[Maybe OT] New RBK Jersey Style

[q]RBK, the hockey company -- you know, Sidney Crosby's other employer -- has spent millions of dollars testing and re-designing the performance and look of the traditional hockey uniform and has come up with a sleek new design that many traditionalists will view as radical. Most GMs have a prototype in hand, some have even had one of their players privately model and test them.

...

But here's the rub. Hockey traditionalists, and that would be most of the GMs, don't like the look of them. Not a bit. One anonymous GM said: "Terrible. Just terrible. If we're forced to use them, well, we've got no choice, but if there's a choice, no way."

The most striking difference between the old uniform and the new prototype is the form-fitting sweater is tucked into a new-look hockey pant that has extended kidney pads and rides much higher on the torso.[/q]

[www.tsn.ca]


Sounds horrible. God forbid this thing gets approved, how long before it works its way into College hockey? *shudder*

Bettman just doesn't get it. He is so obsessed with attracting new fans to the league that he doesn't care if he alienates the ones he already has. I can take stupid MY NHL commericals because I don't have to watch them. Halloween costumes for uniforms though?
The good news is that when I spoke with the president of the Flames earlier in the season, he indicated that these new uniforms were a certainty. More recently, he seemed to think it was a long-shot at best.

calgARI '07
Bettman just doesn't get it. He is so obsessed with attracting new fans to the league that he doesn't care if he alienates the ones he already has. I can take stupid MY NHL commericals because I don't have to watch them. Halloween costumes for uniforms though?

Maybe it's because the ones he has haven't made the league successful.

Maybe the new uniforms aren't to everyone's liking, but do hockey clothes really HAVE to be baggy? For traditon, perhaps. Maybe form-fitting jerseys will hold protective pads in place better and/or allow smaller pads (you no longer have to make them big enough to cover slippage).

Jordan 04

calgARI '07
Bettman just doesn't get it. He is so obsessed with attracting new fans to the league that he doesn't care if he alienates the ones he already has. I can take stupid MY NHL commericals because I don't have to watch them. Halloween costumes for uniforms though?

Maybe it's because the ones he has haven't made the league successful.

Successful is a very relative term. No, the NHL will never be bigger in the US than the NBA, MLB, or the NFL. I'm pretty sure this would still be the case even if the players skated around naked (well maybe not but you get the point). Grow the sport all you want, but if you are bringing in $2 billion in revenues annually, I have a lot of trouble calling the league not successful. I think Bettman has done some great things but he has also alienated the base of his fans a great deal. Not until Winnipeg moved to Phoenix, Quebec moved to Colorado and Hartford to Carolina did Bettman become totally committed to keeping all the franchises where they currently are. Fact of the matter is, he tried to sell the sport in places that it cannot be consumed permanantly.

I would want my kid (a mite, not an NHLer) to wear the safest uniform. If the new one is uglier, that's a price I'm more than willing to pay.

billhoward
Maybe the new uniforms aren't to everyone's liking, but do hockey clothes really HAVE to be baggy? For traditon, perhaps. Maybe form-fitting jerseys will hold protective pads in place better and/or allow smaller pads (you no longer have to make them big enough to cover slippage).

If they're anything like the ones that will be used at the Olympics (both USA and Canada will be using them, at least), there's some technical information here:

[www.prnewswire.com]

Phildelphia Flyers...long pants.

Jeff Hopkins '82
Phildelphia Flyers...long pants.

Providence Friars, too.

Al DeFlorio

Jeff Hopkins '82
Phildelphia Flyers...long pants.

Providence Friars, too.

And Wisconsin. And Northern Michigan, as I recall. Others too.

and Hartford Whalers at same time as Flyers. When I play, I like having my jersey a little loose (and not just when I play in net). I think it is more comfortable, goes on over the pads easier, and allows for a wider range of motion. I have a Whalers jersey that I like to skate in, but it is tight and not as comfortable as my Cornell jersey.

If you've got a toned body it's possible some of the muscles might ripple through the few places the pads aren't. There are possiblities for women's Olympic team posters wearing the suits minus the body armor underneath.

Successful is also a time-related concept. Long ago, wasn't the NBA sort of a sideshow to the NHL? Long in the era of Dolph Schayes and the Syracuse Nationals and Red Auerbach as a young man?

billhoward
Successful is also a time-related concept. Long ago, wasn't the NBA sort of a sideshow to the NHL?

I'd say both were sideshows west of Chicago (the Blackhawks) and Minneapolis (George Mikan's Lakers) and south of, maybe, Fort Wayne (the Zollner Pistons) and St. Louis (Bob Pettit's Hawks). Seems to me it was easier to find NBA games on television in the early-mid '50s than NHL games, at least in the NYC area--but that's stretching the memory cells to the breaking point.

billhoward
There are possiblities for women's Olympic team posters wearing the suits minus the body armor underneath.

Think they'll slit them up the inside of the thigh like our guys do?

remember Cooperalls anyone? ouch...