This is clearly a jersey designed with Reebok’s form-fitting uni plans for next year in mind. The empty lower half of the jersey strongly suggests that Reebok is still trying to aggressively push that their new jerseys be tucked into the pants next season [an idea that had reportedly been pushed by Reebok but resisted by team GMs last season]. After all, what’s the point of putting anything on the bottom if nobody’s going to see it on the ice?

Whether or not that analysis is correct, these jerseys need some lower striping, pronto.

Yes, the jerseys were designed with the new look NHL uniform in mind. They were supposed to take effect this season but the NHL pushed them back one year. The Jersey was designed to be tucked in (which the NHL has now scrapped that plan) So they better add something to the bottom of that jersey. And the Number on the shoulder was originally supposed to be put on the Lower part of the new style NHL pant (shell design), but again since that got delayed equipment managers said that it wasn’t good to put a number on the current style pants due to the abuse they take and the way they would need to be sewn in to the pads.

Don’t forget that last season the NHL mandated that all goalies use a narrower 11″ pad forcing all goalies to wear new pads. Along with smaller gloves, body pads and tighter fitting pants.

All the old, brown leather pads were much smaller than what was used. You would need 6-8 deer to get the pads that Garth Snow used to use!

I was talking about the pads that were once used in the NHL up to the mid-80s. All I was saying was that if Harding was using the old style of pads, he might have switched out of necessity.

Josh Harding’s switch to more modern pads may be for a good reason. The older, brown leather pads are heavier. Old goalie pads were made of deer hair, sponge and/or felt inside the leather. When the leather got wet, it made sliding across the ice almost impossible. Modern pads are made of synthetic materials. These newer pads are lighter and offer more protection. Any advantage you can get in today’s NHL is seen as a good one, so Harding might be switching due to the nature of the old, brown pads.

Harding never wore the older style pad. The “retro” color pads were made interally from the same materials as any other modern pad. His pads had a material called “bucky” on the face. It’s a synthetic leather with a rough face. The pads he is wearing now use jenpro as the facing material.

Don’t forget that last season the NHL mandated that all goalies use a narrower 11″ pad forcing all goalies to wear new pads. Along with smaller gloves, body pads and tighter fitting pants.

Teebz said:

Peter Karmanos still owns the Whalers’ rights. This is why there are no NHL Vintage jerseys of the Hartford Whalers. In my opinion, I wouldn’t want the Whalers outselling the Hurricanes if I owned the ‘Canes.

The Connecticut Development Authority owns the rights to the logos, not Karmanos. This was part of their feud over him leaving town.

http://www.hartfordi...

Good call. My bad. I had read an article regarding Karmanos’ leaving town incorrectly. And good for the city of Hartford. It’s their team, they should be allowed to do what they want with it.

Thanks, Elwood!

Peter Karmanos still owns the Whalers’ rights. This is why there are no NHL Vintage jerseys of the Hartford Whalers. In my opinion, I wouldn’t want the Whalers outselling the Hurricanes if I owned the ‘Canes.

The Connecticut Development Authority owns the rights to the logos, not Karmanos. This was part of their feud over him leaving town.

http://www.hartfordi...

Chris Coleman said:

I noticed that Michigan had a yellow wrap-around stripe/piping against Notre Dame on Saturday. You can see it here and here. Is this new for this season?

No, it began last season. Interestingly, I got a note about this last night from someone at Nike. He says he’s a big fan of the site, and he works in Nike’s R&D department. He said the R&D people often “butt heads” with the aesthetics/design people, and then he said this about Michigan’s wraparound stripe:

“Those bibs on football uniforms? that’s actually a seamline between two fabrics engineered for for better breathability during hot & humid weather – a big improvement over the older thick jerseys that players used to wear. and yes, this technology is tested scientifically at nike. the designers added that bib line not just as an attempt to make it asthetically pleasing, but also to highlight the performance feature of the jersey, which nike hasn’t been really communicating to the public.”

Here’s what I wrote back to him:

“But why does the seam need to be a different color? Why do you have to HIGHLIGHT this performance aspect? Why can’t the team just wear it and benefit from it? It’s basically a way of saying, ‘Look at Nike, look at us, look what we did!’ It’s all about Nike, instead of about the team. That’s my biggest problem with Nike — not the design elements themselves (although some of those are pretty bad too), but rather that these design elements are used within the context of team uniforms to advertise the company. Nike uses graphic design elements like the bib to create Nike brand awareness, when the only brand a uniform should be promoting is the team itself. You wanna do all sorts of high-tech performance-enhancing stuff? Great! But don’t advertise it on my team’s jersey. The only thing I want to be thinking about when I root for my team is, um, MY TEAM. I don’t want to be thinking about Nike (or Reebok, or whoever).”

This exchange, to me, is the Nike/anti-Nike debate in a nutshell.

Yeah, I got to watch My Buckeyes win this weekend, but since it was a bacholr party and one dude was there in a scUM jersey, and u can see that it is 2 diff types of fabric. One was the old school mesh around the numbers where the pads would be so it could stay cool, the other part was the silky looking stuff that basketball uni’s are made out of.

I wonder if the World Champion caps will say “New York Mets Offseason.”

Hoverver did anyone notice that the hats say “Division Series” while the shirts said “NL East Division Champions” as expected?