Penguins Unveil Stadium Sweater

Jersey utilizes same template as others from Stadium Series

Just as they promised, the Pittsburgh Penguins unveiled their 2014 Stadium Series jersey this afternoon. Compared with the other Stadium sweaters we've seen so far, this one is the most similar to its team's existing uniform set.

No alternate colors. No alternate logos. Just more of the same. Only slightly different.

Photos from Pittsburgh Penguins

I will say I like the black and Vegas gold better as distinct stripes than as amorphous splotches across the sweater. So I'll give them points for that. And I won't take away points for the similarities to the other Stadium Series jerseys. Reebok wants a template. Reebok gets a template. Hard to fight that battle.

But at least we got another new collar design. No laces for the Pens.

Photo from Pittsburgh Penguins

Where I will take away points is that crest. Combine the silly chrome Photoshop effect with the screen printing process and all you can do is shake your head. At no point should professional hockey players be wearing anything screen printed on their sweaters. And I think that's just a universal law.

Here's a look at the back from a few different angles.

Video stills from Pittsburgh Penguins (composite)

I haven't seen a really great shot of the pants and socks yet, but what we have seen suggests it won't be a big deparature from what the Islanders, Kings and Ducks are doing.

The Penguins visit the Chicago to play their third outdoor game on March 1 at Soldier Field. By the way, we're still waiting to hear when the Blackhawks will show us their Stadium look. (No way they'd share the spotlight with Pittsburgh.)

So what do you think of the newest Penguins jersey? And what do you expect from the Hawks?

Penguins Tease Stadium Jersey

Photos from Pittsburgh Penguins (via Twitter)

Friday will bring Pens' third outdoor jersey in five years

The Pittsburgh Penguins hopped on the jersey teaser bandwagon today — seems like they've been coming nonstop from around the league since last spring. The Pens offered up a pair of photos today that, frankly, don't tell us very much.

The team will travel to Chicago after the Olympics to face the Blackhawks at Soldier Field. It'll be the Pens' third outdoor appearance since the NHL started making a habit out of it in 2008. Earlier today, the Penguins announced they will unveil their 2014 Stadium Series jersey on Friday at 2 PM ET.

No word yet on whether the Blackhawks will join them.

The Pens followed up their Twitter announcement with a sneak peek of the jersey — if you can call it that. We got a close-up of the Stadium Series shoulder patch (above, left). Then a few hours later came a second teaser photo. It showed a gold triangle over a swatch of black.

I'll be honest. I have absolutely no idea what we're looking at there. There is a small white triangle at the top of that photo, which could be a patch. But is it on the shoulder? There's something going on at the bottom edge of the photo. Maybe a sleeve number?

What do you see in these photos? Share your theories below!

Update on Thursday · Dec 12 · 2013 | 10:06 PM PST by Chris

Pens share another cryptic teaser photo

Photo from Pittsburgh Penguins (via Twitter)The Penguins will unveil their Stadium Series jersey in about 16 hours. But to hold us over, they've shared a third "teaser" photo.

I'm not sure the point though. They're definitely "Sabering" this. Yeah, I just said that.

Sabering. It's a verb. To "Sabre" a jersey unveiling (yep, two different spellings) is to reveal teaser photos that are so vague they weren't even worth seeing.

Case in point, I haven't been on Twitter all day so I didn't see the Pens tweet out this photo this morning. But it's so useless that not a single one of my 7,300 Twitter followers bothered to point it out to me. Which is unusual.

For what it's worth, Sabering has an antonym. Hurricaning your jersey unveiling means you're doing it right. (Used in a sentence: The Wild Hurricaned the crap out of their road jersey unveiling this summer.)

These terms have no relation to the design quality of the jerseys in question.

All right.

For immediate news on the Penguins' new Stadium jersey, keep an eye on Twitter tomorrow. I'll have the blog updated as soon as I'm able. 

More on the L.A. Stadium Game

Taking another look at the new Kings, Ducks uniforms

It's been a bit slow around here lately. Not necessarily because there's nothing to report, but rather I've been a little busy away from the blog. While I try to make time to put together a few more posts this week, I wanted to look back at the Ducks/Kings Stadium Series jerseys.

First, the images above are the official artwork from Reebok. They show the full jerseys, including the waist stripes (or lack thereof) which weren't visible in the images posted on the blog last week. The TEAM LA Store is currently taking pre-orders online if you're interested in buying.

I also wanted to do a bit of a link dump. Both the Ducks and Kings shared a lot of information related to these Stadium jerseys.

• Ducks' Stadium Series jersey press release
• Kings' Stadium Series jersey press release
• Kings' Stadium Series jersey: Q&A
• Kings' Stadium Series jersey: The Facts

If you're not interested in reading through all those articles, I've pulled a few fascinating facts below.

Stadium Series jerseys available in January

While you can currently pre-order any of the three unveiled Stadium Series jerseys, you can't take any of them home yet. According to the Ducks' press release, the jerseys will be available in stores and to ship in January. The Islanders' Stadium Series jersey order form, says "early January." No specific date has been made public yet — that I'm aware of.

Elongated numbers intended for fans in the cheap seats

The Kings' "The Facts" article explains the elongated numbers on the jerseys.

Player numbers on the back of the jersey are enlarged, making them more visible to fans in outdoor venues. Sleeve numbers are angled on five of the Stadium Series jerseys aligning player arm position with visual angles typical for fan viewing of the game in motion.

Honestly? I've never had a problem reading the sleeve numbers because of the angle. Let's just admit this is more about form than function. I guess the idea is that when the player is bent forward with arms outstretched to grip his stick, the angle of the numbers will be more horizontal. I have my doubts.

On the other hand, the elongated numbers make perfect sense now. There's so much real estate on the backs of jerseys that isn't being used. And because these stadiums weren't designed with a 200-foot hockey rink in mind, fans are forced to sit pretty far away from the action. The numbers can't be any wider, so making them taller makes sense.

The chrome crests use "high tech" printing

The chrome logos are cheesy but I suddenly understand the need. From the Kings' "The Facts":

This new technology fuses print and embroidery manufacturing process, allowing the logo to be displayed as a high-resolution image incorporated into the crest. This technology also reduces the weight of the crest, promoting a lighter jersey for improved athlete performance.

Ok, "weight of the crest" again? First the stripes weigh too much (San Jose!) and now it's the crests. Come on. But whatever it takes to make the players happy, right?

The first line of that quote is a crock. "Fuses print and embroidery"? No. Look at the photos. It's a printed crest stitched onto the jersey. Nothing about these crests are embroidered. And that explains the chrome logos. I'm guessing when Reebok experimented with printing crests, they realized it looked cheap.

So the logos required a little digital texture and beveling to give the same impression you get when looking at an embroidered crest. Unfortunately, however, it's probably a safe bet that printed crests are the way of the future when you take cost and player comfort into consideration.

The odd lace-up collar design explained

Once again, we'll turn to the Kings' "The Facts" piece:

The construction of the lace-up collar streamlines the cut and sew cosmetics of the collar for a seamless feel and better wear and performance, while still delivering the timeless style of the traditional hockey visual cue.

Now they're not even trying to hide their manipulation of us. It's just a "visual cue." But if we're being honest, the lace-up collars we see today are form over function anyway. They don't serve any purpose other than aesthetics. Which is fine.

I actually like the look of these new collars. They're just clean and unique.

Stadium Series jerseys were designed in 3 months

Teams usually spend a year or two developing new jersey designs. These were slapped together in just three months, according to Kings COO Kelly Cheeseman (a real name!). He was the focus of the Kings' "Q&A" article. He says the Kings' jersey design was a collaboration between the NHL's marketing department, Reebok, and the team's staff. (Note the lack of fan input. Not unusual, but the design seems to be going over well anyway.)

Feel free to weigh in on these new details in the comments.

ECHL Hosts All-Star Design Contest

League accepting fan jersey submissions for 2015 event

Feel like designing a couple of hockey jerseys this weekend?

Players participating in the 2015 ECHL All-Star Classic could be wearing uniforms designed by you! This week, the ECHL and the Orlando Solar Bears (the 2015 All-Star host) announced a jersey design contest for the big event.

They are accepting submissions from fans until next Friday, Dec. 13. Three finalists will be selected and posted to the Solar Bears' Facebook page the following week, when the designs will be put to a public vote. Voting runs Wed., Dec. 18 through Mon., Dec. 23.

All finalists will receive autographed replica jerseys. The grand prize winner gets a game-worn jersey and, of course, the opportunity to see his design in action. The winning jersey will be worn by the ECHL All-Stars team, which will face the Solar Bears.

If you're interested in participating, you can find more information and rules for entering on the ECHL's official website. That link also includes a handful of official all-star logos you can download to include in your design. I know we have a lot of younger readers here, but you must be 18 or older to enter.

Also, feel free to send your submissions to me as well and I'll put together a post on the Concepts page.

Finally, in case you're wondering, there will not be an ECHL All-Star game this season. According to the league, there were no bids to host. The first time league skipped the event was 1993. Prior to that, it had been held annually since 1993.

Last year, the Colorado Eagles hosted. In 2011, it was the Bakersfield Condors.

If you need a jersey template, try our new Templates page. Good luck!

Kings, Ducks Unveil Stadium Jerseys!

Video stills from NHL

Dodger Stadium game will feature orange versus grey

The 2014 Stadium Series jerseys to be worn by the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings were unveiled this morning. While we await more photos, check out this unveiling video. Or if you can't watch the video, I grabbed some stills for all to enjoy.

Both teams are sticking with their recently unveiled chrome logos. This suggests the other Stadium teams will likely do the same. However, that may not be the case with the Rangers and Devils. I've heard the Rangers will have a "NEW YORK" script on their jersey while the Devils will simply wear their red and green throwbacks. But I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

As rumored, both jerseys have new ligature shoulder patches. We saw L.A.'s on a T-shirt not too long ago. And Anaheim's "OC" logo was barely visible on another shirt. Both are great extensions of the existing brand identities. But you can definitely tell these two jerseys were designed together. That's good if they were only intended for use during this one game. But if the two teams continue to use them as alternate uniforms, it could be awkward.

The close-ups of the sleeve numbers look a lot like the teaser videos released over the weekend. 

And here are the nameplates. Anaheim's is unique with the letters looking very thin on the inside.

Looks like this new collar style is here to stay. We first saw it on the Islanders' Stadium Series jersey. Now the Ducks and Kings are repeating it. It's modern with a hint of retro. Personally, I like it.

Remember, the big game is Jan. 25, 2014. Don't miss the NHL's first orange-versus-grey game!