFL Preview
By Mike Styczen
When Phil asked me to write a preview of the 2014 CFL season (which started this week) I was a little reluctant as there’s not much new in the CFL this year.
Reebok took over the league-wide contract and redesigned the uniforms in 2004. The first set of redesigned uniforms were exactly what you would expect ”“ lots of random patches of colour, bibs and stripes. Reebok redesigned the uniforms again in 2012 and many teams went to a better look with more traditional stripes, numbers and colours.
The only major uniform change planned for 2014 (other than the new Ottawa uniforms) is the announcement by the Commissioner that all teams will have “stunning new third uniforms” in 2014, rumoured to be similar to the “gunmetal” uniforms worn by the B.C. Lions in 2013.
The biggest CFL development continues to be the development of new stadiums. The last new stadium (prior to the current boom) was SkyDome in 1989; the development of five or six new stadiums starting in 2012 represents a significant refreshing of the league’s facilities [Click on any photos below to enlarge — PH].
B.C. Lions
• The B.C. Lions home set remains orange jerseys / white pants, and the road set remains white jerseys / orange pants, with simple striping. Both road and home helmets are white. The Lions also wear the aforementioned gunmetal alternates.
• B.C. will host the 102nd Grey Cup on November 30th.
• B.C. was the first to get a “new” stadium. B.C. Place, was originally built in 1983 and was an air-supported facility similar to the Metrodome. After the 2010 Olympics, it got a complete overhaul to completely renovate the seating areas and concourses, and to remove the air-supported roof and replace it with an innovative retractable roof. It’s a beautiful facility, opened in 2012, that hosts the Lions as well as the MLS Whitecaps.
Calgary Stampeders
• Their uniforms are still a disaster of patches and stripes. The home jerseys are red with black pants and a red helmet. The road jerseys are white with a weird shoulder yoke, red pants and a black helmet.
• The team plays at McMahon Stadium, opened in 1960 on the University of Calgary campus. While there’s been talk of the need for a new stadium, there are no concrete plans.
Edmonton Eskimos
• Edmonton has a traditional look at home, green over yellow with a yellow helmet. The road uniform is a mess like Calgary’s white over green with a green helmet.
• The team plays at Commonwealth Stadium, opened in 1978 and renovated in 2013 with new seats. Commonwealth isn’t going anywhere.
Saskatchewan Roughriders
• The defending Grey Cup champion Roughriders home set are green over white, with a green helmet. The road set consists of white jerseys, white pants, and a white helmet.
• The Roughriders have been at Mosaic Stadium since 1936 (though with renovations there isn’t much of the original building left). They’ll move to a new 30,000 seat stadium expected to be ready in 2017.
Winnipeg Blue Bombers
• The home set are blue over gold and the road set are gold over blue. The helmets are gold.
• The biggest change for the Blue Bombers for 2014 is that they’re back in the Western Conference with the return of the CFL to Ottawa.
• The Blue Bombers moved to Investors Group Field in 2013. The new stadium seats 33,422 and is on the University of Manitoba campus.
Ottawa RedBlacks
• This is Ottawa’s third try at a CFL team. After the Rough Riders sadly folded after 120 years in 1996, and the Renegades quietly faded away after five seasons in 2006, excitement is high for the new team.
• The new team has adopted the look and colours of its predecessors. The home uniform is monochrome black and the road uniform is monochrome white. The team’s primary logo evokes the iconic “R” logo of the old Rough Riders, as well as a buzzsaw (a nod to Ottawa’s past as a lumber town).
• The team will play at TD Place, which is a mixture of new and old: the north stands are from old Frank Clair Stadium, while the south stands are new.
Toronto Argonauts
• The Argonauts home set are traditional blue over white, while the road set are white over blue. Helmets are blue.
• The team has a lease at Rogers Centre through 2017, but after that the Blue Jays (which own the building) have stated that they intend to convert the building into a baseball-only facility with natural grass. The leading candidate for a new home for the Argos seems to be BMO Field (home of Toronto FC), which sits on the site of old Exhibition Stadium.
Hamilton Tiger Cats
• The Ticats primary home set is black over gold and their primary road set is white over black. Helmets are black.
• The team played its 2013 season in Guelph while Ivor Wynne Stadium, home of the Tiger Cats since the 1940s, was torn down and replaced with new 24,000 seat Tim Horton’s Field.
Montreal Alouettes
• The Als home set are red with blue and silver trim, worn with silver pants, and the road set are white with red and silver trim, blue pants. Helmets are silver.
• The team continues to play at charming Percival Molson Stadium on the McGill University campus. In the past the team has played playoff games at Olympic Stadium, but that practice may have come to an end because of the condition of the stadium.
TV Coverage
TSN in Canada has exclusive CFL rights and airs every game. In the United States, games air on NBCSN, ESPN2 and ESPN 3. The 2014 broadcast schedule doesn’t seem to be posted yet, but check here for updates.
Thanks Mike! Great job with the uniform/stadium rundown. So, for all of you jonesing for some football before the real football season starts, make sure you get your fill of the game played up north, where the fields are too big, the downs are too few, the players too many…and you can score a rouge.
Colorize This!
Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.
I have a couple today, all from Bruce Menard (who’s probably better known to Uni Watch for his wonderful wire service photo finds, but who is amazingly talented!). Click on any photos to enlarge:
Here’s Bruce:
Phil,
I noticed that you saw my Babe Ruth colorization today via Twitter (sliding into 3rd). So I attached the one I posted and a before/after comparison.
I also made a colorization last week for a Father’s Day posting. It’s of The Babe kissing his daughter Dorothy before a game c.1927. I’m attaching that, plus a before/after as well.
Maybe you could use them for Uni Watch this week…
Cheers!
~Bruce
Thanks Bruce. Those are wonderful colorizations. OK, colorizers — love for you guys to have your latest work featured on here. Keep ’em coming!
U.W.F.F.L. Spring League
UWFFL Developmental League – Week 15
by Rob Holecko
The UWFFL gets back into action, and today we have a full slate of eleven games for you to vote on. Among those games is a key match between two 4-1 teams, Memphis and Missouri, who trail only the 6-0 Little Rock Diamondbacks atop the Group C standings. This will be a key game as these teams battle for promotion into the UWFFL Fall season.
In other games, Little Rock debuts it’s ‘Midnight Russet’ uniform set,
Harlem debuts their yellow alt jersey and Boston adds the UWFFL patch to their uniform. Be sure to head over to uwfantasyfootballleague.com to vote on the other ten games this week, and we’ll see you next weekend.
Rob
Uni Watch News Ticker:
Baseball News: Is there “something odd” about the Reds road uniforms? Dan Wohl writes, “Maybe this has already been documented, but I’m watching the Giants play the Reds and noticing that the team’s road gray jersey is inconsistent as to whether it says CINCI NNATI or CINC INNATI. Some players have one style, and some have the other. I googled a bit and found pictures of Brandon Phillips, for instance, in either configuration: CINCI NNATI vs CINC INNATI.” … We may have seen this before, but it’s totally worth another view. Check out this vintage photo website (which submitter Ray Barrington thinks might also make a good catch of the day), which back in February featured a female NY Giants baseball team. “Hope you like them,” says Ray. … On Thursday night, the Tacoma Rainiers/El Paso Chihuahua’s game was postponed because the airline lost the Rainiers’ luggage — which of course meant their unis were missing. … The Toledo Mud Hens have unveiled their Christmas in July Day/Night Doubleheader Jerseys — they’ll wear them on July 19th (thanks to @MiLBPromos). … Minor League Baseball thrives on (oftentimes horrible) alternate gimmick jerseys to bring fans to the park, but could this be the worst matchup of all time? (h/t Zach Cronrath). … MLB.com is doing a flash sale on some Cooperstown throw back jerseys. “They are selling a Diamondbacks 1998 Road Grey that never existed,” notes Jay Heiple. “It displays the home jersey logo on a grey non-pinstripe jersey. It’s look plain awful to a purist. The road logo actually displayed “Arizona” as highlighted by a great Dbacks jersey website below. Seriously looks like they made it in some back alley in China knowing abstractly what they think it looked like.” … Here’s some cool Pete Rose stuff from 1969 in this video from Brice Wallace: Crosley Field shots start at 11:12, Spring training stuff starts at 16:20 and at least some of the spring training shots feature the pinstriped uniform. … The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, who’ve made their bacon this year with pig-themed unis, will bust out “patriotic” uniforms on July 3. … Oooohhh, check out this photo of Ron Santo with some of his fan club members (via @CubsHistory). … This comes from our Pacific Rim Correspondent, Jeremy Brahm: “The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks had a throwback night to the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks (Thursday) night against the Seibu Lions. So much so that they even busted out the Hawk’s Head helmets. Picture from the game. In August they will even give out some paper ones.” … On Sunday, the Marlins are giving away this soccer-style jersey (h/t @gacanefanblog). Those blue jerseys seem to be quite popular — No word on whether Jim Vilk will be on a Greyhound for Miami yet. … Last evening, “more than a couple” of the Lakeshore Chinooks busted out these gorgeous stirrups (thanks to Nicole Haase). … Also last evening, the Cedar Rapids Kernels wore these Autism Awareness jerseys (via Joey). … Josh Donaldson of the A’s has worn a camouflage elbow pad for at least a couple games this season (nice find by Joanna Zwiep)
College Football News: Joining the all black (is it even BFBS anymore?) trend is Ball State, who now have all black uniforms and helmets. Not surprisingly, the players are excited about the matte black helmets, which, along with the new black pants, were paid for by donor funds. Ball State has had a black alt top for two years, but the pants and helmets now “complete” the all-black look. This link has some video.
Basketball News: “I’m sure (I hope) you’ve heard about Filipino’s passion for basketball,” writes Monark Buhain. And Nike has unveiled new Gilas Pilipinas team kits. “Just want to share this bit with you. By the way, Andray Blatche who is now a Filipino will be suiting up for the team in the FIBA World Cup this August.” … Looks like number 2 draft pick Jabari Parker will wear #12 for the Milwaukee Bucks (h/t Adam Vitcavage). … Also from Adam, number one draft pick Andrew Wiggins will wear #21 for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Hockey News: A Swedish hockey team, Kiruna IF, has announced its intention to wear rainbow uniforms to stand up for LGBT rights. According to the team, the switch to rainbow colors is “one motivated by the desire to honour, commend and respect individual uniqueness, the promotion of acceptance and equality regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.” … The Anaheim Ducks have unveiled their new uniforms for 2014-15. And here’s another look at the road sweater. … Here’s a look at the new Arizona Coyotes patch, seen at last night’s draft (via Jeff Anderson). … “Interesting the see the Lightning had their 1st round pick a 47 Brand hat instead of a NHL standard Reebok lid,” says Jason Reid. … According to RJ Meyers, this is the best Brett Hull pic ever.
Soccer News: The World Cup knockout round starts today. Here’s the bracket going forward. … Those of you who are Game of Thrones‘ fans will be more than thrilled to learn that there are now Game of Thrones-inspired uniforms (supposedly from Nike). Actually, some of them aren’t too bad (thanks to Ira Creasman). … Here’s “The Amazing Soccer Ball That’s Virtually Indestructible,” with thanks to Steve Cook.
Grab Bag: Randolph-Macon College, located in Ashland, Virginia, has unveiled new logo (thanks to TommyTheCPA). … Oops, an Apostrophe Catastrophe from MSNBC (thanks to Joseph NguyenJosh Jacobs found this website that tracks who is getting new rugby kits. Joe reminds us, “We are a few days away from the USA National team getting new uniforms.” … “[Yester]day’s ticker mentioned that every World Cup ball has game-specific information printed on them,” says Matt Fedorka. “When I was in France during the 2007 Rugby World Cup, they had displays of game-used balls from that year’s tournament. I went back and checked my pictures and sure enough, the round of the tournament, date, and city are all listed on the ball, although the specific teams are not listed.” … Singer Mike Edel has an album called The Closer, which has some baseball-related artwork on the cover. It is also available for free at the following link through July 3 (nice find by Joanna Zwiep).
And that’s all for today — thanks to Mike for the great look at the CFL’s upcoming unis and the new stadia, and to Bruce for the wonderful colorizaitons. Got a big World Cup piece coming tomorrow, including dueling 5 & 1’s — from an old hand and a new man — so that should be very interesting (and likely will be diametrically opposed). You won’t want to miss that.
Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.
Peace.
“It’s not just you. This World Cup is indeed lacking.”
–Jim Vilk
In the ticker — try “Cin cin nati” — two n’s in the middle, not two t’s toward the end.
Misspelled four times in the ticker. That has to be some kind of record.
This ticker submission highlights the pressing need for 1) double checking your work and 2) pullover jerseys for the Reds.
D’oh. I totally copied/pasted that (hence the quote) from the submitter, (it’s not a mistake I’d make, but I never even thought to check it — totally my bad).
Fixed now.
While on the subject of spelling, my last name in the ticker is spelled wrong. Its “Myers” not “Meyers” Don’t feel bad people who have known me my entire life still screw it up and the bank lets me cash checks made out to me that way.
I still think Redblacks is a stupid name. It’s better than having Roughriders and Rough Riders, but not by much. They also don’t seem to have anywhere near enough red in their color scheme for it to be the first color named. They should be the Blackreds.
Then you’d lose the visual link to past Ottawa teams because you couldn’t use an “R” as the helmet logo.
I’m ok with that. Heck, they’ve had 2 teams fail in that city, why would you want to link back to that? A fresh new start might be a good idea.
The original Ottawa Senators “failed.” Would you have had the current NHL team go with a fresh new start in 92? How about the Cleveland Browns?
If having an “R” on the helmet appeals to the football fans of Ottawa, then that’s that. It’s their team, not yours or mine.
Blackreds also wouldn’t work because the French name would be Le Noir et Rouge de Ottawa and require a different initial. And the bilingual name is such an awesomely Canadian thing for this team.
You should be enjoying the fact that Winnipeg has no white jersey, instead of picking on the new Ottawa team.
But he’s right about a couple things. There’s not enough red, and the name is less than ideal. If you want to call to mind Ottawa’s lumber days, call them the Rough Cutters.
Or just forgive Horn Chen already, let bygones be bygones and buy the Rough Riders name back from him.
True, the lack of a white jersey is quite refreshing.
REDBLACKS
My father’s high school teams were the Rabs. Which simply stood for “red and blacks”– the school colors.
Sort of dumb, but sort of cool too.
I still think Redblacks is a stupid name. It’s better than having Roughriders and Rough Riders, but not by much.
Any truth to the rumor that Saskatchewan will re-brand themselves as the Red Blacks?
CFL.ca usually uses REDBLACKS in all caps (think of the Miami HEAT for an American equivalent) but the site’s English-language forums style it as RedBlacks in camelcase, which appears to be the go-to capitalisation for the team’s name.
They sent out a presser asking for people to use the all caps.
And were rightly mocked.
Rumour has it CFL third jerseys will not be gunmetal, but will have full sized logos on front of uni in place of numbers. Sounds awful, but have heard this might be direction league is going.
I guess that could work ok, if they actually make them look like short-sleeved hockey jerseys, rather than the things they tried out in the mid 90’s: link
In case anybody is wondering, the colorized pic of The Babe sliding into 3rd base was taken on June 23, 1925 in Washington. The original LOC caption reads: “Yankees Babe Ruth safe at third in fourth inning on Bob Meusel’s fly out. Senators third baseman is Ossie Bluege. Senators won 8-1.”
Also, the Stamps have red pants as an option for road games this year. I’m sure we’ll see them used at home as well to create the CFL’s answer to the Arizona Cardinals’ blood clot set.
Thanks Steve – I didn’t spend a ton of time looking at all the alternates and mix and match options like that. The Stamps also have a black alt jersey they bring out from time to time but its so hideous (with the red shoulders) I can’t even link to it.
Thanks for the great CFL coverage. I used to love watching three down football in ESPN’s infancy. I remember the stadiums. The TiCats should go back to the yellow helmets. Also, how could Hamilton not, at very least, call their new home Tim Horton’s Field at Ivor Wynne Stadium?
The Guardian had an interview with Nerea Palacios- the man who created these Game of Thrones kits. link
Also, Nike has not created these looks. If you look at the bottom-right in all these designs. You can see Mr. Palacios wrote “I WANT TO WORK AT NIKE”.
“Nike has not created these looks.”
~~~
Thanks for the confirmation, which is why I qualified it with “supposedly from Nike” in the ticker. Some of them are pretty good – maybe this guy has a future in uni design (though not necessarily from Nike).
Oops, on my part. It’s Ms. Palacios. I forgot that important detail on my first post.
CFL uniforms looks like a combination of bad high school and college uniforms.
I don’t know about high school, but the RedBlacks could definitely fit right in in the American Athletic Conference.
If the Riders would get rid of the silly piping, side panels and ad patches, their home set would be the finest looking football uniform of all time. The road set needs green helmets and pants.
“If the Riders would get rid of the silly piping, side panels and ad patches…”
~~~
You mean, no more bumpersticker? You could say that aboot a few NFL teams as well, but what are you going to do — say what you will about Nike design (and I’m not saying it’s good), they’ve generally jettisoned the superfluous piping/striping/b-stickers in the past few. Rbk seems to like those (now, Nike has gone off the cliff with their shitty number fonts, so that takes away from some of the good they’ve done, but at least they got rid of a lot of the early 2000’s crap).
If they got rid of the piping and side panels they’d be the 1990 Jets without sleeve stripes. While not bad, it’s hardly the best uniform of all time.
IIRC Jets wore a much darker green even then, though not as dark as these days.
Before Reebok entered the CFL and the teams let them have their way, most of the uniforms were at least as good as the top NFL ones. Some have improved since the introduction of Reebok but overall they are nowhere near where they used to be.
On top of the obvious problems with piping, panels, etc., there is the unnecessary word marks above the front numbers; logos on the helmet and arms are all you need to identify the team. While I didn’t mind the word marks for Montreal as something unique to their team, it does nothing for me for anyone else.
Not fond of the RedBlacks name but RedBlacks logo is not bad and the jerseys do need more red. Stampeders could abandon the black in their uniforms and return to just red and white helmets and jerseys.
The old Saskatchewan uniform with the helmet with the circular S and the stalks of wheat are very good.
link
I think the old Ti-Cats uniforms with their old cat and the striped arms were even better.
link
It should be noted that the CFL just reached a deal with ESPN for exclusive broadcast rights here in the US for the next few years.
link
Good to see some CFL coverage – thanks Mike. Agree that the Stamps are a mess. Ticats are my favourite – their initial Reebok redesign was not good.
One thing I’ve noticed everywhere, including their official site is that all caps is used for the REDBLACKS. This is annoying in so many ways. No idea why they went with this. Anyone know?
I struggled with that when writing the article. I found a lot of REDBLACKS and a lot of RedBlacks and in the absence of anything definitive I went with the latter because, come on, who would name a team REDBLACKS?
CFL.ca usually uses REDBLACKS (oddly) but the English-language forums on the site use RedBlacks.
Even though I’m just a lowly intern, I feel like a proud father when I come onto my favorite website and see my place of work (iron pigs) mentioned.
Also, I totally agree that these gimmick jerseys are just that, gimmicks, but they are consistently fetching $300 – $1,000 for charity in auction depending on the player. Not too shabby
Love the oldish, smallish CFL stadia. Especially Calgary’s.
So tired of FIFA’s uniform dictates, Brazil in yellow and white, as the home team, is atrocious.
Who made the map? Hamilton is SOUTH of Toronto. Why do you have the team of the Niagara Peninsula representing North Ontario?
But I am also glad you chose to cover my country’s league, and the overwhelmingly positive response from the US Uni-Watchers, this is the best community in sport’s fandom!
As someone living in Northern Ontario, I’ll take a Hamilton team over one from Toronto any day. In the northwest of the province we feel a lot closer connection in general to Manitoba and Winnipeg than to the southern areas of the province, but I suspect most CFL fans in Northwestern Ontario are likely Roughriders fans.
I agree, but as a Niagaran, I feel misrepresented. Not that I have anything against the fine people of Northern Ontario, but the Pen. is their home.
Seems to me that FIFA’s new monochrome dictate means we will virtually never see Brazil in their classic yellow/blue/white combo. Dumb.
They wore it against Mexico in the group stage.
link
And against Croatia, but Brazil are the designated (not just geographical) home team here, they should wear their first choice kit, and Chile should have to change in relation to Brazil.
FIFA, in its institutional arrogance, has decreed that it should decide what teams should wear with this stupid monochrome edict, throwing out decades of tradition, and messing with possibly the most iconic uniform in the world, and it’s not just Brazil.
It seemed as if the Nike and Puma teams weren’t playing along as much as the Adidas teams, Adidas being an official partner, they changed multiple teams kits, Germany and Argentina switch to white shorts, Spain and Colombia ditched their blue shorts for red and white respectively. Sucks.
Let’s not overreact here. For one thing, Brazil has a fairly well established tradition of breaking out the white shorts on occasion: link
Secondly, if I may play Devil’s advocate, the logic that Fifa are employing is that Brazil’s yellow shirts represent the lighter kit, hence it makes sense for recognition purposes (making the referees job as easy as possible) that they should be consistent and also have the lighter shorts. Of course, other leagues and competitions seem to get away without being quite as fastidious about these things but maybe we should give Fifa the benefit of the doubt in wanting to be as thorough as possible.
Thirdly, I actually quite like it. Perhaps that’s just because of its relative rarity and hence novelty, and perhaps I’ll grow tired of it if it gets overused, but as it stands I think it’s quite a fetching look. At the very least, it isn’t monochrome.
White shorts as the “away” team doesn’t bother me. While yellow and white is aesthetically awful to me (including Colombia, who have a great traditional kit as well), for you and maybe others, you like it, that’s fine, what annoys me is FIFA telling Brazil to wear white shorts when they are the home team.
FIFA are not employing logic, just exercising ego. If they cared about making things easier for the referees, they would require players to wear shoes the same color as their socks, but can’t do that, as Nike and Adidas and Puma pay big money, and have to have the neon yellow and orange / black and white / mismatched pink and blue shoes out there for marketing purposes. And all of this is new, wasn’t an issue for decades, now there are certain classic uniform match-ups that will probably never be seen again (Brazil v Italy, v. France, v. Argentina, etc.), despite there being no real problem with contrast between them, and some classic kits have been changed from the start, including Germany, Argentina and Spain, to be monochromatic.
I would never give FIFA the benefit of the doubt about anything, and this is another case of money and power dictating to teams, and in this case, countries, what they will wear as their uniforms, something of a theme around here.
Spare me the dramatics for a moment please. In the given situation, where you have two teams wearing blue shorts as a first preference, changing the team already wearing the lighter kit to also wear lighter shorts and hence ensure the greatest level of contrast between the two teams is hardly a bad idea. Forget about what’s “traditional” or “classic” or “iconic” or any other meaningless platitude and just try to understand the functional benefits. And sure Brazil are designated home, but it’s little more than ceremonial. Obviously, the officials should have the final say. And who are you to say that this hasn’t been an issue? Pierreluigi Collina stresses how important adequate contrast of uniforms are in his book “The Rules of the Game” indicating this is something which even top referees do struggle with at times.
If they cared about making things easier for the referees, they would require players to wear shoes the same color as their socks
I can see how the colour of shorts might throw an official, but their shoes? Seems like you’re going an awful long way just to try and justify your conspiracy theory. I mean, Fifa bribes, intimidates, overlooks massive violations of human rights etc. but never mind all that because they really get their kicks from deciding what shorts the teams should wear. Fifa is horrible, but trying to implicate them in some conspiracy to intentionally destroy “tradition” by changing the shorts because that somehow helps the big sporting goods companies (??) is pure paranoid fantasy on your part.
No one is claiming a conspiracy, just FIFA run amok.
I have never heard a player or ref claim that contrast in shorts mattered, shirts and socks yes. I’m unaware of Collina’s views on this, but if he thinks that contrast in shorts matters, and that Brazil shouldn’t wear blue shorts when Italy or France wear a blue shirt, then fine, I’m not going to argue with him, he has credibility, FIFA doesn’t.
If you can’t see why the color of the shoes would help refs, your reference to Collina would seem to provide the answer (hint: clear and consistent contrast for the refs, considering the game is predominantly played with the feet). The reference to “money” was pointing out that FIFA would never require teams to wear a certain color of shoes (i.e. matching their socks), because that would mess with Nike, Adidas and Puma’s marketing, which is based on each company’s shoes being easily identifiable to TV audiences by the distinct colors, nothing conspiratorial about that, seems a rather obvious point, and had nothing to do with shirts or shorts changes, but re-reading that above, I should have separated the two points, and made that clearer.
For me the bigger issue would be recognition from a distance and as a prominent block of colour the shorts (and even socks for that matter) represent a far more significant visual reference for both the officials and the players. In a scrum of players, or as a linesman looking across a defensive line, it seems to me that recognising shorts and socks both are quite important while recognising the sliver of colour hanging off the end of the end of the already adequately colour distinguished leg seems less so. Sure, it is a game played with the feet, but very little happens in a game where distinguishing just feet is important.
Regardless though, I can see that getting colour coordinated footwear could definitely help officials. But such a point only serves to make the case for greater control on Fifa’s part over what the players wear. If indeed the referees have expressed a desire to have colour coordinated footwear and Fifa have denied them based on objections of big brands then that is terrible. But we have no way of knowing whether that has in fact happened and in general it has to be acknowledged that Fifa, regardless of everything else going on with them, have been very proactive about making the referees’ jobs as easy as possible. Goal-line technology and the vanishing foam are just two measures introduced which have no ulterior motives attached to them. Hell, Blatter, for all his pure evil, has even expressed a willingness to try replay challenges in play. But you’re so caught up in some Fifa hate trip that you assume that they are incapable of doing any good. Which is why in reference to an issue where you yourself have to admit that you don’t know what is or isn’t important to the referees, and where your opinion is really only based on an emotional response to a perceived destruction of “tradition” rather than any functional or practical concerns you’ve had to draw in farfetched irrelevancies such as the shoe thing to try and portray Fifa as the monster your conspiracy theory requires.
And Croatia.
The earliest we’d see the proper Brazil uni is in the semifinals, if France advances that far too. France hasn’t worn its full ensemble once this tournament, by the way.
France might be forced to wear Blue/Blue/Red with Brazil might wear Yellow/White/White again. Colombia will be a repeat of Chile (Red/Blue/Blue).
Yeah, that’s exactly what I would expect, unfortunately.
BTW, link the last time France and Brazil played in the World Cup. Though all-white was basically the de facto primary French kit in that tournament.
and yet 8 years earlier, we got the classic look:
link
I once hoped (and still do) that some team will pick up the mantle of dark monochrome in baseball. But NOT the head-to-toe royal blue the Mets are wearing today in Pittsburgh. I’m not even sure what color stirrups would help that uni look better, but royal is NOT it. Top it off with the matching helmet and it’s just not a good look (and it would be even worse with pajama bottoms).
Glad I’m seeing it, though, since now I know I would not advocate for it now.
All-black with orange accents Baltimore Orioles would be ideal.
Especially with Olde-English B.
link
Yeah, that would look great, like the 1901 uniform, but with the olde English B instead of the O, but only for night games, that would be brutal during the day.
What are the Mets and Pirates wearing!?!? They’ve had throwbacks and throw-forwards. What are these, throw-sideways? Throw-ups?
Oh. They’re negro league uniforms. Did the Royal Giants actually wear that?
I think white stirrups over blue socks would just look like someone swapped blue and white on an ordinary uniform to create a reverse uniform. I don’t think white stirrups really work in general. So, it would probably have to be orange, perhaps over white sanitaries, since the orange on the uniforms looks pretty deep, at least on my TV. I realize that solid dark uniforms were not unknown in the early 20th century, but it looks odd to my eye. Home team in white, road team in gray, fans in solid t-shirts in the crowd.
Or, is that red on royal blue? It looks orange on the TV but more like red when i put the video on the computer. If it is red, I’d try red stirrups on white.
The best Baseball monochrome I’ve ever seen is the Cleveland Blues throwbacks
l love the CFL, but that map is aggravating. I don’t know that many people ouside of metro Toronto support the Argos, and the Ti-Cats support goes way further south. And most of western Quebec is more closely aligned with Ottawa than Montreal.
Good stuff on CFL today.
Nice colorizations Bruce.
Thanks LarryB!
Neymar debued his gold shoes for the Chile match today, but then he ditched them for the more understated neon red boots for the second half. Anyone know why?
Also want to pass along my thanks for the excellent CFL coverage today – great stuff.
But man the CFL has some work to do – those are some brutal uniforms. Lions still look good.
Loved the stirrups on the baseball ticker.
But what’s up with the ribbed crew socks. Doesn’t anyone wear sanitaries any more?
Was it me or do those new Duck’s unis just scream Flyers rip off?
I appreciate the effort but that was pretty weak coverage of the CFL uniforms. It reads like it probably was, written by someone who didn’t want to do it. And if stuff like alts or combos were mostly ignored in reviews of leagues like the NFL, people here would go bananas.
The only time we ever hear the scoring term “rouge” up here anymore is when Americans who don’t like the league try to mock it. Also, the “real” football starts with the NFL? Way to be condescending to CFL fans…