Hockey's First Throwback Sweater

Preamble: You may notice that the sweater illustrations in this post are approximately 1000% percent better than the ones I've had in the past. That's because these illustrations were done by fellow SIHR member Danny Laflamme, who is developing a virtual sweater museum for the SIHR website, and who I'm sure you'll agree does one hell of a job. Danny has kindly allowed me to use his illustrations on my blog. Thanks Danny!


When in need of an alternate uniform, NHL teams will often use a throwback design. For example, when Ottawa and Vancouver played their Winter Classic match earlier this month, both sides wore jerseys inspired by sweaters from decades ago in their cities' respective hockey histories. But this tradition may be older than you think. Arguably, the first throwback uniform design was used in 1920.

In 1920, the NHL's Ottawa Senators faced the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans in the Stanley Cup finals. The eastern club wore the sweater illustrated below (essentially the same as their 1912/13 uniforms, which as we saw last time forced the Montreal Canadiens to adopt a sweater which became the iconic version we now know).

Seattle wore extremely similar sweaters. Both uniforms featured barber-pole stripes in a three-colour pattern, both including white and red. The only differences were that Ottawa used black as their third colour, while Seattle used green. The Metropolitans sweater is illustrated below.

The western team also had an 'S' on the front of the sweater, but that would not have always been visible to opposing players (or teammates for that matter), and as such the Senators opted to wear an alternate sweater design. They wore a simple white sweater with a large black 'O' on the chest, for Ottawa.

Now, if you're not familiar with the history of Ottawa hockey sweaters, you might just think this was a minimalist approach to avoid confusion with Seattle while still marking the club appropriately. What could be simpler? But there's one more sweater to look at, which Ottawa (then more often called the Generals) wore during the 1897/98 season:

The 'O' is certainly different, and there's no way to be certain that the 1920 alternate design was intentionally based on this 22-year-old (at the time) sweater, but the similarity is quite striking. I'm quite happy to conclude this was probably the first throwback sweater. What do you think?

The Unintentional Arrival of Hockey's Most Recognizable Uniform

Preamble: You may notice that the sweater illustrations in this post are approximately 1000% percent better than the ones I've had in the past. That's because these illustrations were done by fellow SIHR member Danny Laflamme, who is developing a virtual sweater museum for the SIHR website, and who I'm sure you'll agree does one hell of a job. Danny has kindly allowed me to use his illustrations on my blog. Thanks Danny!


Hockey's Most Recognizable Uniform

It's no secret that although the Montreal Canadiens have had essentially the same sweater design for many decades, in the club's early years they wore very different uniforms. In recent seasons, the Habs have trotted out several throwback jerseys to celebrate their history. In the team's first season of 1909/10, the sported a sweater like the one below. A modern throwback jersey based on this design was worn in one game by Montreal in the 2009/10 season.

In 1910/11, the Canadiens used an entirely new sweater design, illustrated below. Again, the modern club wore a version of this design 100 years after its original use. This is the first appearance of the bright scarlet red that is now so intimately associated with the club. And look, Toronto fans: the Habs had a maple leaf emblem well before your club even existed!

This sweater also lasted only one season, and the team switched the one below in 1911/12. At the very least, the club retained the calligraphic 'C' emblem, instead of changing everything entirely once again. In fact, this sweater looks something like an 'away' version of the previous one.

Everything was changed entirely once again the following season. In their fourth season, the Habs were using their fourth new sweater. The version also had a modern jersey based on it, used in the 2012/13 season.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. Barber-pole stripes such as the ones used in this design were fairly common for hockey sweaters in the game's early years. In fact, it turns out they were too common...


The Unintentional Arrival

Partway through the 1912/13 season, Montreal ran into a problem. The Ottawa Senators complained about the new Canadiens sweaters, because they were too similar to the Senators' design, making it easy to confuse players from the two teams for each other on the ice. Ottawa wore sweaters like this:

You can understand how, in the heat of the action on the ice, a Senator might mistake a Canadien for a teammate, or vice-versa. So, Montreal had to adopt a new sweater that they would use when playing against Ottawa. The Senators had worn such sweaters for many years, and so it was up to the junior team to make a change. Montreal kept the red and the blue colours, and took the 'C' style from their very first sweater from 1909/10, and came up with this:

The development of this new design, arrived at only because another team took issue with their preferred sweater, into the form we now associate with the Habs is clear. In fact, it seems this new design was popular, because the very next season (1913/14), saw the adoption of a sweater design that is finally recognizable as the modern Montreal uniform. It was the team's sixth sweater design in five seasons, but this one stuck. Really stuck.

And so, the original design of the most recognizable hockey sweater of them all was not intentional. The team had no desire for a new sweater at the time the need for one was thrust upon them by another team. This is certainly one of the greatest happy accidents in the game's history.

What's With All the Wings?

In the NHL today, a full 10% of teams have wings making up part of their crest: the Blues, Flyers (unsurprising) and Red Wings (duh). You could argue the Jets do as well, but that's not really what I'm going for here. Notice that we have one team that dates back to 1932 (before that year the Red Wings were known as the Cougars, and then the Falcons), and two from the Great Expansion in 1967. None of the new-fangled teams have wings as part of their team identity, but in fact wings, as a part of hockey crests, go back a very long way.

The wings in Detroit's emblem are no coincidence, and actually hearken back to the first winged team in hockey: the Montreal AAA, also known as the Winged Wheelers, who we've discussed here often. Jim Norris played with the AAA in his younger days, so when he purchased the Detroit franchise he named them after his old team. The Winged Wheeler sweaters looked something like this:

But it wasn't just this team. It seems there are two things ubiquitous in hockey in the early years: teams named after Queen Victoria, and teams with wings in their crests. Here's another selection in black and white, including a lesser-known Ottawa club, an American team from the original IHL, and a senior side from my hometown:

And some more, with another team from my neck of the woods, and two from British Columbia, just to show the wings weren't restricted to the east:

There's a special subcategory that I wanted to touch on as well. A number of teams used the winged foot, referencing Hermes, the Greek god of messengers, as their symbol. Presumably it conveyed speed, as it remains a favourite of some runners even today. Two clubs that used the winged foot are the Montreal Shamrocks, of Canada' highest senior leagues, and the New York Athletic Club, also known as the Winged Footers, of the American Amateur Hockey League:

Some teams seem to have reasoned, however, that while speed is an excellent image to convey to your fans and your opponents, a winged foot has little to do with hockey. So why not a winged skate? It does make much more sense that way. Note that the skates in these crests, while appearing unfamiliar today, were state of the art at the time:

You may have guessed by now that I've turned into something of a hockey sweater nerd. It doesn't really have anything to do with the analysis of hockey history, but when you visit a free blog you often get what you pay for. I'll try to keep the sweater images to a minimum in future, unless you want more. Actually, on second thought I make no promises about the frequency of future badly-drawn hockey sweater facsimiles. Also, I don't need your approval. My blog, my rules, chum.