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Uni Watch

A Look at NHL Prototypes

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There’s this woman on Twitter named Jen. Her handle is @NHLhistorygirl, so her tweets are mostly about NHL history. Lots of “On this date in 1983…” and things of that ilk.

Yesterday, though, Jen’s historical musings had a sub-theme: She did a series of nearly 20 posts featuring NHL prototypes, logos that were proposed but never used, and other “What might have been” designs. Unfortunately, she didn’t link all of the tweets together with a hashtag, which means there’s no one-stop-shopping way to link to all of them. So instead I’ll just embed all of them — take it away, Jen:

Good stuff, right? You’ve probably seen many of these, or maybe even all of them, but it’s nice to see them all in one place.

I can think of a few prototypes Jen missed, however. For example:

•  No discussion of NHL prototypes is complete without a mention of the Blues’ notorious “trumpet design” from 1996, which was supposedly nixed at the last minute by coach Mike Keenan:

•  And here’s another Blues prototype, which surfaced on Twitter just two weeks ago:

• In the late 1980s, the Nordiques considered adding colored belly stripes to their jerseys, with the fleur de lis moving higher to accommodate the stripes. Here’s how that would have looked:

•  When Ottawa fans were lobbying for a new franchise in the late 1980s and early ’90s, this Senators design was seen at press conferences:

•  And my notes indicate that the Caps also had a new design in the works in 2000 but then changed their minds. Unfortunately, the link to that design, which I bookmarked nearly a decade ago, is now dead, and I have no memory of what it looked like (pretty sure it’s not the one Jen showed above). Anyone know more?

Update: Reader Ted Starkey has provided the missing Caps prototype:

Are there still more NHL prototypes floating around out there? Yeah, probably. Feel free to post anything I missed in today’s comments.

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The Ticker
By Paul

Baseball News: Mets 3B David Wright’s signature orange undershirt appears to be MIA this season. … The Padres are having a UCLA/USC rivalry promotion and are giving away caps in those schools’ colors (from Jason Ricles). … Rare sight: Mickey Mantle wearing No. 6! … Nicole Haase was at a museum in Rockford, Ill., that includes some exhibits on the the Rockford Peaches. “They had this piece of memorabilia that’s something I’d die to have and knew you’d love,” she says. “A child used to go to the games and get the jacket autographed by the players, and then her mom would embroider over the autographs in order to preserve them. It’s so fantastically homemade and awesome, I’m tempted to do the same with the alumnae of the league who I run into.” … Very nice new stirrups for Marshall (from Brett Eversole). … Reprinted from last night’s comments: The Double-A Binghamton Mets are apparently planning a name change. The six finalists are not very inspiring (from Jeremiah McElwain). … “I saw this trailer for a new Fox show about the first female MLB player,” says Steven Hom. They get points for having accurate MLB uniforms, including the All-Star patch for the Padres.” … Astros OF Colby Rasmus wore hunter’s camouflage undersleeves last night. … A nine-year-old Wichita kid named Kaiser Carlile was killed after being hit in the head by a bat during a youth tournament last summer. Wichita State honored him yesterday by wearing his initials on their caps and jerseys. Further info here. … The Omaha Storm Chasers are accepting fan-submitted designs for jerseys that will be auctioned off to raise funds for the cancer-stricken son of one of the team’s pitchers (thanks, Phil). … Cross-dressing alert: Red Sox SS Xander Bogearts wore an FC Barcelona jersey — with FIOB! — during pregame warm-ups yesterday (Phil again).

Pro and College Football News: Buried within this article about former Eagles lineman Jon Runyan becoming the NFL’s Vice President of Policy and Rules Administration is the following: “Runyan also will oversee the NFL’s inspection of uniforms and protective equipment — you know, those often ridiculous fines for wearing socks too low, among other NFL nitpicks.” … For a 1977 Packers/Bears game in Green Bay, the Packers had a blank Bears helmet — or maybe just a general dark helmet — painted in the end zone (from Bill Kellick). … Pitt will unveil its rebranded redesigned uniform tonight. Here’s a preview.

Hockey News: Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: A print shop in Pittsburgh has come up with a good response to the Lightning’s bogus policy of banning opposition apparel in certain parts of their arena (from Mike V.). … Speaking of the Lightning, one of their fans was caught on camera stealing another fan’s custom chair (from Mike Edgerley).

Basketball News: LeBron James’s new deal with Nike may be worth an awful lot of money (thanks, Brinke). … It’s one of those laws of media that we have to see several articles about NBA playoff giveaway T-shirts this time of year. … The 76ers’ douchebaggery du jour: With the Sixers having secured the No. 1 pick in this summer’s draft, they’ve created a mock-up showing the top pick — whoever it turns out to be — holding a Sixers jersey with the StubHub advertisement. Keep in mind that the ad patch won’t debut until 2017, which means the top pick won’t be wearing it until his second season. Or to put it another way, the mock-up is inaccurate. It’ll be interesting to see if they have the top pick pose with an ad-clad jersey at the actual draft (from Scott Palmer). … Whoa, check out this old Marshall Field company team uni — spectacular! (Nice find by Griffin Smith.)

Soccer News: A seventh-tier Norwegian team — yes, there’s such a thing as a seventh-tier Norwegian soccer team — may have the world’s worst groundskeeper (from John Muir). … New sleeve badges for the Premier League. Here’s how they’ve evolved over the years (from Terry Mark and Phil, respectively). … Here’s how that new badge looks on a jersey (thanks, Phil). … Arsenal’s new kits may have leaked (from Perry Sailor). … New badges and number font for the EFL (from Andrew Cairns). … Remember how Chelsea recently terminated their contract with Adidas? They’ve now inked a new deal with Nike (from Chris Cruz). … Greenock Morton fans don’t like the team’s new kit (from Gerry Muir).

Grab Bag: Check it out: Even the Empire State Building was observing Purple Amnesty Day yesterday! (Big thanks to Diego Bauzá and Rebecca Birmingham). … Mind-blowingly awesome and indescribably satisfying: unprocessed food cut into perfect cubes (from Ted Anthony). … A Philadelphia Police surveillance van carried a Google Maps logo without authorization. … New logo for DC Comics. Here’s a look at their logo evolution over the years (from Mark Coale and JC Crawford, respectively). … Wait, more DC logos here. … “For the NCAA Albuquerque Regional Men’s Golf Championships, we have a manually operated scoreboard — and by manually, I mean me,” says Frank Mercogliano. Here’s a look at the number placards. … Love love LOVE these vintage specimen cups. Great designs! (Big thanks to Nicholas Roznovsky.) … “Kyle Busch is running a 1992 throwback to Dale Jarrett for the throwback race at Darlington,” reports David Firestone. “What’s interesting to note is the 25th-anniversary logo on the hood. It doesn’t appear on any other cars in Joe Gibbs’s stable. The 1991-2016 date range is technically accurate since the team was founded in 1991, but they didn’t actually field a car in a race until the 1992 Daytona 500.” … The South African rugby team Stormers will wear pink this Saturday. … Here’s a roundup of some of the Olympic and Paralympic uniforms that have been released so far. … If you hate the new Instagram logo, here’s how to get the old one back.

 
  
 
Comments (117)

    just for additional info, the Empire State Building was violet and white in honor of New York University’s 184th Commencement.

    Wait…you mean the ESB wasn’t celebrating PAD?

    /side note: I don’t mind purple, but it’s good to see UW “back” with a nice green border & green links…

    oh I know, but I was interested in knowing why it was purple. I didn’t realize they have a page dedicated to the color changes and why. Kind of cool.

    Jeez, some of those hockey jerseys look like the TTCA baseball jerseys!! Yuck!

    Looking at Arsenal’s jersey
    Do you guys prefer jerseys with or without buttons?

    With collars, without buttons. Although the last Nike away kit is my favorite Arsenal kit in the last 15 years or so.

    Last year’s home kit looked like the top half of a unionsuit. Not a fan. (I think Puma has done pretty poorly with Arsenal overall)

    Well, four of Binghamton’s six finalist names are not inspiring. Bullheads or Gobblers would be terrific team names. And they almost got a third good one in there. Instead of Rocking Horses, Carousels would have been a fine minor-league moniker.

    It seems to me like they’re reaching a country mile trying to connect “Stud Muffins” to their carousel heritage. Seriously, WHAT?!?

    In regards to the Empire State Building having purple lighting, I was watching Astros-White Sox last night and noticed in one transition shot that the John Hancock Building had the same thing going on. Any idea as to the significance of this? Maybe their building operators are big Uni Watch fans?

    Proofreading: The last two Grab Bag items should be separated. (They should all be this big.)

    As far as the Lightning’s ban on opposition apparel goes, the STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS DRESS CODE POLICY link says, “Any attire, apparel, articles of clothing, accessories (e.g., hats, lapel pins, hair accessories, jewelry), or promotional collateral (e.g., mini-flags, noisemakers) that are branded with the name, logo, or registered mark(s) of the then-current 2015-2016 playoff opponent of the Lightning are expressly prohibited in the Club and in the Club-designated seating areas.”

    So a Steeler or Pirate jersey should be acceptable. And, if that’s not available, a plain black or gold shirt should be eloquent enough. As silly as the ban is, acting like it’s a big deal is even sillier.

    I find it somewhat tone def that the Padres are doing a college night for Los Angeles universities when the Chargers are still able to move there……..

    If the Padres (or Chargers) courted fans at local schools like UCSD or SDSU, maybe they wouldn’t need to move to LA.

    Lot of bullets dodged in recent NHL uni history. I wonder if a comprehensive look at other leagues’ unused prototypes would be just as mixed-to-poor. I really like that Blue Jackets treatment, though, and several of the more ornithologically correct Ducks logos are terrific. For the Wild, am I missing something or is there no mockup for the Voyageurs nickname? Still a mystery to me how they could have started a meeting with those six finalists and not chosen the Voyageurs.

    the one thing I took away from those prototyples is that the 90’s were weird

    as a child of the 90’s, I am sure I loved them. That teal was EVERYWHERE! So glad that Flyers design never saw the light of day.

    Going back to that NHL article, I’m wondering if the Canucks’ third would have had more staying power had their new owners not completely revamped the team’s visual program in 1997.

    Speaking of the 1995-96 alternates, it greatly pains me that there’s an absence of visual evidence online of the original name and number treatment for the Penguins’ third jersey (the one that became their road jersey in 1997). The angled, rounded C and A that carried over to their Vegas gold jerseys and are still used to this day (except on their throwback thirds) are the only surviving vestige of that plan. However, I can recall seeing a prototype with that angled font on the back (pretty sure it was a Lemieux jersey, too) during a TV broadcast.

    Never mind, I found the Voyageurs in that slideshow. I’d misread it as a Freeze logo/uniform. And now the choice of Wild makes more sense to me. If the decision was made with anything like that identity in hand in a draft form, it’s no wonder they didn’t go with it. An absolutely brutal color scheme and logo concept. It’s almost impressive to have taken a name and symbol with such rich visual potential and produce something so drab and ugly.

    Then again, the original wordmark-only Wild logo was pretty terrible too, so perhaps the Voyageurs would have been OK by the time they took the ice.

    I look at those ’90s prototypes and think of how incredible they would have looked with a glowing puck and Fox’s fighting robots.

    Marshall Field uniform….

    Store for Men?

    Was MF a store ONLY for menswear at one time?
    Or does that uni represent a team representing the men’s department?

    Once upon a time, there the men’s clothing department was in its own building across the street from the main store.

    Ugh. Trying again…

    Once upon a time, the men’s clothing department was in its own building across the street from the main store.

    How so? I don’t see anything there I would label “atrocious.” “Annoying” or “unnecessary,” perhaps, but not quite “atrocious.” Just curious.

    It’s pretty bland. As long as they scrap the nu52 and bring back the legacy aspect of the DC universe, people will be happy.

    My fellow geeks seem pretty divided, that’s for sure. I’d prefer they go back to the bullet, which served them pretty well for longer than most of the others combined. While I like it better than the last two, I think it’d be improved with just a bit fewer unnecessary notches and slants. link

    Give it a bit of a jaunty rotation like the bullet and it would be much, much better. Also, the lettering needs to break through the circle at some point to communicate what the company is really trying to say about its brand and properties.

    Still, feels a bit like changing the lipstick on a pig. DC has made a complete hash of their print comics universe, and if anything the cinematic properties they’re making are worse, and the television arm is OK as long as you’re not aware of the existence of literally any Marvel TV property. Tweaking the logo? Not a productive use of anyone’s attention at DC. (Also, shouldn’t a company literally filled with excellent artists and designers like DC be able to develop a logo for itself in-house?)

    OK. Am I alone in thinking those Coyotes prototypes would have been better than anything that has come from that franchise since they moved from Winnipeg?

    That Canes third jersey may be the worst uni thing I’ve ever seen. Yeesh.

    “For a 1977 Packers/Bears game in Green Bay, the Packers had a blank Bears helmet – or maybe just a general dark helmet – painted in the end zone (from Bill Kellick)”

    This was common for the Packers in those days. As late as 1983, they were still doing the same. There is an ’83 MNF game between the Redskins and the Packers that has an end zone with blank burgundy helmets.

    I saw a picture a while back, but can’t find now, of Nike’s prototype for the first Sharks third jersey. It had a zipper instead of the Y-neck; apparently the NHL nixed the zipper for safety reasons. Anyone got a pic? IIRC this was on the Chris Creamer board years ago.

    Wow! That is wild. But yeah, it seems like it shouldn’t have even made it to that stage before someone realized the damage that could do to a player’s neck/chin.

    While I’ve always thought the Buffalo Sabres logo is as beautifully-conceived and visually arresting as any in sports, I’ve also always found it curious that for all the hoo-ha about the Redskins, Indians, Lord Jeffs, etc. etc., there’s been no similar outcry (that I can recall) about its evocation of the U.S. Army’s efforts to bring the Plains Indians to heel by eradicating the so-called “Indian’s commissary.” I mean, talk about a perpetual slap in the face to Native Americans…

    I’ve no clue what you’re referring to. Do you have a link to some reading on that?

    I grabbed a screenshot of the ’83 Washington-Green Bay game with the blank burgundy end zone helmet.

    link

    76ers CEO was on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday to talk about jersey advertising. A quote and the link:
    “You know, I’m a little different. I don’t want to be dialing out on a rotary phone anymore. So for me, the iPhone does me just well. You know, I think flying on a plane beats riding on a train, you know? I – that’s just kind of the way I go through the world.”

    link

    What an asshole. He doesn’t even have the courage defend the ads on the merits. Instead he has to passive-aggressively imply that anyone who disagrees with him is a troglodyte stuck in the rotary-dial era.

    Fuck him.

    That’s the sort of thing sabermetricians have been saying about those who embrace old timey ideas such as scouting for years.

    The difference is that sabremetricians and non-sabremetricians are both working toward the same goal: accurate evaluation of baseball talent. They just disagree on the best evaluation methods. So while their language may sometimes be contentious, they’re both trying to achieve the same thing.

    But the 76ers’ CEO and those of us who oppose uniform advertising don’t have the same goals at all. We have several fundamental differences. And that’s why one side belittling the other via passive-aggressive language is cowardly — it means you don’t even have the courage to defend your own vision and are instead stooping to insult-by-implication. A classic case of trying to smear the messenger instead of dealing with the message.

    If you believe in your vision, have the courage and intellectual integrity to explain why. And if you’re going to insult me, have the balls to do it directly and forcefully, not with this “Silly me, I use an iPhone instead of a rotary dial, but hey, that’s just me” bullshit.

    Asshole.

    The implication he makes is objectively and provably false. It’s a true fact that on average, a rotary phone connected to a physical wire – copper or glass – will deliver significantly better sound quality and audio fidelity and a much more stable connection than an equivalent call made over the cell network. True, you can’t play Candy Crush on your rotary phone, but as far as making telephone calls, it is not at all irrational to prefer older, and objectively better, tools. (There are a lot of areas of modern technology where we accept declining technical performance as a tradeoff for portability, mobility, flexibility, or other supposed virtues. If you’re old enough to have ever used a rotary phone, you’ll remember that long-distance carriers used to compete against each other on the basis of the clarity of sound on calls over their networks. There’s a reason we don’t see mobile carriers advertise that you can hear a pin drop over their cell networks.)

    And for many trips, trains are objectively and unarguably a superior mode of travel than planes. Downtown-to-downtown between cities within about 200 miles of each other? The guy on the train will spend less time traveling and will travel in greater comfort, at lower cost, and with a more reliable timetable than the guy making the same trip by plane. Even New York to Boston, which is right at the edge where total travel time for rail exceeds total travel time for air, you barely save a few minutes downtown-to-downtown but typically spend an extra $100 or more and you’ll typically pay about a 25% premium in terms of lost miles if you belong to your carrier’s travel rewards program.

    Plus, if you’re on the plane, you can’t make any calls on your iPhone. Might as well have a rotary phone in your carry-on. Take the train, and you’ll have cell network access and be able to make and receive calls the whole way.

    Was listening to someone dropping pins over long-distance ever really a thing?

    If you’re old enough to have ever used a rotary phone, you’ll remember that long-distance carriers used to compete against each other…

    By the time there were competing long-distance carriers, touch-tone was ubiquitous.

    Pretending that all changes (except those related to biology such as death and aging) are for the better is a common trope in pop culture, as is “new is better, newest is best”. Nope. The 1000th step heading in the wrong direction is worse than the prior step. If that owner is held to the standard he espouses and one were to invent a game to supplant basketball, he’d have to concede that basketball’s day is done.

    It’s actually the Sixers who are the troglodytes. If they were so forward thinking, they wouldn’t have fired Hinkie, after having brought in Jerry Colangelo to undermine him.

    LOL, he has actually traveled on a train to another city far enough a way that would warrant a plane ride? Old fart – he only “thinks” he has evolved!

    Have to admit – it would be nice to use a rotary phone, felt so satisfying to dial… such commitment to each number accelerating to the hard stop and then choosing whether or not the finger got a free ride back.

    My lasting memory of rotary phones, from high school, was of building anxiety with each number dialed while calling a girl for a date.

    “Whether or not the finger got a free ride back”

    That’s poetry right there.

    Also, +1 to the idea of not having any fucks to give about the Sixers, but if I did have even half a fuck to spare, I’d say the Sixers CEO is a douche.

    It’s one thing to trash the uniform of what was once my favorite team with an ad. But to trash the rotary phone as well? I’ve got one word for you, Sixers: PFFFFFFT.

    Uniform advertising is to iPhones (or airplanes) what old-timey, uncluttered uniforms are to rotary phones (or trains). Makes sense to me, when you put it that way. I now can’t wait to see what the other NBA visionaries decide to do with their uniforms. This is going to be great!

    One wonderful thing about rotary phones: dialing one from my grandparents’ house as a child enabled me to instantly understand the US area code system (which has since been dismantled).

    I had to call home to New Jersey where the area code had changed from 201 to 908 and when dialing those latter digits you hear all those clicks as it takes forever for the phone to register them all. Nine, then ten, then eight. Call Manhattan and you get a nice snappy 2 clicks, then 1, then 2.

    It became clear right away that they gave the easy-to-dial codes to the big cities (212, 213, 312) and held off on the hard-to-dial ones like 908 and 808 and 809.

    Now I don’t think there’s any logic at all in how those numbers work. They’re more meaningless than ZIP codes!

    It’s amusing to read the text accompanying the Sabres’ prototype jerseys, since it identifies the white jersey as the road jersey; the NHL switched to white-at-home before Buffalo’s first season. It’s also a little weird to see the white Sabres jersey with no gold/yellow trim; it’s basically a 1967-70 Leafs jersey with a different logo.

    The 80s Nordiques prototypes look like they were trying to invoke their early WHA days a bit, with all that striping.

    The Blues really dodged a lot of bullets. The logo on the original prototypes was poorly thought out – the way that “Blues” wordmark is shaped reminds me of a cow catcher. The Pirates/Giants-style wordmark on that 70s concept isn’t bad, but just plain weird. Those 90s concept drawings are awful, making the uniforms they actually adopted look great by comparison – and I never cared much for how they cut the numbers on those unis, or the overuse of red on the blue jerseys. The only really good thing from the mid-90s Blues unis was the trumpet logo shoulder patch, but thankfully that third jersey was cancelled and we didn’t get that horn overload. Really, though, of the uniforms the Blues have actually worn, I only consider one set to be truly bad: the 2007-14 home and road Edge uniforms, with their apron piping and clownishly oversized shoulder panels.

    The 80s Nordiques prototypes look like they were trying to invoke their early WHA days a bit, with all that striping.

    Did they have shadowed numerals in the WHA days? I really like that look on that prototype. And the NOB and number are positioned a lot better than they are on today’s NHL sweaters!

    No, they didn’t have the dropshadow, but the sleeve numbers inside wide stripes was something they did in their first few seasons.

    I did not know about that late 1980s Nordiques prototype. I like it!

    21 years ago I was at the unveiling of the Islanders’ fisherman logo and nausea-wave jersey. In retrospect I wish I’d had a camera, because there were displays set up in the locker room showing various other logo designs that had been considered, most if not all with heavy nautical themes. Some of them weren’t that bad, involving lighthouses and anchors and ship’s wheels and what not, and some of them were actually worse than the fisherman, including one that looked like an angry mackerel in a sailor hat brandishing a hockey stick with great big Popeye arms (think the “Fighting Hellfish” logo from The Simpsons). I wonder if anyone, anywhere has a photo of these.

    Man, I hope these turn up one day. Would love to see these designs, especially the mackerel.

    The Joe Gibbs Racing car is using the 25th anniversary logos where there were originally NFL logos on the hood of the car. Also interesting there are M&M logos (Mars) where previously there were Nestle logos.

    link

    I get that, but what I don’t understand is why the team is waiting until the twilight of the season to run an anniversary logo on their cars…

    I’ve always liked how the Ottawa Senators prototype resembles a Canadafied Capitals jersey. And I’ve never liked the fact the mascot of the Senators is a Centurion.

    Yeah, I’ve always been confused by that and meant to research the reasoning—is there any? I was in Ottawa last winter and didn’t see any obvious references to ancient Rome…

    Is it as simple as Canada’s Senate being in Ottawa? A soldier from Rome (where the Senate concept comes from) looks a little fiercer than, say, an old lawyer in a powdered wig.

    I kind of like the logo’s explicit connection between the legislative and punitive aspects of government.

    Regarding the Lightning. They don’t play in the Amelie Arena. That’s in Orlando.

    It had a great name originally: the Ice Palace. It even fit when Bill Davidson owned the Lightning for a few years, since it meant he had two Palaces.

    Anyone else see the little notches inside the D and C of the DC logo and immediately think Detroit Lions number font?

    Or MSU, or Seton Hall, or any number of teams that have gone with that stupid “chiseled” look lately.

    I have a feeling it’s become the “generation defining” element – similar to teal in the 90s. 30 years from now people will be shaking their heads over its overuse.

    Regarding the Instagram item, while I don’t use it myself, I do find that the old logo stands out more than the new one, so I can understand people’s frustration with the new logo. But the article also mentions another issue with Instagram that has affected social media in general: the push to have these sites determine what they think is “relevant” to the user, rather than just allowing the user to keep viewing postings in chronological order. I generally find certain sites’ attempts to determine what is “relevant” to me to be laughable, as the posts are either crap I don’t care about, or old posts I’ve already seen and don’t need to revisit.

    Was watching the Sox-Astros game last night and was wondering about the guy wearing camo undershirt that’s linked in the baseball section. Can players just wear whatever the hell they want now? Neon arm sleeves, camo shirts? What does Nike say about this? Assuming they still have the undershirt contract with MLB. Was the camo a Nike shirt? It looked like garbage out on the field. Stick to team colors, eh?

    It’s interesting that your instinctive reaction is to ask what Nike thinks, instead of what MLB thinks.

    Idiocracy, Idiocracy, Idiocracy…..

    From what the MLB is trotting out as uniforms and the fact that there is no rule for arm band color, pant length, sock uniformity it’s obvious that the MLB doesn’t care. So, yes, that leads me to think what does the manufacturer who is paying money for the exclusive rights for being the official undershirt provider think when you have players wearing other brands that are obviously not theirs. So be it if it’s Nike, Adidas, etc. etc.

    But who gives a fuck what Nike thinks? That’s just corporate theater, which is of zero interest to Uni Watch. When you start viewing situations through the lenses of corporatocracy, that’s a distorted view by definition.

    To ask what Nike thinks is to accept the legitimacy of the notion that every MLB player should have to wear an undershirt with a swoosh at the front of the collar, which is absurd on its face.

    Our concern, as people who care about uniforms, should be that Rasmus was wearing something that obviously had no place on the field. That’s an MLB issue, not a Nike issue. (Ask yourself this: If it had been a Nike camouflage undershirt, would Nike have any problem with that? Nope. But *we* would, because it would still have no place on the field.)

    It’s one thing for the corporate/advertising/marketing/branding world to overlay certain parts of our culture; it’s another thing when they undergird it.

    I took it that she was just wondering if these are the kind of things that get players talked to, the way NFL players and commentators get spanked and sent to their bedrooms without dinner if they dare to misidentify the league’s official tablet computer.

    But you’re totally making my point for me, because that spanking is administered by the league. It’s a league issue. What Nike thinks isn’t relevant here; it’s what MLB thinks that we should care about.

    I feel like most people here, if they venture into these questions, are doing so in more of a morbid curiosity as to the depth of the depravity at work. Of the ways we enable the ruthless ownership of big sports leagues, it seems like asking how the sausage is made ranks a lot lower than the ways we actually patronize the butcher shop.

    I really don’t know how he got away with camo, though. By MLB playing rules, undershirts have to be uniform color. Armsleeves and wristbands can toe the line of equipment and not uniforms, but undershirts with sleeves that extend below the sleeve of the uniform shirt should be policed.

    It’s entirely possible that he will be fined.

    It’s also entirely possible that he doesn’t care, because he’s a gazillionaire.

    I’m hardly a Yankees fan, but I often find myself asking “What would the Yankees do?” when it comes to matters of formality and visual presentation. Here and there they’ve dropped the ball (Bob Sheppard and George Steinbrenner patches, adverts on the jersey when in Japan, succumbing to manipulative MLB programs) but they stare down indignities to the uniform better than most.

    Let’s not give the Yankees *too* much credit. At least not until they stop that annoying PC Richard “whistle” sound-effect ad after every strikeout.

    Speaking of which: After Bob Sheppard died, they had no PA announcements for the next game. The idea was that they’d have a whole game of silence instead of just a moment of silence. But they still the whistle ad after every strikeout. Classy.

    the Dallas Stars gold jersey was close to seeing the ice but they nixed it because they thought it looked too much like the Predators 3rd jersey, which was mustard yellow. So they sold it in stores instead. I owned one in fact.

    While I still like the other two “big star” jerseys, I just find that gold one to be the worst-looking color arrangement they could’ve come up with. Maybe if they’d made it black over gold, and retained the normal colors for the logo, it wouldn’t have looked so bad.

    Still, it’s better than the Mooterus. (Seriously, RED TRIM? WHY??)

    I was actually wondering how the DC logo change would impact the end credits of their TV shows, which featured the relevant character’s comic book version in the logo. It was a nice touch, I thought. This version doesn’t seem to lend itself to that.

    And I actually like that first proposed Coyotes jersey.

    Hate to double-post, but I ran across this quote from Jim Lee in re: the new DC logo

    “”The nooks and angles are meant to evoke the Superman ‘S’, the Wonder Woman ‘WW’ emblem and the Bat logo”

    Huh.

    Mantle in #6 is not that unusual, he wore it for a couple of months his rookie year until Dr. Bobby Brown came back from the Army and reclaimed it while the Mick was in the minors.

    Binghamton has to come up with a better name. Move the team down the Vestal Parkway and rename them the Vestal Virgins, like the intramural softball team we had at SUNY B.

    When I played co-rec football at SUNY-B (1982 and ’83), there was definitely a team with that name, and several others of that ilk.

    I have to say, I kinda like that one of the team names being considered is Stud Muffins. It’s so far beyond absurd that there’s something appealing about it. As a Mets fan, I like the idea that our prospects will be Stud Muffins. “So-and-so made the jump from the Stud Muffins to the bigs,” etc.

    I played co-rec softball there from ’72-75 and the name wasn’t original then and I’d bet there are teams with that type name now. Stud Muffins is right there with the Macon Whoopies, why not?

    Yeah, I gotta say, link (well, that primary logo sucked and I’m glad it’s gone).

    as for the smartass reply about how many colors can you get on a jersey? Take a look at a Blackhawks jersey some time and count the colors.

    No prototype but after an op-ed piece in the St. Paul Pioneer Press from roughly early-1998 there was a groundswell amongst hockey fans to name the expansion team the “skeeters” despite mosquitos being dead during the winter. Great baseball team name IMO though.

    His this been posted yet? The Onion’s response to NBA Uni Ads:

    link

    LOL
    “Hopefully the players stop moving long enough for me to write down the promo code.”
    Annette Dowling Pastry Taster

    Haha!
    “I don’t come to the Wells Fargo Center to be advertised to!”
    Bryce Benko Produce Pickler

    I liked the Blue Jackets prototype with the chevrons. It at least gives an idea of what a blue jacket is supposed to be. It would be nice to have one on-point mascot for the side that one; God knows there’s enough “Rebels” out there.

    I’m late to the purp discussion, but was surprised no one mentioned that purple as a uniform color goes back several thousand years — the High Priest in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was required to wear as part of his uniform certain purple garments, described in detail in the Bible.

    Did UW discuss the new Allen Iverson sneaker commemorating his “Practice?!” rant?

    link

    I don’t recall seeing anything like it before (which ain’t necessarily a good thing!)

    Perhaps the profile isn’t as high as the NBA, but the CFL’s putting of hashtag messages on uniforms upsets me as much as placing ads there.

    Pretty awful, I agree. But the CFL has had jersey advertisements for years, so they already surrendered any sense of dignity a long time ago. Adding the hashtag is just a deeper dive of their existing course, not a new course.

    Re: John Runyan and NFL uniform policing
    It really annoys me when writers act like “ridiculous” fines for socks and other uniform violations are just the league being absurdly picky. The idea that fines are for the socks “being too low” is just objectively wrong; nowadays it’s because a guy’s wearing the completely wrong socks—whether they’re all black, white, camouflage, or whatever the hell. Just people who don’t get itâ„¢ being jerks.

    On that unused Canes 3rd jersey, those purple side panels that go into the armpits are kind of shaped like the old Whalers logo whale tail.

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