Uni Watch News Ticker for Jan. 30, 2023

• The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, or UTRGV, upgraded its baseball clubhouse. (From Kary Klismet)
• New spring training uniform for the Rakuten Monkeys. (From Jeremy Brahm)

NFL

• The Broncos temporarily removed the Bucky the Bronco statue from their scoreboard while the scoreboard gets an upgrade. (From Kary Klismet)
• Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown appeared to say during a YouTube stream last week that the team is planning new uniforms. (From Kary Klismet)
• Here’s a look at some of the other team names that were originally considered for the Raiders.

College

• NC State’s women’s team wore alternate white uniforms yesterday for an Honoring Black Excellence game. (From Gabe Cornwall)
• South Carolina women’s coach Dawn Staley, who is from Philadelphia, was wearing a Jalen Hurts Eagles jersey on the bench yesterday. (From Gabe Cornwall)
• Texas Tech’s women’s team wore black throwbacks at home for the 30th anniversary of their 1993 national championship team and also gave the team new championship rings. Coach Krista Gerlich was a member of that team and was also wearing one of the throwback jerseys on the bench. (From Kary Klismet)
• Virginia’s women’s team wore blue at home yesterday.
• Purdue men’s players appear to have their national flags on the inside of their jerseys, at least on their new throwbacks revealed last week. (From @burkeman78)
• Kansas State’s teams are apparently getting a new court. (From Kary Klismet)
• A small piece of the scoreboard fell off and landed on the court towards the end of halftime of Saturday’s Indiana/Ohio State men’s game. Indiana says they’ve inspected the scoreboard and found no further safety risks. (From Kary Klismet)
• Meanwhile, Indiana’s men’s team has now worn 1987 throwbacks for three home games in a row. “The change is subtle to a non-IU fan, but it’s a different font, different number font, and old trident logo (plus no state outline on nape or 5 stars on shorts),” says Ken Wineke.
• UConn is planning to replace its arena’s original court this summer and wants to auction it off in pieces. (From Kary Klismet)

More

• KFC opened a temporary winterized court in Toronto. (From Kary Klismet)
• The Vacaville (Calif.) HS boys’ team apparently has its “Bulldogs” name spelled wrong on its uniforms. (From Ethan Kassel)

NHL

• A goalie on the University of Alberta men’s team, Matt Berlin, appeared as an emergency backup for the Oilers on Saturday. He wore his college mask and pads. (From our own Anthony Emerson and Wade Heidt)
• The Blue Jackets wore T-shirts on Saturday for equipment manager Jamie Healy’s 2,000th professional game. (Thanks, Jerry)

Minors/Juniors

• The AHL’s Rochester Americans wore pride jerseys on Saturday. (From Wade Heidt)
• The AHL’s San Diego Gulls held a disco-themed promotion on Saturday. (From Wade Heidt)
• The ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders held a DC Comics promotion that included jerseys using The Flash’s logo. (From Wade Heidt)
• The WHL’s Portland Winterhawks and Spokane played a color-vs.-color game yesterday. (From Ryan Organ)

More

• “Here’s a cool video on the history of the venerable Hippodrome, the oldest hockey arena in the Twin Cities area,” says Kary Klismet, although there is more than one arena in the area that has gone by that name at some point. This one is in White Bear Lake, which hosted the high school event Hockey Day Minnesota this weekend.

USA

• The Wall Street Journal first reported that the NWSL is set to return to Boston and Salt Lake and add a San Francisco-area team in the next few years. When the former Utah Royals were replaced by the Kansas City Current in late 2020, the Current were a new team with Utah’s players while the Royals identity was left to be potentially resurrected by future owners. It’s unclear to me what might happen with the former Boston Breakers name.
• “Here’s a video primer on MLS stadiums,” says Kary Klismet.

International

• Brazil: New first shirt for Flamengo. (From Ed Żelaski)
• England: New outfitter for Accrington Stanley, which is now going with Macron. (From Ed Zelaski)
• Germany: This week’s episode of the TV series Tatort took place in the city of Saarbrücken and centered on a “Saar-Palatinate derby” between a local men’s team just known as “Saarbrücken” with “TRS” on its crest, and a purple-clad opponent, “Kaiserslautern,” with both clearly not resembling their real-life counterparts. That stayed true to form because when an episode actually involves sports teams, they’re fictional, but of the show’s 40+ main characters, the few who are established as soccer fans are shown as fans of real clubs.
• Germany: Games in the men’s Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga had players from both teams stand with a banner saying “#WeRemember” for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was Friday.
• Ireland: New second shirt for Galway United.
• Italy: AC Milan and Inter Milan’s women’s teams also held an observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day by stopping for a moment of silence starting in the 21st minute of their match on Saturday. The reference was to the number of the secret platform at Milan’s central train station from which victims were deported to concentration camps.
• Portugal: Boavista’s men’s team wore a patch to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the adoption of their black and white checkered design. (From @mcpross)