NHL Power Rankings: Remembering the ugliest jerseys in history
By Jeremy Tuch
2011-2013 – New York Islanders try again
We thought the football trend had run its course, but the Islanders gave it one last hurrah before it went away for good. Like what happened in 1995, the team decided that their perfectly good blue/orange regular uniforms weren’t enough (they had just switched back to these full time just one year previous), and decided to get back into that new uniform thing. Too bad someone forgot to fire that designer after the fish sticks debacle.
In a similar fashion, the team added two colors from out of left field, except they are both far more prominent, and far less attractive. Black and gray went everywhere, the football treatment appeared, and the bottom of the jersey along with the pants together make a diamond pattern, which clearly mattered to the designers for some reason. You could see how well it fit with the rest of the look, thus garnering disgust from everyone, excluding the designer.
The team had to keep this stinker for the minimum three years, and we hoped that the Islanders learned their lesson a second time, and stuck to their classic blue/orange combination.
Meanwhile: Remarkably, these two years were status quo, and very few teams actually unveiled new uniforms. Maybe they figured that over-designing things wasn’t such a good idea, even for a quick cash grab attempt.