A Belated Halloween Christmas Card From Hershey

Photo: UniWatch

Reebunk

Matt O'Toole, President and CEO of Reebok-CCM Hockey, is getting new digs and will be moving from Montreal to Massachusetts. According to a company press release, O'Toole has been promoted to President of Reebok North America.

Just wondering if any of those Reebok Board of Directors in Canton, MA are Boston Herald readers. If so, they may have choked on their Dunkin' this morning after reading this nugget from Stephen Harris's column.

According to sources in the B’s dressing room, Reebok has been unable to correct problems with the new jerseys introduced this season across the NHL and will replace them at the company’s expense with new uniforms made of the old materials.

Blinding You With Science

If you're curious as to the science behind the new RBK Edge uniform system, check out this video from Discovery.com, featuring your Washington Capitals.

And if you've ever wondered why some hockey team doesn't put a really, really fat guy in goal, check out an article in today's Wall Street Journal which, again, features the Caps.

Thanks to Nate Ewell and Ted Leonsis for passing along the two links.

New Logos And Jerseys Part XII

Via NHL Tournament of Logos comes this screen shot from an EA Sports ad for NHL 2K8featuring Marty Turco in what may very well be the Dallas Stars' new home jerseys:

It's gotta be a placeholder, a generic jersey used for video game promotions while the Stars were putting the finishing touches on their real jerseys, right? Right?!

Did You "C" That?

Watching the Colts/Saints game last night, I noticed that Peyton Manning had a "C" with four stars on his uniform (yes, it's apparently Fashion Week here at Uniwatch, Jr. The Rink).

"That's sweet," I thought to myself, "the team must be honoring some recently-deceased high-ranking general whose surname began with the third letter of the alphabet." But Manning was the only Colt wearing the patch. Hmm.

Then I saw a similar patch on Saints quarterback Drew Brees. No.


Yes.

On the heels of their shameless rip-off of a popular NHL television ad, the NFL has decided to put a "C" on team captains' uniforms. But wait, there's less! Not only are the uniform "C's," uh, uniform (i.e. no team-to-team customization beyond colors), but the white stars will actually be changed to gold stars for each year the player has been captain (if the NHL did this, Joe Sakic would have 18 gold stars).

So while the NFL is busy handing out gold stars to quarterbacks like fourth grade teachers to perfect spellers, rest assured that the NHL must be doing something right.

New Logos And Jerseys Part XI

Sigh. More horizontal piping across the shoulders as the Wild unveil their new uniforms (not much of a change, as the new home jersey is similar to last year's alternate sweater, with the addition of that racing stripe):

Does anyone else think it's weird to have slightly different home and road logos (asks a blogger for a team that had vastly different home and road logos since the turn of this century)?

New Logos And Jerseys Part X

Given that it's their tenth year in Raleigh (so says the new chest patch), I guess it's fitting that the 'Canes are the 10th installment of this Rink series. Without further ado, here are their new jerseys:

My first thought is that there's too much black on the sleeves (see, for example, how little there was on last year's jerseys) and maybe the black should be separated by a gray (silver?) stripe just as the main body color is offset from the elbow color. Granted, most of all that will be under the gloves, but still - for fans wearing the jerseys, it looks kinda weird. Second thought - who needs that horizontal stripe at the shoulders? Aren't there enough horizontal elements at the bottom?

New Logos And Jerseys Part IX

The Pens have unveiled their new jerseys, and while they're not quite as sleek as the new iPod Touch, I must admit, they're pretty sharp:

I am, however, disappointed that the jerseys that were leaked to us earlier turned out to be fakes:

New Logos And Jerseys Part VIII

The Flames and the Habs unveiled their new uniforms today, and while it'd be easier to make a call on Calgary's jerseys if they were on a white background, it's easy to tell that the Canadiens have done an incredible job of not screwing up their new duds. Take a look:


I will add that the Flames have a sweet shoulder patch (the Alberta provincial flag), which can be seen in the slideshow here.

Rbk EDGE Uniform System Comes To The AHL

Per the Hershey Bears website, "American Hockey League President and CEO David Andrews announced today that all 29 AHL teams will use Reebok’s new Rbk EDGE Uniform System™ beginning with the 2007-08 season."

We've seen the NHL turn out some awful new uniforms under this system. Heaven help us cope with what lower level teams might produce.

UPDATE (9/4, 8:13 pm): Thanks to sk84fun for the link to the gallery where all the new AHL jerseys will be displayed upon release. So far so good?

New Logos And Jerseys Part VII

The Vancouver Canucks are the latest team to unveil their new duds, and here they are:


Nice colors, but waaaay too crowded for my tastes. Bottom line: if you're going to go with blue, green and white with a whale theme, do it right. Thoughts?

H/t to HFBoard poster ramirez_inc for the pics.

New Logos And Jerseys Part VI

CBC.ca has a video feature up on what to expect when the Maple Leafs reveal their new sweaters. Lose the shoulder patches, enlarge the logo, add some piping (in silver, no less!) and voilà...


... one of the League's best sweaters, ruined.

H/t to Novaron on the link

New Logos And Jerseys Part V

Ladies and gentlemen, the Tampa Bay Lightning's new threads:
Perhaps the strangest thing about the jerseys is this from Lightning.com:

"The road jersey will include a new feature, including the placement of each player’s number on the front right chest area. " [Emphasis added]

Only the roads will have front numbering? Odd, no?

New Logos And Jerseys Part IV

Here are the Sens' new threads. Read all about' em here.


Thoughts?

New Logos And Jerseys Part III

Thanks to Sean at Pop Jocks for forwarding this pic of the Isles' new threads:

Pretty awful, no? The orange arms make Rick DiPietro look like he's wearing a homemade tanktop after getting a bad spray tan (which, I suppose, is fitting for a team from Long Island).

Update: Check out the home jerseys here. Horrendous.

And here are black and white versions of what presumably will be the Senators' new primary and secondary logos, respectively (thanks, NHL Tournament of Logos, a very cool site for this kind of thing):

If they look familiar, the primary logo is a tweaked version of the Sens' current secondary logo and the secondary logo is an updated version of their current primary logo (nice shawl, Spartacus!).

Thoughts?

New Logos And Jerseys, Part II

Thanks to Kukla's Korner for pointing us to the Panthers' new duds, modeled here by Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss:


As for new logos, Alanah at Canucks And Beyond has the rumored new 'Nucks logo, which appears to be nothing more than the old one (but not the cool old one) in blue and white:


Thoughts?

New Logos And Jerseys, Part I

The new logos and uniforms keep trickling in as the teams change over to the Reebok Edge Uniform System, and below are some of the latest.

First up, the new San Jose Sharks logo, featuring it's Japanimated shark:

Pretty cool, if you ask me, and they've got a whole host of alternate logos that you can check out here, including my personal favorite.

Then there's what's rumored to be the very-slightly-tweaked new Tampa Bay Lightning logo (for more, check 'em out at SeSo):

Nothing special (which is fitting), and almost imperceptibly different from the previous logos.

Finally, the Nashville Predators revealed their new threads:


Again, not much of a change, but man, could there be more piping?

So, what do you think?

Uniform Illustrations

There seems to be some confusion out there as to whether or not teams will switch back to home whites and road darks for the upcoming season (they won't) and some question as to what color the Caps' home helmets will be (they'll be blue).

To clear up the confusion and answer the question for you visual learners, here's an illustration (courtesy of the team) of the new uniforms, hat-to-socks, with the home reds on the left and the road whites on the right:

H/t to Norske on the TSN.ca link

The Logos That Might Have Been

Judging from the unscientific poll to the right, the overwhelming majority of you either like or love the Caps' new uniforms (due in large part, it would stand to reason, to the new logo). Regardless, all of us no doubt wonder what the losing candidates might have looked like.

Well, a little poking around at the Patent & Trademark Office website (killing time before my softball game - cut me some slack) reveals a couple of logo designs that were, at one time, registered to Lincoln Hockey (but likely not in the running this time around). For example, this mark was first registered back in 2000 and abandoned back in the summer of 2005:

Not horrible.

Then there's this one, also registered back in 2000 and abandoned at the end of 2004:

So while you may not love the new logo, maybe you should just be thankful that some of the previous ideas never made it onto a Caps sweater.

It's In The Game (Already)

Thanks to Kukla for the pointer to this (and other images) from EA Sports' NHL 08: