The Canes just unveiled their new retro sweaters for this season. They look familiar.
The NHL and Adidas have combined to produce new reverse retro jerseys for all 31 teams to be worn next season, and this will be no surprise for Carolina Hurricanes fans:
“Retro” again means a return to the Hartford Whalers look.
The Hurricanes’ retro alternate jersey has the iconic Whalers logo on the front and the Hartford whale shoulder patches. It’s all in keeping with the franchise past and the days when it was located in Hartford, Conn., before the move to North Carolina in 1997 and the renaming of the team.
The NHL release Monday on the jerseys said Carolina’s retro look was from 1979. It was said to mirror the Whalers’ home white jersey during their inaugural NHL season “but has gray as the primary color, tying together the Whalers and Hurricanes color schemes.”
The NHL said the jerseys would be worn multiple times in “designated rivalry games” during the upcoming season — tentatively scheduled to begin on or about Jan. 1 — and would be on sale Dec. 1 from adidas.com and NHLShop.com.
Not long after Tom Dundon became the team’s majority owner in January 2018, the team looked to gain permission from the league to wear a Whalers jersey — something that would honor the franchise history and Dundon said would simply be a fun idea.
The Canes first wore the Hartford jerseys in a pair of games against the Boston Bruins in the 2018-19 season. They wore them again this past season for a January home game against the Los Angeles Kings.
Reaction to the new sweater on Monday on Twitter was mixed. Billy Fellin (@BillyFellin) said the jerseys “look sharp” while Gordon Hendry (@gordyh96) tweeted: “They look cool, but getting a bit fed up of the whole Whalers thing.”
The oldest NHL retro jersey unveiled Monday was a Chicago Blackhawks look from 1940 with their “famous barber pole striped” jerseys.
“It’s creating buzz and noise in the marketplace where normally we would be having games going on,” Brian Jennings, NHL chief brand officer and senior executive vice president, told the Associated Press. “We’re creating a lot of noise right now without the benefit of the live games.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 11:46 AM.
