Winter Classic Sweaters
The New York Rangers continued the latest trend for teams participating in the NHL’s outdoor showcase, the Winter Classic.
(OK, technically that’s the 2012 Bridgestone Winter Classic, but I’m just not particular…and I sense a whole “occupy” thing here)
Anyway, the trend is to wear a special sweater (this is hockey, folks! They don’t wear “jerseys.”). The Philadelphia Flyers, the home team and New York’s opponent in the January 2nd showdown, also showed off new threads:
In each case, the Rangers and Flyers chose to not go the “throwback” route (that is, to wear a jersey modeled after a previous look) but instead took pieces of the past and molded them into the present. Of course, this is only in the eye of the beholder, but the early reviews ranked from the “my team can do NO WRONG” approach to the more fair “I’m not really sure if I like it” opinion.
The Rangers in particular have a deep history to pull from, having joined the NHL in 1926, while the Flyers date back to 1967. With that in mind, the Rangers chose to pick a logo from their first seasons. For the Flyers, this is their second trip to the Winter Classic, but their first time as the home team.
The bottom line to all of this is that the NHL, and any other sports league, wants to make money, as they should. Fans will no doubt grab their credit cards and pay for an item that will be outdated by January 3.
(Photos courtesy NHL.com)
