Junior Hockey and the Buffalo Bills. Finally together.
Wait what?
It’s quite the mix and this winter it becomes reality.
USA Hockey earlier this week unveiled the jerseys of Team USA for their historic 2018 World Junior Championships outdoor game vs Canada at New Era Field just south of Buffalo in on December 29th. The home unis will have a bit of circling the wagons feel to them.
The Bills-style jerseys have been faced with everything but acceptance from many around the hockey world but you know what? I like them!
I have to admit, usually I do get a kick out of laughing at anything Buffalo Bills *insert joke of every Team USA shot in the tourney going wide right of the net* but it’s a unique idea for an international tournament you don’t see a national team going too radical with their uniforms outside of the occasional retro look. The eternal red, white and blue colour scheme of the Bills works perfectly with the Americans and really it’s not too busy of a look.
The one thing though that does look off but there’s no turning back now is the fact that copying a look of an NFL team verbatim you’ll copy the really small team name on the front, the “USA” looks almost invisible with the giant numbers. If I had a say the country name is taken off the front and placed instead on the nameplates of each player on the back. Something about the entire roster literally carrying the nation on their back has always looked pretty cool.
Team USA becomes just the 2nd international team to honour a gridiron football team when it comes to jerseys at the tournament.
The first?
Yup, Team Canada, at the 2010 tournament in Regina and Saskatoon, took the ice with the infamous all Green look to pay homage the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. To stay on the topic of Canadian unis, it would never happen but to really have fun with this in late December at New Era, the red and white should wear the jerseys of an NFL rival just a few hours away, in the form of the New England Patriots.
Or to really get after an old wound with another Buffalo rival..
Canada and the US is almost always the best game of the tournament, so why not turn the intensity up to 15 with these unis in front of what will be a very rabid crowd from both sides of the border?
Here’s hoping that more teams internationally in hockey go a bit bolder with their looks and break the traditional mold.
The WJC is a spectacle in the parts of North America that love it. Let’s express that to the fullest beyond just the play on ice.
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