After leaking like an old faucet for the last month, the Philadelphia Flyers finally revealed their 2012 NHL Winter Classic sweaters on Monday and they're … exactly like the ones we published nearly two weeks ago. Stupid no good lousy eBay spoilers ruin everything.
First, it should be said that these are an improvement over the ones worn in Fenway. The Flyers are not the team that wears white; they're they black hats in any duel, even when they're playing the New York Rangers.
This jersey is so much more bully-ish.
If there's a primary knock on this jersey, it's that it lacks innovation.
The Winter Classic offers teams that chance to get nostalgically gaudy with their designs; say what you will about the Detroit Red Wings' Wrigley Field sweaters, but at least they were a dramatic departure from what they usually wear.
This is a good-looking Flyers sweater that's a slight variation of a familiar theme; had they gone off the reservation with something like this knockoff, it would have been more distinct.
Crossing Broad had a good breakdown on the Flyers' new Classic duds, with commentary from jersey nerd Dan Fuller. From his critique:
Yes, but it could've looked better. I wouldn't fault anyone for buying one (or putting one on a Christmas list), but the more I look, the more I'm bothered by two features, both related by color selection, not geometry. 1) The black yoke (shoulder) is too dark and doesn't contrast sufficiently with the orange body of the jersey. Look through the Flyers uniform history when they used a yoke on an orange jersey, and you'll see they always picked white, and for good reason. The white is a nice, clean break from the orange. 2) The black numbers on the back are another bad decision. Again, look through the uniform history. It's only the often (and rightly) forgotten 3rd jersey from 2002—2007 which also made this mistake. Sure, it's effectively a small detail, but realistically, there's 40 years of successful graphic design they're ignoring in order to separate this jersey from every other orange jersey they've used.
Yeah, but do you dig them, sir?
Yep. Aside from the orange and black mix-up, they're both different enough and similar enough to look exactly like we fans think of what the Flyers would have worn in that unspecified decade we sports fans think of as "the good old days," when decades of design language condense into a general feeling of "old."
What say you about these duds?
Pass or Fail: The Philadelphia Flyers' 2012 Winter Classic jerseys.