by Matt DeLaere, Marketing
The new year is approaching, and for the NHL® that means a new slate of outdoor games. Three outdoor games are scheduled for 2016, with Montreal and Boston starting things off on New Year’s Day in the Winter Classic at Gillette Stadium (home of the NFL’s Patriots). In February’s Stadium Series, Minnesota will host Chicago at the University of Minnesota’s football stadium, and Colorado will face Detroit at Coors Field (home of the MLB Rockies).
Outdoor games have always meant special jersey designs for the teams involved, and this season is no exception. Also as usual, these special event jerseys are a hot holiday gift, and Stahls’ has officially licensed NHL®/NHLPA® name and number kits so your customers can give an awesome gift, whether it’s to a family member, a friend, or to themselves.
The first set of jerseys, for the Winter Classic in Foxborough, MA, harkens back to the old days of the Bruins-Canadiens rivalry. The Bruins will wear a design similar to that the team wore in 1924, their first year in the league, but updated from brown and yellow to the team’s current black and gold color scheme. Letters and numbers are in a vintage-looking off-white.
With a long pedigree of success and a design history to match, the Habs also went back to the 1920s, with the classic “CH” logo in white and red (as the team wore back then), and a globe patch on the sleeves, mimicking the globe crest worn by the team in 1924-25 to tout their world champion status. But that’s not all – the new uniform features a lighter shade of blue, a throwback to the sweaters the team wore in its inaugural season, 1909-10, and a red collar in tribute to the 1945-46 team, which beat Boston in the Stanley Cup final. Letters are a solid red, and numbers red with a white outline.
Both sets of Stadium Series jerseys feature a retro-modern look. What is that, you ask? Well, past Stadium Series jerseys have gone for a more modern, futuristic look. This go-round features design elements from the past with a modern twist.
The Wild will stick with their color scheme, wearing a green jersey with cream shoulders and large red and cream sleeve stripes. The Hawks have a somewhat similar design, with black shoulders on a white jersey and sleeve striping, but with the addition of four red stars on a dual-colored color, representing the Chicago city flag.
The Avalanche will wear a sleeker, more modern design, with their primary crest replaced by the “C” that adorns the Colorado state flag – a design element borrowed from the logo of the 1970s Colorado Rockies. The collar features the number 5,280, a reference to Denver being the “Mile-High City.” Their opponents from Detroit will feature a modernized version of the old English D worn by the team in the 2009 Winter Classic (and by the 1926-27 Detroit Cougars). The font used was designed to evoke the team’s primary winged wheel logo.
As usual, Stadium Series jerseys feature oversized numbers, designed to be seen from the higher points of view that come with playing in a football stadium. Kits for these jerseys, and for the Winter Classic jerseys, can be purchased on Stahls’ Officially Licensed NHL/NHLPA Player Kits page, or in Canada, from the Stahls’ Canada website.