Showing posts with label Curious Weird and Ugly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Curious Weird and Ugly. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

1995-96 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Paul Kariya jersey

Todays Curious, Weird and Ugly™ Collection jersey is the single most embarrassing jersey to ever see the ice in an NHL game.

The 1995-96 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim alternate jersey was one of the original five alternate jerseys in the NHL. Doing away with the traditional main logo crest, the Mighty Ducks used the dye-sublimation process to create a unique design picturing not the team's logo, but an embarrassing cartoon of it's mascot, Wild Wing, bursting through the ice in a superhero pose.

The team only made matters worse with its choice for the name and numbers, the cartoonish, unattractive and difficult to read font, Mistral.

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The jersey, dubbed "The Wild Wing Jersey" almost always ranks first or second in "worst jersey" lists due to it's embarrassing cartoon "logo" design, horrible font and trendy non-hockey color for the jerseys. The players hated being seen wearing them and, as a result, the jersey only had a life span of six games before being shelved for good. The game dates were 1/27/96 vs. Los Angeles (who wore their Burger King jerseys, making for the single most visually appalling game in league history), 2/2/96 vs. the Hartford Whalers, 3/3/96 vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3/8/96 vs. the Buffalo Sabres, 4/3/96 vs. the Edmonton Oilers and one final time on 4/12/96 vs. the Dallas Stars, going 3-2-1 in those games.

We've even read an account that the players said theydid not want to wear them for a second season and additionally did not want any pictures of them wearing the jersey in the following year's Mighty Ducks media guide!

Little is known about who was involved in the development of the Wild Wing and what their thought process was. Apparently no one wants to take credit for being responsible for the worst jersey in NHL history, but you can safely bet that non-hockey people at Disney had a large part in such an unconventional approach to hockey sweater design.

As a result of it's short period of use, there were no additional patches worn on this jersey, not that you would be able to pick one out among all the visual noise of the design anyway.

This jersey must be classified as "Weird" and "Ugly". If it weren't for then owner Disney's involvement with the jersey, we'd include "curious", but with Disney involved, there's no curiosity as to where this monstrosity came from. We will also allow ourselves a bit of leeway in the case of this especially horrid jersey and also classify it as "Stupid".

In all honesty, if you strip away the cartoon logo and font used, the jersey pattern of the pointed shoulder area, similar to the current Penguins home jerseys of the day, and sleeve striping is a good base from which to work from. But the accolades stop there.

The primary jade color of the jersey was just too trendy, too "California", to embrace. The font was thin and reedy and much too busy for it's own good. The secondary logos were hard enough to live with on the home and road jerseys for traditionalists, but the front of the jersey?

It's the stupidest thing we've ever seen on an NHL jersey, bar none.

Anaheim Mighty Ducks 95-96 Alt #9 F
Anaheim Mighty Ducks 95-96 Alt #9 B

Here is the all-time greatest photo of the Wild Wing jersey, as Teemu Selanne imitates the design on the front of the jersey with his arms in the air and stick raised. The only thing missing is the hole in the ice below him!

Teemu Selanne Wild Wing

Our video section begins with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim debuting their new "Wild Wing" jerseys against the Los Angeles Kings, who were wearing their awful "Burger King" jerseys for the first time during same game.


Next, a goal by Paul Kariya while the Worst Dressed Game in NHL History™ continues.



That wraps up our trip through the "Curious, Weird and Ugly" Collection for this year. There are other jerseys that certainly qualify, most specifically the Atlanta Thrashers alternates of 2003-04, or the Todd McFarlane designed Edmonton Oilers alternates of 2001-02, the New York Islanders road construction workers vests of 2002-03, the Vancouver Canucks color fading alternates of 2001-02 or the Philadelphia Flyers alternates of 2002-03 as well as nearly anything and everything from the Reebok Edge Uniform System™ (9% less wind drag, 14% lighter and 50% more expensive!). Many also mention the Calgary Flames "Flaming Horse Head" alternates of 1998-99, but we happen to think those are pretty cool and refuse to add them to the discussion.

The most recent entry in the collection, confirmed by any search on the internet for "ugly hockey jerseys", is the Montreal Canadiens 1912-13 throwbacks worn last year to celebrate the Canadiens 100th anniversary which were most often compared to prison uniforms. They were scheduled to wear them twice, but then coach Bob Gainey opted to skip their second scheduled appearance due to the reaction to them after the first time and go with the more traditional 1916 jerseys instead.

There could also be a book written about some of the "Hideous, Stupid and Embarrassing" jerseys that have been forced on unsuspecting minor league hockey players over the years, but the vast majority of those are one time only jerseys that are outlandish on purpose in order to generate some publicity for the clubs, unlike the strange and weird NHL jerseys I've chronicled that were meant to be taken seriously only to suffer the unanticipated backlash from both the fans and the media.

If you have any nominees for inclusion in the "Curious, Weird and Ugly" Collection, feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section below.

Monday, August 30, 2010

2003-04 Dallas Stars Alternate Mike Modano Jersey

Today's Curious, Weird and Ugly™ Collection jersey is one of the most unexpected designs in the history of NHL alternate jerseys.

The Dallas Stars had been using the same two home and away jerseys since 1998 when the previous alternate jersey had been promoted to the primary. While many teams rotate the importance of the colors in their set, making a trim color the primary color of their alternate jersey, it's unusual for a team to add an entirely new color not used anywhere else in their identity package - which is exactly what the Stars did by adding red to their new alternate jersey.

While the addition of the color red to their jersey may have raised eyebrows, what really got people talking was the brand new logo created just for this new alternate featuring a constellation of stars mapping out a bull's head with a red-tailed shooting star sweeping around the head from the side. It was assumed that the constellation pictured was Taurus the Bull, but the constellation of Taurus has it's own unique shape that bears no relation to the Dallas Stars alternate logo.

At the time of it's introduction, the team described the logo this way;

"The new logo depicts a constellation of individual stars aligning to form an unstoppable force of nature, a charging bull. Get it? A constellation of stars aligning to form an unstoppable force? "

Only that's not how the critics saw it.

Oh no.

The bull's head immediately reminded many of a diagram of a woman's uterus, and was derisively nicknamed "The Mooterus" - a combination of a cow's "moo" and a woman's "uterus", elevating it instantaneously to the lofty status of the "named jersey", a sure sign of infamy.

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The jersey, which was not very well received, was worn for two seasons, 2003-04 and 2005-06, taking a year off in the middle for the season lost to the lockout. Teams are required by the NHL to market their new alternate sweaters for a minimum of 15 games for their first season of use. The Stars reduced that number to just eight games for the 2005-06 season and refused to commit to the same amount for 2006-07, which would have been the final season for The Mooterus anyway, due to the league-wide redesign coming with the introduction of the Reebok Edge jerseys that limited teams to just home and away jerseys for 2007-08.

Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks was quoted as saying on the occasion of The Mooterus' final game on April 3, 2006, "Good riddance. The funny thing is that you can't find anyone around here who will take credit for designing it. Nobody's left."

Jill Moore, the Stars Senior Director of Merchandising, said one of the problems with the bull's head logo was that it was designed undercover by an outside service during the days of the Southwest Sports Group's ownership of the Stars. The conglomerate had a plan - trying to mix the thought of a constellation, stars, with a Texas icon, the bull head.

The team did make $400,000 from sales of the jersey and went 13-7-3 while wearing it, but the mixture of too many ideas combined with a lack of testing led to the backlash against it.

There were no additional patches worn on the jersey in either season of it's use.

We classify this jersey as clearly "Ugly" due to the unexplained inclusion of red, which was not only never a Dallas Stars color, but the way the red looked combined with the predominately black jersey and the dark shades of green and gold used by the Stars. Overall it was a dark and depressing jersey even before the logo was applied to it.

As for the logo itself, as stated above, there was just too many ideas combined for it to ever work. Perhaps a simplified bull's head logo with a single star (which worked up the road in Houston quite nicely) rather than the constellation overlay might have been more effective, in the way that the Calgary Flames horse head logo paid homage to the Calgary Stampede rodeo and the city's western heritage, with just enough flames to tie it to the team's name.

As it was, the logo just didn't look enough like a bull's head and was overshadowed by the busyness of not only the stars placed on it, but the lines connecting them as well. The unnecessary shooting star on the logo only added to the visual confusion since there were already stars pictured inside the bull's head. The streak of red behind it only served to grab the viewer's eye away from the more muted tones of the black and green bull's head.

Then there was the logo's unfortunate resemblance to the female reproductive system, which reduced the entire thing to a laughingstock. In hindsight, they should have at least curved the bull's horns upwards to diminish the comparison to the medical diagram since the logo was not faithful to the actual constellation of Taurus in the first place.

Also odd was the decision to not use any red in the customization specifications. The colors used for the names and numbers, taken straight from the green home jerseys look out of place on the alternate since the gold color trim on the numbers does not match the gold color of the stripes on the jerseys. Perhaps changing the black trim of the names and numbers to red might have made them look like they were meant to be on the jersey from the beginning. This would have helped tie the entire package together and helped to justify the appearance of the red on the jersey in the first place. As it was done, the jersey and the customizing don't look like they were meant to be together on the same sweater.

Dallas Stars Alt 03-06 F

Dallas Stars Alt 03-06 B


Since these jerseys were only worn for a total of 23 games, let's see what kind of luck we can have looking for video of them in action, although you probably can predict by now that if we do find any game footage, it will most likely be fisticuffs...

Sure enough...

Here's some actual skating and passing featuring Stu Barnes.


Friday, August 27, 2010

1995-96 Los Angeles Kings Wayne Gretzky Jersey

Curious, Weird and Ugly™ makes it's way out to the west coast today for one of the most notorious jerseys in the history of the NHL.

The dye-sublimation printing process rears it's ugly head once more with this 1995-96 Los Angeles Kings Alternate Wayne Gretzky jersey. The jersey features a large swooping stripe that crosses the jersey from the upper right shoulder to the lower left side, fading from dark grey (never quite black) to light while getting narrower in the process. The basic striping pattern of the jersey is unusual, if not odd, enough, but then the Kings got busy customizing it, first adding an angry stylized King's head logo, offset to the upper left chest, something no other jersey of the era, or perhaps in the history of the NHL, dared to do. But that was not all. While the Kings home and road jerseys were exclusively black, white and silver, the King's head logo was done in a garish purple and with a metallic gold crown, one of the earliest uses of metallics in the NHL.

Once the basic jersey was completed, the individual player's identity needed to be addressed. The font chosen for the back and sleeve numbers was a flamboyant, italicized font done in purple, trimmed in metallic gold and outlined in black. The same treatment was given to the names on the back, with the letters also italicized in the same three color combination.

While purple and gold might be associated with royalty, the net effect of the strange swooping stripes, grimacing King's head logo and flashy font executed in the royal purple and metallic gold was much more ridiculous than regal.

Fans dubbed the jersey "The Burger King Jersey", adding it to the list of jerseys so heinous that it earned a coveted nickname. The resemblance between the Los Angeles Kings logo and the fast food chain's creepy monarch is undeniable.

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The Kings began wearing this jersey midway through the 1995-96 season, when the first NHL alternate jerseys debuted, beginning with a game against the Mighty Ducks of Anahiem, who also wore their new "Wild Wing" alternates for the first time, on January 27, 1996 in what has to be easily be The Worst Dressed Game in NHL History.

The Kings only wore their new alternates for a mere six or seven games before the negative reaction of the players and fans caused them to be retired permanently.

It's not known if being forced to wear this jersey caused Wayne Gretzky to ask for a trade out of Los Angeles so he wouldn't have to wear it any longer, but he was dealt to the St. Louis Blues for the last 18 games of the 1995-96 season.

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This style jersey was never made in an authentic version for retail, so there are none available outside of game worn or team issued with fight straps. They are highly sought after by collectors and usually attract multiple bidders when they come up for auction, no doubt due to their scarcity, but more importantly the fact this style was worn by Gretzky, meaning not only collectors of ugly jerseys want the "Burger King" jersey, but also collectors of rare jerseys as well as people who specialize in Gretzky items are all after the same limited supply of one of the worst jerseys to ever see the ice in an NHL contest.

We classify this jersey as "Weird", due to the curving, radiating grey stripes that fade from dark to light, the newly introduced grimacing Burger King logo, the name and number font that would look more at home at Mardi Gras than on an NHL jersey, the addition of the color purple to a Kings jersey during the black and silver era, and finally the use of the flashy metallic gold for the number trim and King's crown.

Also weird is the fact Wayne Gretzky agreed to wear it at all. There's really not a single element of this jersey that isn't weird.

Let us reword that last sentence.

There's not a single element of this jersey that isn't really weird.

Los Angeles Kings 95-96 Alt F
Los Angeles Kings 95-96 Alt B

Here are the Los Angeles Kings debuting their new alternate "Burger King" jerseys against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, who were wearing their "Wild Wing" jerseys in what ranks as The Worst Dressed Game in NHL History.


Next Ugly Fest '96 between the Kings and Mighty Ducks continues as Wayne Gretzky sets up Jari Kurri for a power play goal.


Thursday, August 26, 2010

1974-75 California Golden Seals Marv Edwards Jersey

The ever name changing California Seals were founded as part of the great NHL expansion of 1967-68. The San Francisco area was not considered a particularly lucrative market for hockey, but the terms of a new television agreement with CBS call for two of the six new expansion teams to be located in California, with the other being the Los Angeles Kings.

The team was supposed to have been located in San Francisco, but the arena was never built and instead, the team was based across the bay in Oakland. First called the California Seals to appeal to fans in San Francisco and address complaints from other NHL teams that complained that Oakland was not considered a major league city, as it's only other professional sports team at the time was the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League. On November 6, 1967, owner Barry Van Gerbig announced that the team's name was being changed to the Oakland Seals.

Poor attendance led to Van Gerbig threatening to move the club and a poor record on the ice led to only seven of the original 20 players remaining on the team in it's second season. While they did finish with records below .500, they would make the playoffs for the next two seasons, the only times the club would qualify for the post season in their history.

Van Gerbig sold the team to a group called Trans National Communications in time for the 1969-70 season, but when the group filed for bankruptcy, ownership reverted to Van Gerbig, who put the club up for sale again.

The Oakland Seals were then purchased by Charlie O. Finley, owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball club, who had moved to the bay area in 1968. Never one to sit still, Finley renamed the team the California Golden Seals and altered the team's green and blue colors to green and gold, matching those worn by his baseball club, as well as having the team wear flashy white skates!

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Unfortunately the the Golden Seals finished dead last in the NHL during their first season under Finley's ownership with just 45 points from 78 games. Even worse,their first overall pick in the 1971 NHL Entry Draft, along with Francois Lacombe, had already been traded to the Montreal Canadiens for their first round pick in 1970, used by he Golden Seals to take Chris Oddleifson, Ernie Hicke and the always useful cash. The Canadiens used the draft choice obtained from the Golden Seals to select future Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur.

The team improved by 15 points the following season, but suffered from the emergence of the World Hockey Association, as the frugal Finley refused to match the WHA's contract offers to his players resulting in five of the team's top ten scorers leaving and the Golden Seals once again sank to the bottom of the standings with 48 points in 1972-73 and followed that up with just 36 points in 1973-74.

Matters were made worse, if that's possible, by a divisional restructuring which somehow found the Golden Seals placed in the newly created Adams Division with the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs, in an apparent effort by the league to kill off the franchise, as each of the other clubs were a minimum of 2300 miles to the east!

Having grown tired of owning the hockey team, especially in direct comparison to his World Champion baseball team, Finley tried unsuccessfully to sell the Golden Seals, which were eventually eventually taken over by the NHL.

Melvin Swig then purchased the team in 1975 with plans to have the team play in a new arena in San Francisco. Those plans never came to pass following the election of a new mayor opposed to the plan, so after nine money-losing seasons, low attendance and few victories, minority owners George and Gordon Gund convinced Swig to relocate the team to their hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, a move that was announced on this date in 1976, making the club the first NHL team to relocate since 1934 and bringing to and end the Golden Seals ordeal in California, where the team had more names than playoff appearances.


Politically, Swig and the Gunds were relying on Swig's political connections with San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto to get a new hockey arena built downtown. "Alioto was very helpful, " Gund remembered. "He had hoped to put the team where the Moscone Center is now. It was very close to public transportation."

Regrettably for the Seals, Swig's timing was off. Alioto was leaving office and Swig supported the wrong man in the 1975 election. When George Moscone took office, the new arena died. "The new mayor put the building on hold." Len Shapiro said. "He ran an investigation into the report and then said the survey had to be resurveyed , so basically, it went nowhere. Then there were plans to remodel the Cow Palace but that never happened either." Once those two plans fell through, the Seals were finished in the Bay Area.

"After the new arena in San Francisco fell through, the league gave us the go-ahead to move the team." Gund remembered. "We looked at a lot of other places. We looked at Denver and Seattle-Tacoma. We ended up picking Cleveland because hockey was very popular there."

Rumors that the Seals would leave the Bay Area were almost as old as the team itself. The owners were quietly but aggressively looking over other locations. The NHL had planned expansion franchises for both Seattle and Denver, which were supposed to begin play in 1976-77. The new entires, though, were experiencing problems so moving the Seals to those cities was still a possibility.

Shapiro recalled when he first got an inkling the team might be leaving. "On February 1, 1976, I realized something might be up. I was in the office with Loretta Marcus [the team's secretary] and nobody else was there. I had no idea where anybody was. I looked at Munson Campbell's schedule and it said he was booked at the Cleveland Hilton. Then I knew something must be up."

George and Gordon Gund owned the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, where the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers played. It was halfway between Akron and Cleveland, a location that would cause the franchise more problems in the future. In typical Seals fashion, even it's exit was not smooth. The club participated in the July 1976 entry draft as the Seals and even started selling tickets for the upcoming season in Oakland.

At the 1976 entry draft, the Seals made history by becoming the first NHL team to use its frist-round draft pick on a European player by drafting Swedish defenseman Bjorn Johansson. The team didn't make it's intention to move officially known until August 26, 1976. It was announced that the team would move to Cleveland and take the name of the AHL franchise that played there for so many years, the Barons. Because of the late move, the Barons had a mere six weeks to sell tickets in their new home. Once again, the franchise started its new life behind the proverbial eight ball.

Under the Gunds ownership, the Barons played in Ohio for two seasons, merged with the Minnesota North Stars, who were then sold to another group while the Gunds received an NHL expansion franchise, the San Jose Sharks, at the south end of San Francisco Bay, 40 miles from where it all started.

Today's featured jersey is a 1974-75 California Golden Seals Marv Edwards jersey. After the departure of owner Charlie O. Finley, the Golden Seals colors were changed from his signature green and gold to the even less intimidating "Pacific Blue" (teal) and "California Gold" (yellow), quite probably the worst colors for an NHL team ever, and also giving the team more color schemes in the end than playoff appearances as well.

Another odd characteristic of these jerseys were the decidedly "football jersey" vertical stripes where the arms meet the body of the jersey, something we don't believe has ever appeared on an NHL jersey before.

We actually had not planned on including these jerseys in the "Curious, Weird and Ugly" Collection of the past couple of weeks, originally planning on simply a look at the Seals history on the anniversary of their move to Cleveland, but the more we looked at their final teal and yellow set of jerseys, the worse they looked and the more we knew we had to add one more to the collection. We rate this jersey as "Curious", "Weird" and "Ugly", for a rare trifecta.

Curious are the football stripes on the upper arms, while weird is the choice of pastel colors for a team in a full-contact sport. Honestly, I've seen more intimidating Easter eggs. While the gold and purple of the Los Angeles Kings was unorthodox, it was at least explainable as relating to the colors of royalty and the purple dark enough to offer some contrast to the gold while the choice of teal and yellow leaves me repeating "Only in California" as the whole package of odd striping, inappropriate colors and bland logo can only add up to ugly without a doubt.

California Golden Seals Jersey
California Golden Seals Jersey

Not even the addition of goaltender Gary Simmons' black goalie mask with a frightening green cobra was enough to offset the "only in California" colors of the Golden Seals final jersey set.

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Here are some fantastic old videos of the Seals in action. Check out those rinkside seats for $5.50 and playoff tickets for $12. Sign me up!


We don't care how hard you punch, there's just no dignity in wearing those teal jerseys.



Wednesday, August 25, 2010

1980-81 Vancouver Canucks Richard Brodeur Jersey

Today's Curious, Weird and Ugly™ Collection jersey sees us return to Vancouver once more with one of the strangest and unforgettable jerseys to ever see the ice in an NHL contest.

From the Canucks inception in 1970-71 to 1977-78 the Canucks wore blue and green jerseys, another one of those lame "blue for water, green for trees" jerseys where a professional sports team feels they must be the leading voice for the local board of tourism. Well, in 1978 all that came to an abrupt end.

Before the 1978-79 season the Canucks hired a professional psychologist to redesign the uniforms. The old colors were determined to be "too bland, too tranquil and did not inspire emotion." The result was the "V" design, suggesting "victory" according to the designer. The bright orange was said to "evoke passion and aggression" while the black road jersey would instill fear in the opposition.

The jerseys featured no main team logo on the front, but instead a giant "V" shape done in bright orange and yellow on a black jersey. The sleeves also featured smaller "V" shapes midway down the arm with a new "Flying Skate" logo for the shoulders and the very unusual placement of the sleeve numbers at the very bottom of the arms on the wrists!

The "V" shape was not limited to just the jerseys either, as the breezers had giant multi-colored "V's" as well. During the first year these jerseys were worn, they even had "V" shaped stripes on the socks.

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The Canucks introduced the jerseys, which none of the players had seen prior to the game, at the season opener in Minnesota. As Stan Smyl said, "I've never been ashamed to wear the Canuck's uniform, but that night none of us wanted to leave the dressing room."

They were met with much derision around the NHL and were often referred to as "those Halloween suits". Vancouver nearly got the last laugh however, as they made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1982 before running smack into the New York Islanders dynasty, which was in full stride. Time has settled on the nickname of "The Flying V" for these jerseys.

The basic jersey produced in 1978 remained in use until the 1984-85 season, but with a few adjustments along the way, such as a change in color for the names on the back, relocating the very unconventional sleeve numbers from the wrists to the shoulders and eventually evolving from one color names and numbers to two colors for both.

Some feel that the Canucks have never gotten it right, as the original logo was too simplistic, the Flying V was too hideous, the Flying Skate was too busy and the Orca logo too corporate, as the Canucks were owned by Orca Bay Entertainment when the Orca/Killer Whale logo was adopted.

This online exchange seems to sum up the Canucks jersey history quite succinctly.
Q: "Why are the Vancouver Canucks jersey's always ugly?

Seriously, there [sic] always horrible. Do the designers for Vancouver really think they look good? I always get a headache watching them play.

Vancouver fans, please answer! Please explain why you have idiots as designers?"

A: "I thought it was a league rule. Vancouver must always have the ugliest sweaters."
Maxim magazine, which I only read for the articles, rated the Flying V jerseys as "The Worst Sports Uniform" in any sport.

The only patch the Canucks wore on the Flying V jerseys was a "JCM" memorial patch to honor former GM Jake Milford in 1984-85.

We classify this jersey as "Curious" and "Weird". Many consider it ugly, but we're actually quite a fan of the whole idea of trying to design a jersey in an effort to aid your team in victory. It took some bold thinking and a lot of guts for the designer to create it, and then even more for the club to support the concept and stick with it for seven seasons. I can't see anyone in the NHL being bold enough to risk the large amounts of income clubs rely on from the marketing of jerseys by trying something so far outside the norm these days.

Yes, they are weird, when compared to the jerseys of the day, quite weird. One almost wonders why they even bothered to include the tiny sleeve numbers on the cuffs since they are so small and out of the way. The "Flying V" jerseys are also certainly a curiosity, as no other team followed them down the same path, leaving the "Flying V" as a truly unique chapter in NHL history.

This first example is a 1980-81 Vancouver Canucks Richard Brodeur jersey with the one color names and numbers with the sleeve numbers on the cuffs as worn during their second season of use.

Vancouver Canucks 80-81 F
Vancouver Canucks 80-81 B

This second example is a 1982-83 Vancouver Canucks Dave "Tiger" Williams jersey showing the evolution of the design, now with two color names and numbers and now having the sleeve numbers relocated to a more traditional shoulder location.

Vancouver Canucks 82-83 F
Vancouver Canucks 82-83 B

Here are some highlights of the Flying V jerseys in action, particularly from the Canucks 1982 Stanley Cup run.




Tuesday, August 24, 2010

2002-03 Nashville Predators Tomas Vokoun Jersey

Today the Curious, Weird and Ugly™ Collection features yet another alternate jersey, which raised the question, "Is "alternate" Latin for hideous?"

First unveiled for the 2001-02 season, this Nashville Predators alternate jersey generated swift, outspoken reaction to just about every feature of the jersey, from the unusual squared neckline, the "untucked dress shirt" rear tail, both the borderline cartoonish new main crest and the secondary fossilized skull logo, neither of which appeared on the home and away jerseys at the time, and the unique double layered fabric of the body of the jersey.

But drawing the most reaction, of course, was the unexplainable choice of the strange and repulsive mustard color of the jersey, which has been compared to, among other things, puss, vomit, urine and baby poop!

Most of the successful alternate jerseys simply promoted a teams third color to the main color for it's alternate, such as the Chicago Blackhawks did with their black jerseys, but Nashville instead tried to reinvent the wheel, coming up with a new jersey cut, carried over no logos from the primary jerseys and made the new alternate not only a color not found in their existing color palette, but picked perhaps the most horrid color ever used on a professional sports team's jersey to compound the problem.

Not only was the color of the jersey unique in the NHL, the jersey fabric was as well. It used a mustard colored top mesh layer over a solid dark blue layer, which shows through the holes in the mesh of the mustard layer, making an already muted color appear even darker and muddier.

The jersey was used through the 2006-07 season and did influence the home and away jerseys, to some degree, as it's secondary fossilized skull logos were transferred to the shoulders of primary jerseys for the 2005-06 season, replacing the original design used since the team's inception.

The only patch worn on this jersey was the Nashville Predators 5th Anniversary patch in 2002-03 as shown below.

We classify this jersey as "Ugly" due to the awkward neckline, overly detailed primary logo, strange fabric construction and horrendous color choice. If your jersey is conjures up repeated comparisons to various unpleasant bodily fluids, you have an ugly jersey on your hands.

Nashville Predators 02-03 F
Nashville Predators 02-03 B

Here are a pair of videos that seem to suggest that the Detroit Red Wings and the Dallas Stars hate the Predators alternate jerseys as much as we do.