Adidas allowed teams to reintroduce third jerseys for the upcoming 2018-19 season. The Carolina Hurricanes--who had already debuted a newly-designed third jersey on 22 June--just slapped an entire region of hockey fans in the face yesterday.
Thus far, 13 franchises have unveiled their third jerseys, and the Los Angeles Kings and New York Islanders are expected to announce theirs at any time.
Of the entire new group of jerseys, only the Hurricanes and the Winnipeg Jets have unveiled new designs. Everyone else brought back a throwback or third jersey when they were being designed by Reebok, and formatted them for the new Adidas scheme. The Kings’ are expected to do the same, and a potential leak of the Islanders’ expects their “Stadium Series” jersey from 2014 to be returning.
Then owners Thomas Dundon and Peter Karmanos Jr. went to a place I do not ever remember a relocated franchise going.
Announced yesterday, the Hartford Whalers uniform is being brought back for two of the three games the Hurricanes will play against the Boston Bruins this season. Wearing the uniform at home on 23 December is bad enough, but the Hurricanes are taking this thing on the road to Boston on 5 March 2019.
The Hartford Whalers were founded in 1971, as the New England Whalers of the old World Hockey Association (WHA). When the NHL and WHA merged in 1979, the franchise was rebranded as the Hartford Whalers, until the franchise moved to Raleigh, North Carolina following the 1996-97 season. The Hurricanes have three division championships since the move, and even won the 2006 Stanley Cup over the Edmonton Oilers, another former WHA franchise.
The Whaler logo is one of the greatest in the history of professional sports. There is just way too much green in that uniform, and I am at least thankful the Hurricanes decided to use the version with the most blue, other than when the Whalers used a navy primary jersey starting in 1992.
The root of the argument is the Hurricanes feel they are paying homage to their roots by bringing these jerseys back in contests against the Whalers’ biggest NHL rivals. No one expected when the Jets announced they would be introducing a third jersey for the first time since they moved from Atlanta in 2011, that we would see the original Winnipeg Jets uniforms from the team that became the Phoenix (now-Arizona) Coyotes in 1996. The Jets’ lineage would only allow them to wear Atlanta Thrasher inspired jerseys, as the Coyotes still own the design of the original Jets.
I get that the Calgary Flames alternate captain “A” on their jersey is the old Atlanta Flames logo, before that franchise moved up north in 1980. It would be 19 years until the expansion Thrashers became Atlanta’s second NHL franchise. Atlanta seemed more than willing to let the lineage of the Flames walk away in the move.
The city of Cleveland on the other hand fought the NFL in federal court to keep the color and history when the Browns moved to Baltimore in 1995, so that owner Art Modell would not have his team wearing orange and brown. I do not think the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder would be wearing green and gold as a nod to when they moved from Seattle in 2008, especially now that that earlier this week Seattle green-lighted (no pun intended) a $700 million renovation to the old KeyArena, in effort to draw in a new NBA or NHL franchise.
-JC24