The Original 6 NHL Teams All Released "Digital Only" Uniforms And Good Thing These Things Will Only Be Seen In Video Games
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I know this is weird to say as a Flyers fan but there are very few things in this world that are more important to me than preserving the beauty of the Original 6 NHL sweaters. I hate pretty much every single Original 6 team but I have an admiration for the history of the league and more importantly, the history of the hockey sweater. That’s not to say that I don’t think there’s any room in the game for sweaters that are a little out of the ordinary. If Seattle comes into the league in a couple of years and wants their jersey to look completely different than anything we’ve ever seen before, that’s totally fine. But when it comes to the Original 6, you don’t touch that shit. Even if it’s just for a video game. Which is why we should all let out a sigh of relief that these will only be available on NHL 19 and not in real life. I understand a design team went out there with the intention for these uniforms to be “disruptive” but still… c’mon.
Now admittedly, the Red Wings one isn’t bad at all. I actually like it a little more than their current uniforms because it looks like the winged wheel is low enough on the jersey that you can fit a captaincy letter under the left shoulder unlike putting it on the right side like they do now. And the thick red bar going across the jersey is a nice little tribute to their original uniforms that had the same jersey design, just with the “D” as the logo instead of the winged wheel. So that’s fine with me. But the rest of them?
The Bruins’ logo is great and I think it would make for one helluva tshirt ($$$). But the rest of the jersey design makes very little to zero sense to me. I’d almost rather them go full bumblebee with it and keep the yellow stripes going all the way up the jersey. Stopping it halfway through is bizarre.
The only thing worse than that Rangers uniform is the team’s chances of actually contending for a Stanley Cup at any point in the next 5 years. It looks like something you’d see some random European team throw together and that is NOT what the Original 6 is all about.
Throwing the green and yellow into the Blackhawks jersey looks like EA Sports just gave a coloring book to a child and told him to go nuts with a 64 pack of Crayola. Even if those colors are in the Blackhawks’ logo already, that doesn’t mean we need to have a jersey with 7 different colors going on. Somebody is going to have a seizure after seeing that thing.
The Habs sweater wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if they threw an actual logo on there instead of just “MTL”. If they wanted to be different, they could have gone with the globe logo. But “MTL” just looks like they either got lazy at the end of designing these or they just forgot to replace the text with a logo. Either way, I’ll have to pass.
And then we get to the Leafs jersey, which looks like they went off the 1972 Summit Series look just in Leafs colors. I think I’d be willing to make an exception for these jerseys if Toronto plays in another outdoor game, but other than that, no thanks.
So the Detroit one is okay. The Toronto one could be used for an outdoor game but that’s it. The Canadiens one is lazy. The Blackhawks one looks like a child got a hold of it. The Rangers one looks like it could be a soccer jersey. And the Bruins one besides the logo is… well…
Either way, none of them are worthy enough to represent an Original 6 franchise so with that being said–let’s just go back to forgetting that these ever exist in the first place. Out of all the unnecessary things in this world, “digital only” jerseys for NHL teams to be used in video games is right up there at the top of the list. I just hope Adidas doesn’t get any ideas here and try to make these things real. But I’m assuming there will be enough negative reaction to make sure that never happens.