Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The Good and the Bad - Part 2 - New Islander Jerseys

Hello Hockey fans and welcome to the Voice of the Islander Fans Blog Site, a proud part of the Inaugural Islanders Blog Box. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and reading all of yours and I would like to thank the New York Islanders for giving the fans this unprecedented forum to share our thoughts. Please catch Part 1 of "The Good and The Bad" discussing the new additions as well as the subtractions from the Islanders roster by clicking or by copy and pasting this link - http://voice.blogspot.com/2007/08/good-and-bad-part-1-new-islanders.html

Here Goes for Part 2 which we will discuss the most recent uniform change the Islander have made as mandated by the NHL with its partnership with Reebok for its Edge uniform system.

The Good -
1 - The Overall design of the jersey has the best of both worlds in the classic logo that hangs on the Stanley Cup banners in the Coliseum and a nice new color scheme replacing the old horizontal line stripes. Young fans are more likely to wear jerseys and making them more appealing to young fans is paramount.
2 - The Number on the front is a great addition and will greatly help the sales and popularity of the new jerseys as it did for Buffalo a season ago. After all Buffalo does not have a trade mark on the concept.
3 - There is no fisherman logo any where in sight and that we can take as a Good any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Also, they did not buckle to the trend of adding black to the uniform.

The Bad -
1 - They should have not done the block style colors and made it similar to the classic jerseys. Why change a classic? They look more like pajamas than hockey uniforms!!
2 - The number on the front is just a copycat of what the Sabres did and can be considered a blatant rip off of a novel idea.
3 - The NHL as a league should be more concerned with improving the viewer ship of the NHL and marketing the new crop of superstars it has instead of wasting time with the Reebok Edge Uniforms. All of the money that has been spent and all of the time that has been wasted on what is at the end of the day a gimmick would have been better served to refine rule changes, work with players to stop the endless interference calls and something to make the game more appealing to the television viewer.

I share some of the opinions above but not all. I am very interested to see what the fans have to say on this subject as I'm sure it will be a hot topic of discussion. As we all know us Islander fans are very touchy when it comes to changing our beloved orange and blue uniform. Let me know what points you agree or disagree with and why. Please, no flaming we are all entitles to our opinions and I welcome all opinions on this blog.

Lets Go Islanders!!

FCT

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a tremendous NY Islander fan. I have bin one since there inception. I could write a twenty page letter on the team, but I won't bore you, lets just believe that when I say I'm a true to the core dedicated, loyal " NY Islander fan", believe me. Now onto business, In my opinion the NY Islanders should either make the Mitchell and Ness 1980 version their main jersey,s, or make the one they actually did in the "Classic White" their 3rd jersey for next season. The identical jersey they did, same evert hing numbers the same crest the same, meaning the size, the size of the crests on the first version after the desaster fisherman jersey, was to large as is the crest on their newest jersey which I really don't care for. Classics are classics, and to me like I believe most Islander fans feal should never be changed. I believe the Clacssic White jersey's the later 70's through the mid 90's are the classiest jersey's in all of hockey. I just believe what Mitchell and Ness did making the colors alittle brighter looks sharper. On that jersey they do not need the stanley cups stripes added. I would make the jersey's absolutely identical to the Mitchell and Ness version. If they make it their third jersey make it the"Classic White One", to be worn on home ice on weekend's, friday games, saturday games, and sunday games. I would also have the team where white tee shirts under the Classic white jersey,s as well as return the entire uniform. Meaning the stripes on the pants also. This to me would make all NY Islander fans estatic, and make them feal that much prouder of their "Team". If you can remember when the Islander's brought back the the close to classic's, but not completely classic jersey's when they played flyer's and beat them, that very, very, very, special saturday nite at the coliseum, Mike Bossy speaking on the microphone reintroduced the almost classic jersey' said they where coming back for good never to be changed again. Well I'm sorry but the jersey's have bin changed. Again I would bring back the the classics the way Mitchell and Ness did them in the both colors the Classic white and the royal blue as the main jersey's and come out with another version for their third jersey or no third jersey at all, or have the third jersey be the Mitchell and Ness "Classic White " version to be worn on weekends at "Home". Thank you very much, MARK

Anonymous said...

I am a tremendous NY Islander fan. I have bin one since there inception. I could write a twenty page letter on the team, but I won't bore you, lets just believe that when I say I'm a true to the core dedicated, loyal " NY Islander fan", believe me. Now onto business, In my opinion the NY Islanders should either make the Mitchell and Ness 1980 version their main jersey,s, or make the one they actually did in the "Classic White" their 3rd jersey for next season. The identical jersey they did, same evert hing numbers the same crest the same, meaning the size, the size of the crests on the first version after the desaster fisherman jersey, was to large as is the crest on their newest jersey which I really don't care for. Classics are classics, and to me like I believe most Islander fans feal should never be changed. I believe the Clacssic White jersey's the later 70's through the mid 90's are the classiest jersey's in all of hockey. I just believe what Mitchell and Ness did making the colors alittle brighter looks sharper. On that jersey they do not need the stanley cups stripes added. I would make the jersey's absolutely identical to the Mitchell and Ness version. If they make it their third jersey make it the"Classic White One", to be worn on home ice on weekend's, friday games, saturday games, and sunday games. I would also have the team where white tee shirts under the Classic white jersey,s as well as return the entire uniform. Meaning the stripes on the pants also. This to me would make all NY Islander fans estatic, and make them feal that much prouder of their "Team". If you can remember when the Islander's brought back the the close to classic's, but not completely classic jersey's when they played flyer's and beat them, that very, very, very, special saturday nite at the coliseum, Mike Bossy speaking on the microphone reintroduced the almost classic jersey' said they where coming back for good never to be changed again. Well I'm sorry but the jersey's have bin changed. Again I would bring back the the classics the way Mitchell and Ness did them in the both colors the Classic white and the royal blue as the main jersey's and come out with another version for their third jersey or no third jersey at all, or have the third jersey be the Mitchell and Ness "Classic White " version to be worn on weekends at "Home". Thank you very much, MARK

kindlyrick said...

I have to ask.......if the islanders are winning, does the jersey actually matter?? I mean I keep reading peoples discontent with the new jerseys, but I havent given it a seconds worth of thought. WHO CARES? Im more interested in the job that SNOLAN is doing, which is so far so good.

Anonymous said...

I have been a New York Islanders Fan since 1972. the new jerseys are to me, a true dissapointment. The osl;amders should have gone Old School with the new jerseys. The gentleman from Reebok who was interviewed on Islanders TV proclaimed that the Isles now have a "Fun, new looking, jersey." I am sorry but you have to be kidding me! Fun and New? What the hell ever happened to tradition. The marketing people have gotten it all wrong once again. All you have to do is look at the Number one team in all of sports, the New York Yankees. They have had the same style jerseys, with a few minor modifications, for almost 100 years! Kids, children, grandchildren, they all wear traditional Yankees gear. Why could'nt the Islanders have gone back to the Old school jersey of the 70's and 80's? I own a 1977-78 Isles road jersey. It was the jersey That Mike Bossy wore onthe road in his rookie season. The jersey is also called the "single striper," because there is only a single, large, orange stripe on each arm, no white at all. It is a true classic. Everytime I Wear it, people stop and ask me where I got it! That is why the Isles needed to go back to a throwback jersey for there new scheme. Instead of going back to a traditional style, they went with this new monstrosity, that is geared for kids. Very sad. Kids will wear throwback style jerseys. That's a fact. By the way, the Islanders have not won a stanley Cup since they got rid of the "Shadow Lettering, (Orange trim) around the letters on the name plates of their jerseys in 1984.

FCT said...

I don't think a 20 page letter on the team would be THAT boring I mean after all it IS about the Islanders. I agree with some of the Good and some of the Bad on this one. I do think the NHL wastes to much time on silly items. The NHL should be concentrating on one thing and one thing only and that is how to get more people to watch NHL Hockey. No amount of fancy new Reebok Edge uniforms is going to do that. I am going to write a blog next week on what I think the league has to change and why. On the Islanders uniforms I have to agree with kindlyrick. If the Islanders play well, we will all forget about what they are wearing. The bottom line at the end of the day is winning. That being said I do think having the classic jersey int he classic colors being the 3rd jersey is a very good idea.

FCT

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the Blog Box. I agree with pretty much everything concerning the jerseys. They could have done better with the color layout, but they also could have done worse. The classic jersey will still always be better. Maybe they could make that their 3rd jersey. Talk to Garth for us!

Anonymous said...

I like the jersey, especially the Sabres number on the crest. I don't like the orange area on arm but overall I like it. Jersey changes are about money and surprise the NHL is a business. Like or not new jerseys result in increased sales. Buffalo fans hated the "golden slug" but the jerseys were sold out for months.

Anonymous said...

As far as the new jersey goes, if i had my say I would have left the color scheme the way it was. why mess with a classic jersey? But these are the Islanders and they cant leave well enough alone. If you take away the orange sleeves I would like it 100x better. The orange makes it look too clownish. Just one fan's opinion.

Anonymous said...

I am not a big fan of the orange sleeves either. I wish they had stayed with the original color scheme. (by the way - the true "classic" road jersey is not the one with just the single orange stripe on the sleeve. The true "original" road jersey had a white sleeve below the orange stripe. Take the original home jersey and replace white with blue, blue with orange, and orange with white and that's how it looked) I also agree with the fan who said "who cares about the jerseys?" If the team plays like they have these first two games, no one is going to care about the uniforms. Just my two cents. MK

Anonymous said...

Yo MK,

a cLarification for you, I never said that the jersey I own, the "Single Striper," was the "true classic" road jersey. What I said was that it is one of the older classic ones, and maybe the rarest of all. It was only worn by the team for 1 season, AND IS MIKE BOSSY'S ROOKIE ROAD JERSEY! My point is a simple one. The Islanders should have gone to a classic old style look with the original colors of Royal blue, burnt Orange and white! I love the old 70s and early 80s jerseys and know that most fans do to!