You don’t see the jerseys sported by the Quebec Nordiques or Hartford Whalers on the ice at many NHL games these days. That can mostly be chalked up to the fact that those teams are now the Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche, respectively. But for those who miss the days of bygone teams — especially those with logos and looks as distinctive as the Whalers and Nordiques — the NHL’s “Reverse Retro” jerseys for the upcoming season offers a pretty significant consolation.
The league announced all 31 jerseys this week, each of which has a distinctive spin on the idea of retro. The Hurricanes and Avalanche both opted for a blend of old and new, merging the current team’s color scheme with the logos of their predecessors. The Vegas Golden Knights opted for something similar, borrowing some design elements from the International Hockey League’s Las Vegas Thunder.
Not every team opted to pay tribute to a prior incarnation of the franchise; the New Jersey Devils opted for a Pine Barrens-inspired jersey rather than reviving the memory of the Colorado Rockies or Kansas City Scouts. Other teams brought back old logos, including the Winnipeg Jets and New York Rangers. And others, like the Dallas Stars, opted to pay tribute to jerseys won in championship seasons.
When taken together, the results differ wildly: some jerseys don’t differ from their standard counterparts by much, while others fully embrace their team’s history, even when it extends beyond the existence of their team as it currently exists.
The league’s announcement notes that these jerseys will be worn multiple times in the upcoming season, and they’ll also be available for sale beginning on December 1. Could one of them be the ideal holiday gift for the nostalgic hockey fan in your life?
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