Hate To Say It, But I'm Slightly Underwhelmed By The Newfoundland Growlers Uniforms
In case you somehow managed to miss the biggest story in sports this year, the Newfoundland Growlers are the newest team in the ECHL. They will play in their inaugural season this year and they just released their uniforms earlier today. With a name as strong as the Newfoundland Growlers, there was certainly plenty of hype and expectations surrounding these sweaters. And what we got were… well… I mean they’re sharp and everything.
They’re good. Just not great. And I think the issue here is two fold. First off–it’s going to be very difficult to be a brand new hockey team and use the colors black and gold without immediately getting compared to the Vegas Golden Knights. So if you just take the uniforms on their own and disregard the logos, they kind of look like a Golden Knights jersey that you could purchase at your local Kohl’s or Target. It’s like if you couldn’t afford to throw a 4th color into the mix so they just took the Golden Knights jerseys and took out the red. Not to say it’s a bad look or anything, but it is what it is.
Secondly, the Newfoundland Growlers have a gift that no other hockey team in the world has. And it’s all in the name. The name. The logo. Everything about it is perfect. All this team had to do to create the most popular hockey jersey in the universe would be to come out with jerseys that made them look like actual newfies.
They could even keep the black and gold colors. Just go with black fur for the home jerseys. And then a very light brown/tan/gold for the away sweaters. No need for any designs or anything. Just a jersey that looks like dog fur, the logo and some numbers. I can guarantee you that those jerseys would sell out in a matter of minutes. It honestly makes me question the entire organization that nobody was able to come up with that idea earlier. At the very least, maybe they can still use the dog fur idea for an alternate sweater. It is the ECHL, after all. Teams in the Coast wear theme night jerseys more often than their actual uniforms.