Skip to content
 

Winter Classic Redux

Interesting development last night in Montreal, as the Bruins and Canadiens reprised their Winter Classic match-up and even wore their Winter Classic uniforms, but with a twist: The uniforms were autographed after the game and are being auctioned off to raise funds for Denna Laing, the Boston Pride player who suffered a severe spinal cord injury after crashing into the boards during the Outdoor Women’s Classic on New Year’s Eve. Good cause, good-looking game. Lots of photos available here.

It has been reported that Laing, who has no feeling or movement in her legs and limited movement in her arms, may sue the NHL. It’s unclear to what extent, if any, last night’s uniform auction was a response to that. Check that: It’s now being reported that she won’t sue after all.

At one point NESN mistakenly showed that the Canadiens were playing the Sabres, instead of the Bruins. “Hey, it’s just your arch-rival in a crucial game,” says reader Michael from New Hampshire. “No need to get your home teams graphic correct.”

• • • • •

Reminder No. 1: I’m currently accepting entries for an ESPN contest to redesign the Rams. Full details here.

Reminder No. 2: In case you missed it last week, all of the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s 2015 designs are available from now through the middle of next week at our Second Chance Shop. Further details here.

• • • • •

PermaRec update: The rather creepy-looking letterhead design shown above is the latest entry in my Hoge Brush Company Files series. Get the full story over on Permanent Record.

• • • • •

The Ticker
By Paul

Baseball News: Love this shot of Lou Gehrig playing hockey in a cardigan and a bow tie! ”¦ Also love this old Chris Sabo bobblehead. ”¦ The Reds are retiring Pete Rose’s number. Actually, if you look at that page, you can see they repeatedly say they’re retiring his jersey (and I don’t think the distinction has anything to do with Rose’s status on MLB’s ineligible list — I think it’s just their choice of words). Personally, I prefer to say “retiring his number.” What about you folks? (From Patrick O’Neill.) ”¦ Brilliant blog post by Hall of Fame curator/historian and longtime Uni Watch pal Tom Shieber, who has identified lots of T205 and T206 baseball cards in old non-baseball-related photos. ”¦ Here’s a Texas trucking company that has poached the KC Royals’ logo (from Johnny Irish). ”¦ New clubhouse cap, whatever that means, for the Mariners.

Pro and College Football News: Looks like the other shoe is dropping: The Chargers have applied for L.A.-based trademarks. ”¦ The Panthers, who wore white at home for last Sunday’s divisional playoff game against the Seahawks, will wear white at home again for this Sunday’s NFC championship game. If they win, they’ll likely end up wearing white in the Super Bowl as well, because the NFC is the designated road team this year. ”¦ Feels a bit weird that Fox would put the Cardinals’ logo on a yellow background. “I know, the beak is yellow, but it just seems more Chiefs-like than Cards-like to me,” says Jon Solomonson. ”¦ Panthers S Roman Harper’s helmet was cracked by a collision with Seahawks RB Marshawn Lynch on Sunday. ”¦ Here’s a “humorous” look at potential new Rams logos. ”¦ Check this out: You can own your own set of football-related patent drawings (from Jeff Jacobs). ”¦ “What goes around comes around,” says Tom Arnel, who found this cool L.A. Rams pencil in a desk drawer the other day. … Alabama’s latest national title has now been acknowledged at the site of Nick Saban’s statue.

Hockey News: Yesterday’s Ticker had some shots of recently deceased Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey wearing hockey jerseys onstage. That reminded me that longtime Uni Watch pal Teebz once did a post on his blog about musicians wearing hockey jerseys. Click on the team names toward the bottom of the entry to see photo links. ”¦ Albany Devils goalie Scott Wedgewood is getting lots of attention for his mask, which features David Puddy from Seinfeld (from John Chapman). ”¦ Kiss-themed jerseys upcoming for the Huntsville Havoc. ”¦ Social Media Night last night for the Devils, but they players didn’t actually wear those jerseys. A few them were autographed and raffled off.

NBA News: Good article on the designer who created the Bulls’ logo (from Tim Adams). ”¦ Chinese New Year uniforms upcoming for the Rockets, Wizards, and Warriors. Here’s how all three of them look in a video game. ”¦ A designer has created a mashup of famous rap albums with NBA jerseys (from Erik Hoover). ”¦ Jalen Rose says the baggy-shorts thing may have run its course (from Iain Landon).

College Hoops News: Stony Brook is going with Navy-themed uniforms later this month. The men’s version debuts on Jan. 22 and the women’s on Jan. 30. ”¦ Dayton wore their blue alts for the first time this season last night.

Soccer News: When Queens Park Rangers signed striker Conor Washington, he autographed the jersey they gave him. Or at least someone autographed it. Not sure that’s actually his signature (from Tim Cross). ”¦ Here’s an analysis of the Premier League’s logo change (from Vassilis Dalakas). ”¦ PSG has different jersey ads for their league and French Cup kits. ”¦ New kits for Gamba Osaka.

Grab Bag: Interesting project from Vivek Tanna, who’s a senior in the graphic design program at Oregon State University: “I’ve been following Uni Watch for quite a few years, and it’s really influenced me as a designer, to the point that I’m doing my thesis on sports branding/uniforms. As part of my thesis, I am choosing to do research on why people cheer for the teams they cheer for, whether it is the uniforms they wear, the team logos, or the team’s success (among a host of other reasons).” If you’d like to participate in this research, take Vivek’s short survey here. ”¦ Coca-Cola has a new slogan, and my man Hamilton Nolan is totally losing his shit over it. ”¦ Illinois has extended its apparel deal with Nike. ”¦ New logo for Wonder Woman (from Charlie Kranz). ”¦ Uniforms in the next Star Trek movie, due out this July, will reportedly be “a little more retro.” ”¦ Hilarious story about the even more hilarious National Reconnaissance Office logo, which shows a giant octopus devouring the earth. ”¦ Key passage from this piece about 1972 Olympics hero Mark Spitz: “His moustache became a fashion trend amongst swimmers. When asked about his moustache by a Russian coach prior to the ’72 Olympics, Spitz’s reply was that his moustache didn’t slow him down, and that it even deflected water away from his mouth, providing the streamlining necessary to swim as fast as he had at the US Olympic Trials earlier that year. According to Spitz, the following year ‘all male Russian swimmers had a moustache.'” Aaron Husul adds, “If I remember all the old Soviet steroid jokes correctly, it wasn’t just the men with mustaches.” ”¦ Oooh, love this Schlitz-themed bowling ball. “I figured you’d appreciate how Wisconsin it is,” says Nicole Haase, and she’s right.

 
  
 
Categories
NHL
Comments (52)

    “Alabama’s latest national title has now been acknowledged at the site of Lou Saban’s statue.”

    Should read “Nick.” Lou is Nick’s cousin.

    I prefer “number retired” instead of “jersey retired.”

    He’s the one in the NFL Films clip (used over and over again) saying “They’re killing me Whitey, they’re killing me!”

    link

    I am in the camp of “retiring the number” as opposed to “retiring the jersey”.

    It just sounds better to me.

    What the Reds are doing with Rose’s number is in the realm of what the Yankees do with Paul O’Neill’s.

    It doesn’t just sound better, it makes actual sense. Retiring a player’s jersey is a nonsensical phrase. For those words in that order to mean anything in our language, it must be true that the player’s own actual jersey is still in use by players on the team today. Like, Joey Votto takes the field in a hand-me-down Pete Rose jersey, but now the team is retiring it and Votto finally gets a brand-new polyester shirt all his own. Rose’s jersey was retired the day he stopped playing, or at the latest the day the team changed its jersey design from what Rose wore. Both events happened decades ago. Rose’s jersey is already long retired.

    Now, obviously nobody actually says “retire the jersey” intending those words to be understood as meaning what the words actually mean. Rather, “retire the jersey” is an idiom, and the concept it’s intended to bring to mind is “retire the number.” Since the two expressions take the same number of words and work in a sentence in exactly the same sequence, there is no reason ever to use the idiomatic “retire the jersey” instead of the literally true “retire the number.”

    I can only presume that the NFL tried to get teams to retire jerseys instead of numbers because they were afraid of a Yankees-style number shortage.

    But I agree. Retiring a “jersey” is silly. Do it or don’t.

    For a while, the Packers had a policy of not retiring jersey numbers beyond the four that were already retired (3, 14, 15, 66). In 1999, after Reggie White retired, they brought him back to “retire his jersey.” It was an odd ceremony and no one seemed to know what in the world was going on. White’s jersey was in a plaque and was “retired” but his number was not (even though no one has worn it since). By 2005, and unfortunately after White’s death, they realized this policy was foolish and that the team would eventually retire Brett Favre’s number anyway, so they retired the number 92.

    The problem in the NFL is that the position-by-number rules make it tricky to retire numbers. If you retire too many numbers in a given range (the 80s, or the 50s, of whatever), you could run out of numbers for that position. That’s why so many NFL teams have a “Ring of Honor” instead of retired numbers.

    NFL teams that have retired too many jerseys in the 80’s (wide receivers) and the fact that wide receivers seem to get hurt if you breathe on them (sarcasm), is why the NFL opened up 10-19 for Wideouts. Personally, I think the numbering rules are silly.

    Long Live John Hadl (#21 at QB)…

    That article about the new Premier League logo is wrong.

    Yes, the Premier League is dropping “Barclays” as the title sponsor, but the “EFL” logo at the top of the article is for the Football League, which runs the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tiers of English Soccer. The Premier League is a separate entity. The Football League is changing it’s logo for the 2016-17 season, too.

    This is the current logo:
    link

    And it will be replaced with:
    link

    I think the Premier League logo will only drop “Barclays,” but otherwise remain the same.

    While its is true that the author of that article conflated the Football League and the Premier League, it is also true that the Premier League is link.

    Personally, I like the new EFL logo (if not the new EFL name) because I hated the old one. But the EPL lion logo is too good to lose.

    I can’t stand the new Football League logo. With the old one you knew it had something to do with football and the crown and colors made it look English/British (some Welsh teams are in the Football League). The new EFL logo is so generic as to be devoid of any meaning. It could just as easily be for a pharmaceutical company.

    The rather creepy-looking letterhead design shown above is the latest entry in my Hoge Brush Company Files series.

    Running the gamut from naked tushies in diaper commercials, to Indian-themed sports mascots, people who could time-travel forty years in the past might wonder what planet they were on.

    Among other virtues, the Bulls’ insignia lacks a basketball. It is among the best. The changes over the years have been so minor, it scarcely warrants mention. The Philadelphia Flyers’ symbol has enjoyed a similar tenure.

    I’m really not. If you can work a ball into your logo, I think you should.

    In some cases it would complicate things too much. Take the Bulls’ center court logo:
    link
    Red & orange…lines on ball competing with the lines on the mascot’s face…that would not make a fine primary logo.

    Only seven teams don’t need a ball: Grizzlies, Hawks, Bulls, Pelicans, Warriors, Blazers and Spurs. The Nets on the other hand REALLY need it. Their logo’s yawn inducing as it is. Without it, zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

    Exactly. Which is why it’s a good thing that they link. Even with the unnecessary supersizing of the logo, it’s a major improvement.

    Why it took them 20 years to realize that the ball behind the logo was a bad look is beyond me, though.

    No one can say, “Every good logo has this”, or “Every good logo lacks that”. About the most common element is that one withstands reducing or magnifying without degradation. Once an insignia is introduced, the job is only half-done. Much of what determines an enduring symbol has to do with usage and consistency.

    The Bulls’ crest needs a basketball as much as it needs a foul line or a net. The canny way the bull’s face is used within a basketball environment complements the efficacy of the design. The same holds true for the Flyers. Contrast that with, say, the Colorado Rockies (baseball) logo. It’s an uninspired piece of design, but the team has used it in the right way, resisting unnecessary tweaking for change’s sake. Shrewd use of the team’s trademark goes an awfully long way.

    The NFL used to split hairs by link but I was never quite clear what they meant by that. I can only presume that the number would remain in circulation, making the gesture a little hollow.

    I guess retiring the jersey but not the number could imply that no one with the same surname could wear the number as that would duplicate the jersey. Eg. a Bears player could wear 51 so long as he wasn’t named Butkus.

    Maybe I’m missing something, but why would Liang sue the NHL? Was the fund raising effort so they wouldn’t get sued? I’m at a loss here.

    Beyond that, if she is just suing BECAUSE of the injury, that’s pretty shitty. When you lace up, you know full well of the dangers that can happen on the ice, as well as any sport. That would make as much sense as me suing my alma-mater because I snapped my arm in my first college game.

    That being said, prayers and positive vibes for Liang and her family, I can’t imagine what they must be going through.

    Maybe I’m missing something…”

    I’m going out on a limb here but I’m sure you are missing something. As am I. All I know are the vague third-hand details that are presented in that article that Paul linked to.

    “Beyond that, if she is just suing BECAUSE of the injury, that’s pretty shitty.”

    Well, maybe. Here’s the relevant section of the article:

    The Post reported that the ice surface may have been soft. The players signed a liability waiver, but it was based on the ice being in playable condition, the Post said.

    Chance is right. If she can prove that the NHL was negligent and that negligence directly resulted in her injury, she would have a case, no matter what waiver she signed.

    The Hockey News is now reporting that Liang is now not suing the NHL. THN is linking to the NY Post for this update which is where the lawsuit story broke in the first place. The initial Post story may have been a bit speculative.

    I prefer the retirement of numbers not jerseys.

    Also, in addition to the retirement of his jersey/number and induction in the Reds’ Hall of Fame, Pete will have a statue erected of his likeness outside of Great American Ballpark where it will join the statues of Ernie Lombardi, Ted Kluzuski, Joe Nuxhall, Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez. When Pete was asked yesterday how he would like to be depicted in bronze, he stated, “I sure as hell don’t want it to be me standing at the $2.00 window at Turfway!”, which is one of the local race tracks. Classic Pete Rose.

    I’m not a lawyer yet, but labor and employment is my niche. Denna Laing was pondering suing the NHL for sanctioning the rink that might not have been safe for the exhibition, plus the Pats and the stadium for housing the site of the injury. If she sued anybody NOT named the Boston Pride, the NWHL, or a fellow player, she would have had a better than zero chance because it would have been outside of workers comp. Workers comp is, of course, where Plaintiff can’t sue but Defendant can’t dispute that the prescribed payout is proper.
    Plus, the waiver. What did she sign away, and was the rink within what she waived? If the rink was abnormally unsafe, then start discovery.
    Offers to defray her medical costs do not admit liability. That’s just being a good Samaritan. If anybody said, “We should have cancelled your game because the soft ice was a death trap, so please take this money because we failed you,” that would be different.
    As a fan of sports law, this would have been a fascinating case, but I’m sure Laing would rather focus on physical rehab than a lawsuit. So it’s her right to be thankful for the help and choose not to sue. I wish her the best.

    “Clubhouse” caps were added to New Era’s “authentic collection” a few years ago presumably to be used in postgame interviews, etc. but even though every team has them in their shop, I can’t recall actually seeing one on anyone. Maybe an example of a marketing bridge too far?

    That’s good that she isnt, but it wasn’t the ice’s fault, she crashed into the boards. Maybe the should make them break-away or have some give to them? Or how in hs gymnasiums the have padding under the basket, etc. I don’t know too much about hockey, if someone in the UW community can educate me that’d be great

    re: PSG having a different jersey sponsor in the Cup: ALL the teams in the Coupe de France wear PMU on the front and Crédit Agricole on the back or vice versa. It looks like everyone wears the smaller patches too. I’ve always found it interesting/depressing that — at least for the casual fan that I am — it takes a minute to figure out what team you’re looking at without the sponsor you’re used to. (#NoUniAds).

    My alma mater, UVA, makes a distinction between retiring numbers and jerseys in football and basketball.

    In basketball, Sean Singletary had his jersey retired during the last home game of his final year 2008 and then had his number retired the next year. The only thing that really changed during that time was that he graduated from the school. I think that might be one of the criteria for getting your number retired.

    I wrote a column about this for the school paper at the time about all this: link

    Pete’s number has been unofficially retired by the Reds since he left. The only player to wear #14 since Pete, was Pete Rose Jr. when he played in a brief stint with the Reds. Bernie Stowe, clubhouse boy since 1947 and Senior Equipment Manager since 1968, and his successor/son Rick Stowe have made sure of it.

    Mike,

    You’re out of your mind. There have been several players to wear #14 for the Reds since Pete’s departure. The Reds were not allowed to forbid players from wearing the #14 because he was banned from baseball … duhhhhh :/

    The Yankees have retired more numbers than carter has little pills. They retired 8 for both Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey.

    The Mariners will likely retire #51 for both Randy Johnson and Ichiro.

    I was watching Spike Lee’s interview on Good Morning America and of course mostly paid attention to his hat:

    link

    He’s wearing a Civil War-era forage cap. It’s a classic and distinctly American style of cap, one I’ve often thought must be a precursor to baseball caps as they developed in the 1860s and ’70s. And forage caps are actually pretty comfortable. Plus the flat top creates a ton of space that soldiers often used to indicate units or rank:

    link
    link

    Anyway, seeing Spike Lee wear a forage cap sort of put it in an athletic context for me, since Lee has famously worn baseball caps over the years to promote projects or causes. Seems like a baseball team could make a really distinctive statement with a forage-cap-style ballcap. The Washington Nationals, for example, draw their name from, among other antecedents, a team in Washington that was formed prior to and played during the Civil War. Imagining a forage cap with a big-ol curly W on the top and I think it could work as an alternate uni element. Heck, they could even do it in red, since Union Army artillery units sometimes wore link.

    As a Kiss fan, I have to nit-pick that Kiss hockey jersey.

    Kiss’ first album came out in 1974. They were together at least a year before that.
    It’s 2016 now, so we are past ’40 years’.

    Kiss has been milking that 4th anniversary for 3 years. Put out an album in 2013, and just in October ended their 4th Anniversary tour.

    Plus their own website is endorsing the gimmick…

    link

    Stony Brook’s New York Navy isn’t about a colour name, it’s about a claim to being a New York University. It is my alma mater, and when I get to pick up the NY papers in Canada, it is treated like an out of town university. It is one of the finest research universities in the US. I personally graduated from the TOP ranked Anthropology program in North America, but New Yorkers still treat it like it is some weird anomaly. Nice to see that the best school on LI is finally getting the attention it deserves.

    Roman Harper may be wearing the oldest helmet still available on the market. The round earhole is a dead giveaway. How long has he worn the same one, I wonder.

    The Bulls and Golden State are playing a color vs color game tonight, with the Bulls wearing the script “Chicago” throwback (road) uniforms at home and GS playing in blue. Nice.

    I just noticed something about the Bulls red throwbacks: they seem to have used the regular-sized front numbers on the script jersey, instead of smaller ones used on the origional.

    Typo alert: the last sentence of the hockey ticker is missing a word. Should be “a few OF them….”

Comments are closed.