Speaking as a Canucks fan, this last week was a bit of a crazy week. First of all I attended the Heritage Classic, then a few days later Luongo was traded, and the next day on trade deadline day the Canucks were rumoured to being making some big trades but ended up not doing much. But for today's post I'm going to focus on the Heritage Classic, as well as all the other NHL outdoor games this year, as I'm reviewing the jerseys worn for those outdoor games.
Before I get to the jerseys I'll briefly talk about the experience of the Heritage Classic. I went to the game with my dad, and while it was snowing at our house, it was raining in Vancouver which as you know meant the roof was closed at BC Place. That was a bit disappointing, but I wasn't really expecting the roof to be open. The result of the game was also disappointing, but the rest of the day was great. Watching a hockey game with over 50,000 people is a really cool experience, we were doing the wave and chanting "WE WANT LUO!", it was a lot of fun. We had decent seats about halfway up the lower bowl, and while the sight lines obviously aren't the best for hockey, BC Place has a giant big screen you could look at if the puck disappeared behind the boards. Overall it was really fun, I'd recommend going to one of these games if you ever get the chance.
Heritage Classic:
Enough about the game though, what really matters are the jerseys. If you've been reading this blog for a while (and you have a good memory) you might remember that this wasn't the first time I attended a Canucks game when they were wearing their Millionaire jerseys. After that first game I said that the jerseys
looked great, and my opinion hasn't changed since then. The colours look so good, and I love how historically accurate the jerseys are. It would have been easy to go with a lace-up collar and maroon pants, but the Canucks did the right thing by keeping it accurate. Ottawa went in a different direction by not using a direct throwback, but I also think that was the right thing for them to do. I don't think they would be allowed to use a full barber-pole jersey against the dark Millionaires jersey anyways. What they ended up using still honoured history nicely, while creating something that people nowadays would like. I heard a few complaints that it was hard to distinguish the two teams with them both using a lot of vintage white, personally I didn't have that problem when I was at the game but I noticed it later when I was watching highlights on TV.
Winter Classic:
Moving on to the other Classic game, which was much more classic weather wise than the Heritage Classic. I've already briefly touched on my thoughts of these two jerseys back when I did a
"fix it" concept for the Winter Classic, so I'll just quickly reiterate my thoughts here. I'm a big fan of Toronto's jersey, there are just a few minor things I would have done differently to be more historically accurate (three sets of stripes on the socks, tan/brown pants and gloves, and no laces). I wasn't really a fan of the Detroit's jersey, it was too much of a faux-back jersey, and it really didn't look like Red Wings to me. I also wasn't a fan of the vintage white. I did love that the game was colour vs colour (although I don't want colour vs colour to become a regular thing).
Stadium Series:
Lastly we get to the Stadium Series games, and the NHL went in another direction by going with modern jerseys for these games. I think that's a good move, it keeps the two Classics more special. I was a fan of the jerseys in general, including the chrome crests and funky numbers, but only as one-off jerseys. I kind of thought of these jerseys like All-Star game jerseys, they're for a special event and you only see them once so you might as well try some new things. Now we all know there was one team, the Devils, who didn't want to do anything new. Part of me wishes they would have gone with modern jersey to fit in with the rest of the teams, but the other part of me likes how traditional they are with their jerseys. In the end I like the Devils decision, they haven't had a new jersey since 1992, and I would hate to have seen that streak ended by the Stadium Series.
Now you know my thoughts on the NHL's outdoor game jerseys, feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments. Thanks for visiting!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.