Hershey Gets New Jerseys

As I mentioned last night on Twitter, there is an awful lot going on in the minors these days. Time to get everyone caught up. We'll begin with the AHL and work our way down.

The Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears have unveiled brand new sweaters for the 2009-10 season. They did so yesterday on their official web site — while I was busy with the Wild third jersey leak.

The Bears made the switch to the Reebok Edge style uniforms two seasons ago and were one of the few teams that kept changes to a minimum — HERSHEY placed diagonally down the front of the chocolate jerseys and BEARS down the front of the white ones. Those designs are no more.

Hershey Bears' new jerseys for 2009-10

The home and road sweaters will now place the team's primary logo front and center, while reserving a new text-based design for the alternate jersey. The new third takes its inspiration from the Dallas Stars' with the city name arched above the player's number.

The Bears have also announced the launch of the new sweaters will take place during their season opener in October.

The make of the jersey has remained the same, but the appearance has changed. Anyone looking to purchase one of the new jerseys can do so on opening night, October 3. As always, fans can customize their jerseys to have specific names on the back.

Thanks to James for the tip.

Moving right along now to the ECHL. The Ontario Reign will play host to the league's 2010 All-Star Game. It was announced yesterday that the logo for the event will be unveiled this Friday at 1 PM EST.

The Citizens Business Bank Arena will play host to the 18th ECHL All-Star Game which takes place on January 20, 2010. The event is sponsored by Reebok. No word on whether the All-Star jerseys will be debuted on Friday as well.

We'll finish up our look at the minors with the QMJHL. As you know the league is switching over to the Reebok Edge uniforms this season. Scotty from Hockeybums tells me the plan is for the league and Reebok to unveil all of the remaining uniforms on September 9. Not a hard date to remember — 09/09/09.

One more item now regarding the London Knights.

London Knights in their Euro jerseys

The Knights will be hosting the Euro Can Cup in which they and other participating teams will don European-style jerseys — as seen above. It's a rather awful sight. Organizers are hoping for it to be a success. I'm hoping it's not if for no other reason than those terrible uniforms.

You can read more about the event at the London Free Press. If you'd like to punish yourself by looking at more pictures of these jerseys, click here.

MAINEiacs Go Crazy for Edge

— ICETHETICS EXCLUSIVE —

Please see the updates to this post below.

I've got some jersey news from the junior leagues to share this evening. The QMJHL's Lewiston MAINEiacs are joining the other 59 Canadian Hockey League teams switching over to the Reebok Edge Uniform System for the 2009-10 season and this is your first look at what they'll be wearing.

Lewiston MAINEiacs' black Edge jersey

As is the case with all lower level teams, Lewiston is sticking with the standard, recognizable templates, with the Reebok logo front and center on the chest. The sweaters are similar to the Lightning for the darks, above, and Panthers for the lights, seen below.

Lewiston MAINEiacs' white Edge jersey

Nothing spectacular, but it's jersey news at a point in the summer when there's really not much else going on. Any thoughts on these? Are you excited about seeing leaked jersey pictures back on Icethetics again?

Update on Monday · Aug 3 · 2009 | 7:20 PM PDT by Chris

You asked for a comparison with the MAINEiacs' old jerseys. Here they are.

This new look is definitely a downgrade but I think we've been hearing that a lot here in the Age of Reebok. My thanks to RicLaf for allowing me to nab his excellent photos from his Flickr photostream.

Update on Tuesday · Aug 4 · 2009 | 9:43 AM PDT by Chris

At the request of the QMJHL, I have removed the photos of the Lewiston MAINEiacs' new Reebok Edge jerseys. Icethetics is not in the business of making enemies out of the leagues. Sorry about that. With any luck, I hope to at least hear back with an official release date that I can post. The pictures will return to this post after the release.