A new jersey for New Jersey

Dan Rozel
Gotham Sports Network
2 min readJun 13, 2017

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Naturally, this is a big deal to Devils fans for conflicting reasons. The Devils have retained their design for many years at a time. They have never changed their logo and have only changed the jersey’s color scheme once from the classic retro green, red, and whites to the black, red, and white we all know today.

The Devils have never had a third jersey, and in some ways, it is a point of pride that the design has remained as consistent as it has. But, sometimes, change can be good! This portion that we’re seeing seems to indicate that there was no alteration to the logo and the color scheme so we’re left to ponder “what’s different?”

This had been rumored a while back and some people had access to jersey leaks but because this is a rare occurrence for New Jersey, official confirmation from the team was welcome news to stymie all the speculation. The Devils jersey will look different in 2017–18.

Either way, the range of reactions looks a little bit like this-

Positive and excited, as to be expected when there is more merchandise for a re-branding of the team that coincides with their rebuild on the ice:

Simple as.

Then, there’s appreciation for the retention of the traditional portions of the jersey while not showing open disdain for the fact that change is a common thing in the world:

And finally, the preemptive assault because change is always bad and the jersey is one of the few things we have going for us:

Gotta love the fact that reactions can get this visceral from seeing what is maybe 1/25th of the actual design. These are the passionate fans an organization needs to help carry a team through a rebuild.

UPDATE: Here is a concept of the design based on various descriptions…as expected, not a huge change but a noticeable absence of the bottom belt regardless:

Looks good, but we’ll have to wait for the full reveal to be sure.

Yes, this is a holdover on the news cycle that is about to explode now that the Stanley Cup Finals are over, but there’s something poetic to changing the team’s jersey design right as they are on the brink of their first №1 overall pick in franchise history.

So the question now is…Will it have Patrick or Hischier on the back?

To connect with Dan, find him on Twitter at @RozelGSN.

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