The NHL and adidas revealed the jerseys the Seattle Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights will wear for the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic at T-Mobile Park in Seattle on Jan 1.
With the two most recent NHL franchises taking part, creating a jersey looking back at their history was an interesting task.
"It is always a gift to have a real and robust hockey history to pull from," adidas design director Matty Merrill said. "It's also nice not to be hemmed in by real history but instead, make up some of our own. Seattle and Vegas both have strong, rich cultures, and are also very different. So, it's kind of a fun design experiment to create a new history that matches the teams culturally."
The traditional bright gold of the Golden Knights' uniforms has been replaced by a Heritage Gold with an old West attitude. The vintage white of the Winter Classic uniforms is reminiscent of the working uniforms from the 1900s.
"I thought they were pretty incredible," Golden Knights defenseman Zach Whitecloud said. "… But just kind of seeing the history of it, the way they put Vegas kind of into a history standpoint is really cool [like] the lettering. I think the gloves and our pants just kind of round it all really well. We're excited to wear that and really looking forward to that."
The Golden Knights' helmet crest, in which a "V" can be seen in the negative space, was replaced by a "V" on the chest and is outlined with Fleur-de-lis petal accents and a looping decorate chain stitch. That same style and outline is used on the numbers on the back of the sweaters. The word "Vegas" appears in cursive on the pants with the socks having a barber-pole style look.
"The Vegas gold currently in that franchise is very blingy, it's shiny, it's metallic. It's a textile that we worked with them for multiple years in order to create a performance fabric that had that true metallic quality," Merrill said. "Well, that would not have existed in 1917, which was 100 years from when they were founded. What would that color be? It's going to be a muted gold. What would the striping be? It's going to be a lot more simple. It's got a very simplified striping, so their uniform just has one big stripe on the sleeve. We do a bunch of other stuff like the stitching of felt numbers, sort of the Fleur-de-lis points on the numbers, all that stuff. It's got the decorative sort of showmanship of Las Vegas, but not of the neon or LED strip of today. But [instead], what might have existed in the early days of a Vegas strip."
With Golden Knights owner Bill Foley being a West Point graduate and former cadet, the uniforms also featured some military tie-ins.
"Knowing Bill Foley and his background at West Point, and that name, Golden Knights, having a military reference, let's keep going back to that well, but in a new way," Merrill said. "And so, the braid, or it's really chain stitch, on our crest is derived from the braid on the dress-grey uniforms that West Point cadets wear."
As for the Kraken's sweater, Seattle has had a hockey team before. And in 1917, it was the first team from the United States to win the Stanley Cup. The uniform worn by that club was used as in inspiration for the Winter Classic.
"I love it," Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz said. "I think it's awesome. I like the colors, I like everything about it… It's really cool. It's special for this organization and the city."
A barber-pole look with three colors -- Deep Sea Blue, Ice Blue and Red Alert -- adorns the sleeves and most of the body. The crest is a red "S" logo, with the word "KRAKEN" spelled inside, outlined in vintage white. The crest, as well as the vintage-looking numbers on the back, are in felt with single-needle top-stitch detailing. The pants have Ice Blue and white with barber-pole style socks.
"That blue color, the Ice Blue that is just totally unique to them," Merrill said. "That is a very new color. It took a lot of work to figure that one out. But if Seattle existed 100 years ago, they would probably be primarily Navy. We're going to use that vintage-white color, which is like an off-white, to sort of backdate the whole look. They wouldn't have the sort of tonal striping that they have now. It's going to be barber-pole striping, which is a classic hockey look from a century ago."
In addition, the Kraken sweater has "1917" on the neckline, and the Golden Knights have seven stars on theirs, which are each significant.
"Seattle was the first American city to win the Stanley Cup in 1917. So, just being able to drop that status that we've already won one Cup in this town and we're going to chase you, Vegas Golden Knights, and get our second soon enough," Merrill said. "That's a cool thing to put in there. And then for the Golden Knights, the seven stars on the neckline indicate January 1 really kind of being their birthday and seventh year in the NHL."
The numbers and crests on each uniform were all done in heritage felt rather than the usual twill top-stitch detailing, which is something that is unique to the Winter Classic every year.
"The NHL Winter Classic is steeped in history and nostalgia. However, we want to create a special sweater for this outdoor stage which excites and delights fans," said Brian Jennings, NHL senior executive vice president of marketing and chief branding officer. "In this case, it was a unique challenge involving the NHL’s two newest teams, but the end result proved to be nothing short of astonishing."
The jerseys are available for purchase at adidas.com, adidas.ca, NHLShop.com, NHLShop.ca, Fanatics’ network of online stores and at Kraken and Golden Knights team stores.
A limited number of tickets for the NHL Winter Classic are available for purchase via Ticketmaster, while supplies last.
NHL.com independent correspondents Darren Brown and Taylor Baird contributed to this report
