When Hockey Sweaters Go Green

It's a time for green beer and greener hockey jerseys. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! The only way I can think to celebrate here on Icethetics is by sharing the many green warm-up jerseys being worn around the NHL this weekend. Enjoy!

First up — alphabetically — are the Boston Bruins. On Saturday night, ahead of their game against the Capitals, the Bs skated out for warm-ups sporting a color far from their existing palette.

Photos from Boston Bruins via social media

The team shared a number of photos of these green jerseys online today. A shot of the uniforms hanging in the locker room showed up on Instagram along with another of Shawn Thornton on ice. Then on Twitter, they shared a shot of Dougie Hamilton inspecting his own green threads.

Photos from Boston Bruins official website

UPDATE (3/17): Following last night's game, the Bs added a handful of action shots on their website.

The Columbus Blue Jackets couldn't keep their Irish-themed jerseys off of social media. The team suited up in green ahead of their scoreless affair with the Coyotes on Saturday.

Photos by Alison Pegg via Twitter

Team publicist Alison Pegg was perhaps the most prolific sharer of photos, including these shots of the sweaters from the locker room and auction table. She even offered up a moving picture through Vine. Of course green was not absent from the official Twitter account of the Blue Jackets.

And Icethetics reader Dan Caron even shared some of his own photos with us on Twitter. Needless to say, Columbus' St. Patrick's Day jersey was well-covered on social media.

The Dallas Stars were entertaining as ever with their St. Patty's jerseys on Saturday night. No surnames needed. Just add some Ireland-inspired nicknames to the backs of these bad boys.

Photos from Dallas Stars via Facebook

The Stars posted a picture of every player's jersey on their Facebook page. I pulled a couple of my personal favorites to post above — "McJagger" for Jaromir Jagr and "O'Romeo" for Aaron Rome. They're up for auction starting today if you find yourself in need of one.

The Edmonton Oilers are hosting the Predators tonight and may be among those teams donning green duds during warm-ups this weekend. On Instagram, the club posted a shot of a St. Patrick's Day prize pack which includes a green Oilers practice jersey. They also shared pictures of more St. Patty's-themed team merchandise on Twitter.

Conspicuous on this St. Patrick's Day was the noticeable absence of a recent tradition of the New Jersey Devils. Since 2010, the Devils have sported a throwback jersey which featured their original colors — red and green — every year for a home game on or near St. Patrick's Day. But not this year. And they were home hosting the Canadiens last night and everything. Would've been a perfect game for it.

Beating everyone to the St. Patrick's Day punch were the New York Islanders, who celebrated in green last weekend, when they hosted the Capitals on March 9.

Photo from New York Islanders official website

The Isles posted another great photo on their Facebook page after the game last night.

Photo from New York Islanders via Facebook

The jerseys were auctioned online leading up the big game.

Photo from Ottawa Senators via Instagram

UPDATE (3/17): The Ottawa Senators also joined the St. Patty's Day celebrations with the above photo posted on Instagram this morning. I presume they'll be wearing them during warm-ups today prior to their game later against the Jets.

Photos from Ottawa Senators official website

The Sens posted a couple of photos of the players skating in green on their website.

Later today, the Pittsburgh Penguins will host the Bruins. But before they do, the players will skate a little while wearing the green practice jerseys seen below.

Photos from Pittsburgh Penguins

According to the team: "The unique warm-up jerseys feature a green skating Penguin crest with Celtic lettering and numbering — and shamrocks on each shoulder." They will be put up for online auction beginning Friday.

Photos from Pittsburgh Penguins official website

UPDATE (3/17): This morning, the Penguins shared some more shots of the green on Instagram. There's one in the locker room and another of Craig Adams on the ice. Later, they posted a few more in the game's photo gallery.

UPDATE (3/17): The San Jose Sharks have been celebrating the Irish all week. The Sharks Foundation has been coordinating auctions of these green jerseys on March 9 and 14.

Photos from San Jose Sharks via Twitter and Facebook

Just today, the team tweeted a shot of the players wearing green at a recent morning skate. They've been a bit more prolific on Facebook with close-ups of the backs of these special sweaters, showing Patrick Marleau as well as Douglas Murray and others. (Thanks to @puckguy14 for the help!)

The Tampa Bay Lightning also joined the ranks of St. Patrick's Day teams on Saturday night by warming up in green before taking on the Hurricanes. The team did share some photos with us as well.

The Bolts posted some close-up photos on Instagram and a shot of the full locker room decked out in green gear on Twitter. There are several photos of players wearing the sweaters on the team's website.

Photos from Tampa Bay Lightning official website

Thanks to everyone who pitched in with links on Twitter yesterday! Let me know if you've spotted any teams I've missed and I'll be sure to add them. I'm also working on a separate post to highlight St. Patrick's Day jerseys around the minor leagues.

UPDATE (3/17): Also joining the St. Patty's Day fray were the Washington Capitals, who hit the ice in green tonight prior to defeating the Buffalo Sabres in the nation's capital.

Photos from Washington Capitals

Earlier tonight, the team tweeted a shot of a couple of jerseys hanging up in the locker room. Later, all of the green sweaters were on display at the arena so they could be auctioned off. And for more photos, check out the game's photo gallery.

Hockey Talks Across Canada

Canada's seven NHL franchises are taking part in a mental health initiative throughout the month of February. Among other things, it involves the players wearing special helmet decals for select games throughout the month. Each team will host a Hockey Talks game night, led by the Vancouver Canucks back on Feb. 1.

The Toronto Maple Leafs picked up the torch the following night on Feb. 2.

Last Wednesday, it was the Montreal Canadiens doing their part on Feb. 6.

The next night, on Feb. 7, it was Hockey Talks night for the Winnipeg Jets.

The other three teams will host their Hockey Talks nights next week, beginning with the Calgary Flames on Thursday, Feb. 20.

The Edmonton Oilers follow up with their hosting duties on Feb. 21.

And finally, things wrap up in Canada's capital city on Feb. 23 when the Ottawa Senators host the Leafs for the final Hockey Talks game night of the month.

By the way, take a close look at each of these seven logos. They're not as generic as they seem. The type is all set in the same font the Vancouver Canucks use for their wordmarks and jerseys. And the hockey stick in the middle, it's from the Canucks' secondary logo.

I know this campaign has a lot to do with Rick Rypien, so it makes sense the Canucks marketing team would take the lead on designing the logos. It's just interesting to see Canucks branding incorporated into that of all the other Canadian clubs.

Not that any of that matters. This is an important issue and it still would be regardless of any silly logos. It's nice to see Canadians trying to take care of their own. We could learn a thing or two about that down here.

2013 NHL Season Preview

After a disappointing and annoyingly long delay, the new NHL season finally commences on Saturday night. So now would be as good a time as any for the Icethetics Season Preview.

Over the summer, we talked about what a boring year 2012-13 would be for uniform changes — with almost nothing new on the docket. Turns out the higher-ups may have done this on purpose considering how close we came to not having a season at all. But here we are. Let's take a look at what little will be changing for this shortened campaign.

What's In This Season?

Our last JerseyWatch 2012 update came in late August. And what were we most excited about? The Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs at the 2013 NHL Winter Classic in Ann Arbor, of course! Those outdoor games always bring awesome new retro-inspired sweaters. But then the NHL went and canceled the whole thing.

How about the 2013 NHL All-Star Game in Columbus? Those All-Star sweaters are starting to go a bit stale after two years. Maybe we'd be treated to a brand new set? Nope. That was canceled too.

That just leaves the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are expected to bring their third jersey up to date with new shoulder patches. After introducing their new logos and uniforms last season, the club ran out of time to address the outdated features of the alternate. According to Raw Charge, the team says that will be addressed this year.

In theory, it'll look a little something like this (above). So basically, our biggest uniform change of the season will be a shoulder patch. And an existing one at that. Looks like all of us jersey geeks will actually be forced to focus on the games this season — which is good, since there will only be 48 of them.

What's Out This Season?

You want a longer list? The number of sweaters being retired effective this year is higher than it's been since the Reebok jersey massacre of 2007. Granted, it's just three, but still. Lately, NHL teams have been more interested in adding jerseys than deleting them.

• Buffalo Sabres third jersey — It was launched to mark the franchise's 40th birthday. But after just two years, it will live on only in the history books.
• Edmonton Oilers third jersey — This sweater has a sordid past and very few of us will be sad to see it go. Its significant lack of striping and bland color scheme made it instantly hated as a home jersey. When the Oilers came to their senses and brought back their classic colors, this became the alternate. Two years later, we say good riddance.
• Florida Panthers third jersey — JetBlue got their money's worth, but no one else did. The Panthers were never meant to be blue and they definitely weren't meant to be powder blue. The Cats brought back the red last season and wrapped things up with this alternate.

Goodbye to these three alternate uniforms.

May we never see you on the ice again. As some misguided future throwback or otherwise.

Third Jerseys in a Shortened Season

One question I've seen a few times in going through the last week of emails has to do with how often teams will wear their alternate jerseys this season — that is, if they still have them. Typically, team's wear them 12-15 times during an 82-game season. My guess is that, with just 48 games this year, we might expect to see them 7-9 times each. Better than nothing, right?

Looking Ahead

If this lack of jersey news has you feeling down, fret not. I have a hunch this summer will be much more fruitful. We already know we're getting new stuff from Dallas and Minnesota in 2013-14. And I happen to know there will be a few surprises in store that haven't yet been reported.

Stay tuned for the first edition of NHL JerseyWatch 2013 coming this week!

Imagine the Oilers in Seattle

Sorry, I just can't. It's ridiculous and we all know it.

In the midst of a lockout and negotiations to have a new arena built in downtown Edmonton, the bigwigs from the Edmonton Oilers paid a visit to Seattle today — just to poke around and such.

Monday, Seattle's City Council officially approved a plan to move forward with the much-discussed new arena project. That's great but the entire thing still hinges on securing an NBA or NHL franchise. And all the cities that already have them really like them and don't want us to take them. So that's the trouble.

To help alleviate that trouble, apparently, the Oilers brass was in town for "meetings" and a stop at KeyArena — down the street from me. (Oh, and to watch the Seahawks beat the Packers unconvincingly, as well.) Oilers fans hate it.

This is a stone that kills two birds. On one hand, it's the Oilers saying, hey Edmonton, you don't want to buy us a new arena, we'll find a new city that will. (Even though they really won't.) And on the other, it's Seattle trying to convince itself that there are potential teams out there to snatch up. (Even though there really aren't.)

Trying to follow it all is a nightmare. So I count on Chris Daniels. As a Seattleite, I just want to wake up one morning and find out we have a hockey team and an arena. And that I have season tickets.

But then I'd just have to wake up again.

New Looks for a New Season

As a long summer starts winding down, we're now less than a month away from training camps across the NHL getting underway. But before that, I wanted to do a quick run-through of all the new jerseys we'll be seeing this fall. And believe it or not, I have a few surprises in store.

Edmonton Oilers

Fans have been begging for it for years, and the Oilers have responded. This new road jersey pays tribute to the original white sweater the Oilers wore from their NHL inception in 1979 to 1996.

Florida Panthers

Like the Oilers, the Panthers are fixing their uniforms as well by returning to their roots with a red home uniform. The chest and sleeve piping as also been removed from both the home and road sweaters.

Though the red sweater was unveiled at the draft, the road jersey design below is still unofficial. We know the blue piping is going away but it's not clear if the jersey will see any other changes.

Los Angeles Kings

The Kings are undergoing an identity overhaul in 2011, though they're only adding one "new" jersey. The white road sweater is based on the black alternate which launched in 2008.

Nashville Predators

The Predators are also making sweeping changes by introducing new home and road jerseys.

New York Islanders

We got our first glimpse at the Isles' new third jersey when a prototype design was leaked recently by a former team employee. But I've recently been made aware of some new details and can confirm report this is what the final version looks like. (Accidentally broke one of my own rules there. I can't "confirm" anything. That's for the team to do. However, this is an accurate representation of the final design.)

Ottawa Senators

We've known for some time that the Senators have had a Heritage Jersey in the works, meant to pay tribute to the original Senators from the 1930s for their own 20th anniversary season. You got your first look at a photocopy of the design earlier this month. This is what it looks like in color.

The shoulder patches have been the source of much of the speculation surrounding this jersey since the team itself offered up a sneak peek back in March. I can report that there are two of them, both in the shape of a shield. One reads Ottawa Senators, the other is in French: Sénateurs d'Ottawa.

Pittsburgh Penguins

The Pens will be promoting their 2011 Winter Classic jersey to alternate status this season. It replaces the light blue third which debuted at the 2008 Winter Classic.

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Lightning unveiled their new branding back in January but the jerseys still aren't available in stores. Here's a refresher of what they'll look like.

Toronto Maple Leafs

And finally, one of the worst kept secrets of the summer has been the Leafs' new third jersey. It pays tribute to the 1967 design which was only used for a few seasons. Take note of the silver inner-outline of the throwback leaf crest. Other than that, it's practically identical to the old jersey.

Obviously, the odd man out on this post are those elusive Winnipeg Jets jerseys. Plenty of you have emailed and tweeted to tell me the counterfeiters already have them. I refer you to my earlier post about phony leaks. Everyone's favorite thieves are simply manufacturing jerseys based on concept art. As I've said before, this would not be the first time. And it surely won't be the last. Be patient; don't waste your money.

For what it's worth, I can't say how close the fakes will be to the real thing as I haven't seen the final designs yet. They could be close or miles away. But since the Jets haven't scrambled to assemble a press conference on short notice, I'm guessing it's the latter. 

I also expect to have another edition of JerseyWatch posted before the end of August, but aside from one busy week, there hasn't been a lot of news this month. Hopefully this will hold you over until then.

Update on Friday · Sep 16 · 2011 | 10:40 AM PDT by Chris

Winnipeg Jets

The Jets finally unveiled their new home and road uniforms 10 days ago. Here's another look at them.

Washington Capitals

The Caps announced they will bring back their retro Winter Classic jersey for 16 road games this season.

The new season is shaping up to look pretty nice. And I don't think there will be any other new jerseys to add to this list for the 2011-12 season. You've now seen everything there is to see.