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Uni Watch

Notes from All-Star Sunday

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Rare sight in yesterday’s NHL All-Star tourney, as Canadiens goaltender Carey Price, playing for the Atlantic Division, wore the captain’s “C” — something that’s normally not allowed. (Or at least it’s not allowed nowadays. Back in the 1940s, Habs goalie Bill Durnan wore the captaincy letter.)

Other notes from yesterday’s NHL event:

•  One of the three games found the Central Division playing the Pacific Division, which made for a purple-vs.-black matchup that didn’t offer much in the way of contrast:

•  I’ve written before about Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin’s custom elbow pads. They’re designed to mimic his jersey sleeves, which he likes to roll up. I was wondering if he’d get custom pads to mimic the design of his All-Star jersey, and the answer turned out to no. He was still wearing his Caps pads:

•  There was a ceremony for the living members of the NHL 100 — the league’s 100 greatest players. Interestingly, some of them wore era-appropriate jerseys, while others wore contemporary jerseys:

Meanwhile, over on the gridiron, the NFL’s staged its annual all-star charade, the Pro Bowl. For those who’ve been hankering for a true Color Rash game, without any white, this game delivered the goods — although that’s not to say it was actually good-looking, as you can see in this video clip:

At one point the Tugboat Captain, who never watches football, glanced at the TV and said, “Those look like bad superhero outfits.” I explained to her that that’s precisely the idea.

Notes from the game:

•  The rule against dark or tinted visors was apparently lifted (there were lots of other examples besides this one):

•  It’s hard to think of a more incongruous pairing of uniform elements than neon trim and grey facemasks:

•  Here’s a Nike logo in a place I haven’t seen one before:

Pretty much what you’d expect, but shouldn’t they also have provided a swoosh-shaped air vent? They’re slipping.

(My thanks to all contributors, including @TheGoalNet45.)

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Click to enlarge

QBC update: In case you missed Phil’s coverage of it yesterday, the 2017 Queens Baseball Convention was a hoot, and our uniform panel was a big success. From left to right in the photo above, that’s game-used uniform maven Nick DiSalvo, uniform designer/historian Todd Radom, Mets uni number savant Jon Springer, Mets stitcher Russ Gompers, Uni Watch deputy editor Phil Hecken, and yours truly. You can listen to the audio of our panel discussion here:

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The Ticker
By Alex Hider

Baseball News:  New number assignments for some Chicago White Sox players (from  Matt Newberry). … Strange: The Brewers’ old bullpen cart (the same one Mike  wrote about last week)  has a red squatchee on top of its  big plastic cap. Any theories as to why it’s red? Was it at one time painted in Milwaukee Braves colors? (from  Matthew J. Prigge.)

NFL News:  Many of those speaking out against President Trump’s immigration order tagged their tweets with #RiseUp ”” and unintentionally ended up with a Falcons emoji. … Venus Williams’s coach is apparently a big Jacksonville Jaguars fan. Per Wikipedia, he lives near Jacksonville (from Guy Finelli).  … The folks at  Pro Football Journal found some in-game color inconsistencies with the Oilers‘ columbia blue helmets. They also found a good shot of Atlanta’s Royce Smith’s FNOB. … Not sure what the context is of this caricature of former Oilers kicker Tony Fritsch, but it’s glorious (from  Gene Sanny).

College Football News:  I mentioned in last week’s Ticker that Alabama has been letting recruits pose for photos in old jerseys.  Here’s another shot of a  recruit wearing an old jersey. Note the template and the outdated SEC patch.  Bryan Moss  guesses this jersey hasn’t been worn on the field since Nick Saban arrived. …  Homophones can be a real bitch (from  Matt Shevin).

Hockey News:  According to a graf buried deep within this story, NHL commish Gary Bettman is not interested in having advertising patches on the league’s jerseys. That’s consistent with what he’s said all along (from  Will Chitty). …  Ted Arnold  found this picture of former Leafs coach John Brophy wearing a jacket with a strange logo. Anyone seen it before? … The Saskatoon Blades  of the Western Hockey League wore green-trimmed unis for “I Love Saskatchewan” night. More photos here (from  Wade Heidt). …  The Connecticut Whale  of the NWHL wore military appreciation jerseys yesterday (from  Zach Pearce). … In a New York Times story about a barnstorming women’s hockey team, a photo shows one player wearing U of Minnesota breezers (from  Tris Wykes).

Basketball News:  Great color-on-color game between the Raptors and Magic yesterday in Toronto. The Raptors were wearing their Chinese New Year design (from  The Road Guy). …  Isaiah Thomas thinks his Celtics need a uniform overhaul. I respectfully disagree (from  Mike Sullivan). … Michigan State wore “Michigan Agriculture College” throwbacks on Sunday (from  Robert Brownie). … The rest of these are from Zachary Loesl: The Knicks wore white on the road in Atlanta, and the Thunder wore white on the road in Cleveland. … Speaking of Cleveland, Iman Shumpert wore his headband a bit higher than usual. “I can’t believe it didn’t fall off,” says Zachary. … The Wizards wore white on the road, with the Pelicans wearing their Mardi Gras alts. … The Spurs and Mavs went blue vs. grey.

College Hoops News: A couple of  teams observed Coaches vs. Cancer this weekend: Virginia Tech (who went BFBS with pink trim) and    Youngstown State  (whose coaches wore sneakers with their suits) (from Andrew Cosentino,  Robert Hayes). … Case Western Reserve wore two different throwback uniforms over the weekend.

Grab Bag:  Roger Federer is auctioning off commemorative signed racquets in honor of his Australian Open win (from Brinke). … Some have pointed out that Nike’s logo was riding high on their new golf  shirts. I think we know why now (from  Jack). …  Recommended reading: the history of candlepin bowling in Worcester, Mass., where there’s only one remaining candlepin house (from  Bill Sodeman). … Virginia Tech wrestling is embracing the “Hokie Stone” pattern, as other teams at the school have (from  Andrew Cosentino). … Couple of racing notes from  David Firestone: NHRA driver Courtney Force will wear a Qalo band for workouts, and possibly races. She also has new parachutes for her car. Finally, David evaluated and graded every president’s signature.

 
  
 
Comments (54)

    I have to say, I do like that Gary Bettman has been consistently against advertising patches on game uniforms. So he’s got that going for him, at least.

    Yeah, that Central-Pacific game could’ve used my color tweaks… gold shoulders and waist stripe would’ve helped the purple jersey contrast more against the black ones.

    And that wasn’t a *true* Color Rash Pro Bowl because the shoes didn’t match the unis. Though white shoes with highlighter accents just made them worse, in my opinion.

    And link showing the actual purple vs. black against my suggested fix.

    I’d say the splash of gold (yellow) brings it out very much, and the white on the black version better fits the homage to the early 90s ASG unis.

    Re: The Purple and Black match up yesterday’s NHL All-Star game. The winning division of the skills competition was allowed to pick their opponent. I suspect somewhat surprisingly the Atlantic (Carey Price Captain) (winners of the skills comp) picked the Metropolitan Division, i.e. for whatever reason, I suspect the NHL was thinking, they would pick outside their conference. The result white on yellow, and purple on black. I suspect if they do something similar next year, the pick will have to be outside your conference.

    For a league that relatively organized, the All-star game tends to have screw ups. The fastest skating competition, well for whatever reason record holder Dylan Larkin was allowed a running start, Connor McDavid, who tried to beat the record this year, wasn’t allowed such an advantage.

    As long as there are four teams, there’s the chance of that dark-on-dark matchup, even if it’s not until the final. If the colors aren’t distinct enough, maybe one team should have a second set of jerseys available.

    And with rosters that small, it seems wrong to have duplicate numbers on the same team. Even Doc Emrick mentioned that he was having trouble distinguishing between a couple of guys who wore the same number.

    “Not sure what the context is of this caricature of former Oilers kicker Tony Fritsch, but it’s glorious (from Gene Sanny).”

    Copy-edit alert: Fritsch’s first name should be spelled “Toni.”

    link

    Also, Pelicans is misspelled in the Wizards reference in the Basketball News portion of the Ticker.

    Proofreading:
    “Isiah Thomas thinks his Celtics need a uniform overhaul.” This Thomas is ‘Isaiah’. And he’s dead wrong.
    “wore his headband a big higher than usual.”
    “with the Pelcians”

    And as for Isaiah Thomas, he can go play for another team if he doesn’t like the Celtics’ uniforms. The green-and-black uniforms are ass, the gray ones are almost as bad. The Celtics should be green and white. Period.

    Yet another illustration that athletes are not always fans, and that playing the game at a high level doesn’t necessarily mean an informed love of what makes it special. (e.g., I suspect that year in, year out, a solid majority of Cubs and Red Sox players would love to see their home ballparks demolished, and replaced with something more modern and cushier.)

    Not so much the Cubs anymore. They just got a new clubhouse, batting cage, weight room, etc…Those are the things they, as players, would care about being up to date.

    “Many of those speaking out against Donald Trump’s immigrantion order”
    Proper decorum is to refer to Mr. Trump as President Trump.

    “Decorum,” proper or otherwise, applies only if one is directly addressing the president, either in person or in correspondence. When talking about rather than talking to the president, decorum and protocol do not apply. In the case of a journalistic enterprise, descriptions of the president ought to follow a consistent style. Most publications call for identifying officeholders by the title of their office for the sake of clarity. That’s a sound practice. But it is no breach of decorum or protocol for anyone to refer to the president, or any officeholder, by name rather than by title.

    Side note: In direct address, proper decorum is to refer to the president by title only, not with his or her name at all. One addresses a letter to, “The President, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave …”; one introduces him as, “The President of the United States”; one speaks to him as, “Mr. President”; one speak about him in his presence as “the President.” One does not say to the president, or speak of him in his presence, as “President Trump” or “Mr. President Trump.” It’s “The President” or “Mr. President.”

    Now, if the United States were a monarchy, and the president were a sovereign, then all subjects would be bound by protocol and decorum whether addressing the president or speaking about the president. But this country is not, the president is not, and therefore American citizens are not.

    Yes, it’s more a matter of proper journalistic style than of decorum, but I didn’t feel like going into that level of detail. The larger point remains: The proper style here on the site should be “President Trump” (just as it was “President Obama” for the past eight years, and “President Bush” before that), and I’ve accordingly made the change.

    I have always identified politicians by their office, and will continue to do so. In Trump’s case, he’s been a celebrity for so long that I think many of us reflexively just think of him in terms of his full name.

    I don’t think it’s a violation of decorum to refer to the president by his first and last names.

    The problem is when one uses the honorific “Mister”, as in “Mr. Trump” or “Mr. Obama”, which specifically omits their office (often intentionally).

    But for some newspapers, such as the NYTimes, house style is to use “President [surname]” on first mention and “Mr. [surname]” on subsequent mentions.

    It may not be a violation of decorum, but it startled me as it was a departure from precedent for references to an incumbent POTUS on this site.

    Trump has been a celebrity for so long — esp. here in NYC, where I live — that I tend to reflexively think of him as a mononym — Donaldtrump. I suppose this speaks to the success of his personal branding, which he himself would tell you is a cornerstone of his existence.

    So when I was editing today’s Ticker (which was written by Alex), I didn’t flinch when I saw “Donald Trump” rather than “President Trump.” To me, the former still seems more obvious than the latter, even though the latter is proper style. I’ll be sure to keep it in mind moving forward.

    It’s possible the Oilers center in that photo has a clear shell helmet – a MacGregor/Kelley or a Marietta/MaxPro. They wpuld show up darker than shells painted on the outside due to the slight tint of the “clear” plastic.

    In the College Football section, it should be homophones, not homonyms. The linked post got it wrong as well.

    I don’t know who is dumber; the person who made the jacket, or Carter for wearing it with the misspelling (and/or not even noticing/knowing it was wrong).

    Or maybe the joke (if there is one) is on us somehow.

    As a graphic designer for over 20 years, I honestly cannot understand how things such as the NFL’s Pro Bowl unis even get off the drawing board. They are God-awful, especially compared to the NHL’s All-Star unis. I work for a relatively small company with little exposure given to my work and I don’t pretend to be a big player, but even I would be embarrassed to put horrors such as these in my portfolio.

    They’re actually quite good looking in a vacuum, especially for what they’re meant to accomplish. The color schemes are a nice, contemporary take on the familiar Pro Bowl looks. I’d rather see white pants, and I think they could use a little bit of design as well, but I like these overall. They’re much better than the grey experiments we’ve seen the last few years. It’s true that they look terrible when combined with the various team helmets, but that’s an unavoidable problem at this juncture, unless they want to go back to having temporary Pro Bowl helmets. A white helmet with the A or N logo would work, or even a colored helmet with a neon version of the player’s team logo. Any Pro Bowl design is going to clash with *some* team’s helmet. It’s just not something you’re going to solve, so this is as good as anything else in my book.

    Personally, I’d rather the Pro Bowl just be a flag football game with no helmets. Its about recognizing the league’s best players anyway, so we might as well see their faces.

    If you like ’em, more power to ya, but I have to disagree. I feel the monochromatic aspect of each uniform is overkill (can you tell I despise “Color Rush?”). Additionally, teaming red with neon green/yellow/whatever is just plain wrong in my book. Blue with neon isn’t as bad, but still… not great. The helmets don’t have anything to do with my negative feelings about this uni since I’ve always liked the individual team helmet look.

    I think the ideal Pro Bowl uniform is a color jersey with white pants vs. white jersey with colored pants (as they did from 1979-88). In the case of an All-Star uni, it seems to me that the underlying uni should be the least apparent aspect. The player and his team should stand out while the conference he represents takes a back seat.

    As for the game itself, I am of the opinion that the “Pro Bowl” should simply be an awards ceremony where the players are recognized by their peers. Probably boring as hell if it were televised, but it gives the featured players recognition and keeps them from getting hurt.

    No color scheme is inherently “wrong.” There are ways to make a challenging one work and also ways to ruin a classically good one.

    I guess what I’m trying to say is I appreciate that these aren’t overdesigned, but they are so far below that line they actually seem underdesigned. I love the red against blue, but white pants would certainly look better here, as well as provide a nice canvas for a non-neon design detail.

    To me, the design being formally bad is different than the colors simply not being my cup of tea.

    I tuned into the Pro Bowl coverage last night and saw a flag football game being played on the field. For a moment I thought there was a radical change to the game format, but then I found out that this was the championship game for a youth tournament. The teams wore NFC/AFC uniforms; the AFC team were the Dolphins, while the NFC team were the Redskins. I thought this was a great idea for a halftime show, and would be an even better idea for the pros, who don’t want to hurt themselves anyway.

    Quoting from several sources: “The Montreal Canadiens’ Bill Durnan was the last goaltender to serve as captain in the 1947—48 season. Prior to 1948—49, the NHL passed a rule prohibiting goalies to act as captain or assistants in what could be called the ‘Durnan Rule.’ The Canadiens keeper left his crease so much to argue calls that opponents protested saying that Durnan’s actions gave the Canadiens unscheduled timeouts during strategic points in games.”

    Additional info, and an argument that goalies *should* be allowed to be captains, here:
    link

    It’s my understanding that Luongo was considered the captain for leadership/locker-room purposes but did not have captain privileges on the ice.

    Pros from the Pro Bowl unis:
    1) Nice color contrast.
    2) I’ve always liked that the players wear their own teams’ helmets.
    3) Better than the weird orange theme they’ve had.

    Cons from the Pro Bowl unis:
    1) I know Color Rash isn’t going anywhere, but still… can it just go away, please?
    2) Why were the TV numbers and primary numbers a different design?
    3) The jerseys were a weird combination of modern design (Nike Volt color numbers) with utterly generic template (everything else). In this instance, “weird” means “bad.”
    4) It shouldn’t be that hard to make a decent Pro Bowl uniform, but Reebok and Nike have both made it clear that they aren’t able to get it right.

    I like the solid TV numbers. It’s a better design choice than outlining them like the body numbers, where the scale of the outlines usually clash and the outlines combined with the small scale of the numbers generally makes them busy and more difficult to read. I wish more teams did this.

    Proofreading (the fix needs fixing):

    Issiah Thomas thinks his Celtics need a uniform overhaul.

    Regarding Alabama, “Here’s another shot of a recruit wearing an old jersey. Note the template and the outdated SEC patch.” Also note that Alabama’s old jerseys have apparently shrunk to a womens’ size small.

    Two things:

    1. Typo lists the Cavs player as “Imam” Shumpert.

    2. I love the Pelicans’ Mardi Gras alt. Wish it could be the full time uniform.

    For Super Bowl week Madden Mobile gives option to wear either Falcons or Patriots color rush jerseys. Falcons red with black numbers with logo on sleeve.

    Any plans for MLB/New Era to release all the Spring Training hats? It’s usually around this time every year.

    Toni Fritsch was born in Austria, which has produced many world-class skiers; this explains why he was drawn wearing skis. And the “ghost image” of graphics indicates that the artwork was used by NBC during its telecast of an Oilers-Steelers game.

    I can’t believe people actually liked the Pro Bowl uniforms. The only thing they are better than is last year’s pro bowl uniforms.

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