In today’s Ticker, we’ve got some City Connect news, the NY Rangers reneged on Pride Night, and much, MUCH more!
Uni Watch News Ticker for Jan. 29, 2023
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Baseball
MLB
- According to this videocast, the New York Yankees are getting a City Connect uniform “by the end of the 2023 season.”
- The Toronto Blue Jays are in the process of upgrading their ballpark, and they’ve announced the new outfield dimensions.
- Looks like a leak of the Minnesota Twins spring training cap has hit the interwebs. (From Charles Hutchinson)
- Following yesterday’s new “4+1” jersey news, it seems as though the Phillies are one (of several) teams who will be affected by this.
- PNC Park in Pittsburgh is getting a scoreboard expansion this season. (From Jerry Wolper)
- Here’s a laughably bad “ranking” of the 2023 MLB uniforms. See if you can spot all the mistakes contained therein.
- While not imparting any real new news, this article speculates that of the 16 remaining teams to receive City Connect uniforms, they will be divided into eight teams apiece for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Paul has already basically confirmed some of the remaining CC’s will be held back until 2024.
More
- WBC: Italy’s caps for the World Baseball Classic are … pretty basic. So of course they’re being panned for their simplicity.
- The Hinokuni Salamanders, based in Kumamoto, who play in the Kyushu Asia Baseball League, have released their uniforms for the 2023 season. 1st is the Salaman Flag, 2nd Salaman Stripe and 3rd Saramaru Ippai (lots of circles). (From Jeremy Brahm)
Football
NFL
- When Bengals QB Joe Burrow was a youngster, he was photographed with his mom wearing a KC helmet. So, naturally his dad posted the photo to troll KC and their fans.
- Here’s a tracking of the Seattle Seahawks win-loss records by uniform combination.
- Here’s a quick article identifying the company who first put stripes on the Bengals helmets.
- Scroll down a bit in this article to see some suggestions for an alternate helmet for the Ravens. Full confession: I kinda dig the purple metallic chrome concept.
- WHOA! Check out this gorgeous photo of a Chargers/Oilers game from way back in their AFL days. (From Helmet Archeology)
- Interesting stat concerning teams with fewer letters in their names winning AFC Championship games. (From Jay Cuda)
- If you were wondering where KC’s costumed fan (he wears a wolf’s uniform), aptly nicknamed “Chiefsaholic,” has been (he’s been AWOL from games and social media), wonder no more (NYT link). He ended up in a Tulsa jail. (From Paul)
Hockey
NHL
- Washington Capitals goalies Charlie Lindgren and Darcy Kuemper have begun breaking in their new gear for the Stadium Series game against the Carolina Hurricanes.
- “I don’t know a lot about hockey and was intrigued by two 42s I saw on plexiglass on a video at a Montreal Canadiens game,” says Kurt Rozek. “I’m wondering if it has to do with the thickness or size of the plexiglass.” Anyone know?
- Which NHL jersey is the greatest All-Star jersey of all time?
- According to this article, the New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden botched their Pride Night celebration on Friday. “After promoting weeks in advance that, ‘The Rangers will be showing their support by donning pride-themed warm-up jerseys and tape in solidarity with those who continue to advocate for inclusivity,’ the team reneged on that promise and emerged from the locker room wearing their Reverse Retro Liberty jerseys.” The team then released a weak-ass statement defending their decision. Here’s a hot take on this from The Athletic.
- Here’s an interesting article on the lengths NHL goalies will go to in order to keep wearing outdated equipment. (From Wade Heidt)
- Jim Percotti writes, “first time I’ve ever noticed numbered skates for NHL officials. #88 is linesman Tyson Baker.”
College
- NC State introduced new all-black uniforms modeled after their football team’s all black uniforms.
Minors/Juniors
- The WHL Vancouver Giants will wear Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-themed uniforms on February 5.
- Here’s a look at the Pride uniforms for the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s on Friday night. (From Wade Heidt)
- The AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms wore new uniforms last night with a whole lotta white. (From Wade again)
- The WHL’s Portland Winterhawks wore Pride uniforms on Friday night. (One more from Wade)
- In some outdoor high school hockey, Hill Murray (in green) was wearing throwbacks from the early 1980s. Pants-socks combos make it look like Cooperalls. (From Paul Allan). Here’s another look at Hill Murray. (From Zeus). And one more. Even more great photos in this article.
Basketball
NBA
- Looks like the Portland TrailBlazers are adding a memorial band for the late, great first radio voice of the TrailBlazers, Bill Schonely, who also coined the phrase “Rip City.” (From Paul Panganiban)
- The author of this article is not pleased with the 2023 NBA All-Star game uniforms.
- Lakers G Patrick Beverley used a camera to protest a non-call on LeBron’s last-second lay-up attempt in regulation last night. The ref gave Beverley a tech. (From Mike Chamernik)
College
- The Montana Grizzlies will join Nike’s N7 program, a cause created to encourage Native American youth and communities to get involved in sports and recreational activities.
- Color vs. color game between NC State and Wake Forest yesterday. (From ACC Tracker)
- As you might expect in a game between UT and UT, there was a LOT of orange on the court. (From Khari)
- BFBS unis for Illinois Wesleyan. (From David Petroff)
Soccer
International
- Germany: FC Köln just launched new anniversary kits honoring 75 years as a club. Submitter Alex Peerenboom adds, “They’re retro inspired, in black and white versions, with details nodding back to their first year as a club in 1948. And they’ve already broken club records for kit sales.”
- England: Interesting sleeve treatment for Reading F.C. (via Paul)
- England: Truro City F.C. of the seventh-tier Southern League have unveiled plans for a new 3,000-seat stadium. (From Kary Klismet)
Cricket
- There’s color vs. color. And then there’s (almost) identical color vs. identical color. (From krtgrphr)
Grab Bag
- HAH! Check out the Amazing Spiderman wearing the “first” BFBS uniform. (From Mark Healey)
- WHOA!!!! Check out this old wooden curling stone. Curling has been popular in southern Wisconsin for a long time. The Milwaukee Curling Club, founded in 1846, is the oldest continuously operating curling club in the United States. (From Jeff Ash)
- New seafoam alternates for the NLL’s New York Riptide. (From Wade Heidt)
- Cuteness alert! Northern Illinois University has a new live Husky mascot, a three-month-old puppy named Mission III. (From Kary Klismet)
- Here’s the story of how New Braunfels (Tex.) High School’s sports teams came to be known as the Unicorns. (Kary Klismet, again)
- And one more from Kary: In a story that will no doubt make Paul cringe, the Grantsburg (Wisc.) School District is finding challlenges in finalizing its new athletics logo and branding because of difficulties in matching the purples across various uniform manufacturers.
- Ireland: Galway GAA new jerseys were unveiled in a video which shows a ‘striped design’ kit.
Comments (19)
Given the Chargers’ helmet design, blue shoulder bolts, and all those empty seats in the background, that Chargers-Oilers photo has to be from 1960 at the L.A. Coliseum.
You’re correct, Jay. That style (blue bolt outlined in gold) was only worn in 1960. By 1961, they switched to the gold bolt outlined in blue. Oilers only wore that sock style in ’60 and ’61.
The Oilers also only wore that font in 1960. Regular block for the rest of Oilers history.
The Twins batting practice caps look great!
I think the post earlier in the week about the white-paneled BP caps might have been premature. I think those are fashion caps. Certainly the Twins release would show MLB is sticking to its general rule of using an overall design for two years. Mets BP caps appeared on the MLB.com shop page this week after being gone for a long time, and they are using the same blue design.
I think the first thing the Ravens need to do is get rid of that talking magpie they currently have on their helmet and get a logo that actually looks like a Raven.
There is a great aspect about the new seaform alternates from the New York Riptide. The colour works well as a light uniform. We had colour vs. colour during the uniform’s first game last night against the Buffalo Bandits.
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“Hill Murray (in green) was wearing throwbacks from the early 1980s. Pants-socks combos make it look like Cooperalls.”
Love the uniform and the idea. Wow the stripes on side are really wide! Why not go all out though? How about real “Cooperalls” (long pants) instead on faux-Cooperalls. It can be done and was done in major junior hockey a few seasons back. The WHL’s Kamloops Blazers deciding to do it for a game. Interestingly, they wore their current uniform design and it wasn’t a throwback design for Kamloops.
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Cooperalls (which never actually made it to the NHL – those were made by CCM for both Philly and Hartford) were, in theory, not a bad idea. Instead of pants with padding inside a color coordinated exterior shell, the padding was part of a ‘girdle’, independent of the shell. The girdle kept all of the padding in the proper location on the body, and the shell eliminated the socks, and could be swapped out at relatively low cost. Great, right?
There were two major issues with them, however. The biggest concern is that the shells give you no friction on ice, so if you’re down and heading for the boards, you’re going to hit them. Don’t know if anyone was seriously injured, but it was significant enough to attract the league’s attention. Also, they’re incredibly hot to wear; there’s no air circulation under the shell, and the girdle is skintight spandex.
Right about the same time, Tackla came out with the European style pants – tapered, with a belt that could eliminate suspenders. The girdle-shell combo was developed as a reaction, and widely seen as a downgrade.
Re: The Rangers decision, the Pride Night jersey idea was ruined the second the hockey media decided to turn it into a moral purity test rather than a sincere act of solidarity. I don’t know what it is about being a journalist that makes someone an insufferable scold, but apparently sports journalists are not immune.
“Who doesn’t want to wear the ribbon”
I guess if we just got rid of “the media” every problem in America would be magically solved.
This is the fault of the NY Rangers players, coaches, and management and the NY LGBTQ community should make clear the NY Rangers let them know they’re not wanted as fans or buyers of team branded products, so they’ll be taking their dollars elsewhere.
I think the best Ravens alternate helmet should use the stylized B from the pants. Matte black or metallic green but simplify the helmet with just the letter. Maybe do an entire faux-back uni with normal font numbers and northwestern stripes.
Not green but purple
Best All Star jersey was St Louis in 2020. The horizontal stripes representing a musical staff. The All Star Game logo was pretty cool too. link
The Phantoms ‘ghost’ uniforms actually work for me…though they really oughta bring back the purple.
That Twins Spring Training cap is not only bad, like dictionary definition of ugliness as a Platonic ideal bad, but it also illustrates that my previous hope that some of the apparently really-ugly ST caps we’ve already seen weren’t as bad as they looked was wrong. They really are black for teams whose team colors don’t include black. I haven’t loved every single thing the Twins have done with their uniforms for 2023, but I haven’t thought anything was bad. Just that it could have been better. Until this. The Spring Training cap is monstrously, humiliatingly bad. But it’s an MLB thing, not a team thing, so I give the Twinkies a pass for it.
In the cricket color on color thing, I’ve discovered as a new fan of the sport that in the one-day forms of the game where teams tend to wear colorful uniforms, teams for the most part have one uniform, not a home and away or regular and clash. So same-color matchups, even when the colors are purple or pink, are pretty common. Fortunately, batters and fielders also wear highly visible and highly distinctive equipment, and also rarely occupy the same physical space on the field. You don’t have the issue of runners on first and second standing right next to the first baseman and shortstop, much less three defensive backs and two forwards tightly clumped inside the box for an in-swinging cross that other sports have. So the same-color-uniform is not as big a problem for officials and fans.
The numbers on the plexiglass at the Canadiens game may just be a reference for the rink assembly crew, knowing the location of that specific stanchion and glass panel.
I’m guessing Arturs Irbe was too much of an outdated reference for the article on goalies wearing outdated equipment. I thought he’d still get a quick mention – between fixing his own old equipment, and the search needed for replacement Jofa helmets.
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