Buffalo might be a city built on chicken wings, but they do love their sports teams. The Buffalo Sabres, while improved and exceeded expectations for this season, are on track to miss the playoffs for their NHL record 12th straight season.
Meanwhile, the city’s NFL team, the Buffalo Bills, has won the AFC East Division each of the past three seasons.
The Sabres’ AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, showed some love to Western New York’s favorite football team in the way only minor league hockey teams know how to, with special warm-up jerseys during “Bills Day”.
The Amerks, as their locally known, wore red hockey jerseys reminiscent of the NFL’s “color rush” uniform design for the Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Bills logo was featured as a logo patch on the right-hand side of the jersey.
On the right-hand side was a white patch with a Buffalo outline with the wordmark “Rochester Americans” surrounding it.
The Rochester Americans wore special sweaters for their “Bills Day”.
Red, white, and blue stripes adorned the sleeves. The Bills use a similar stripe pattern on their color rush jersey’s shoulders. Just like the Rochester Americans, the Bills also use a red, white, and blue color scheme.
“Amerks” appeared in small letters above the player number in the middle of the jersey. The front of these jerseys had the player’s number instead of a traditional hockey logo crest, like their NFL counterparts. Rochester goalies also wore special Bills-inspired masks.
Amerks 🤝 Bills
— Rochester Americans (@AmerksHockey) March 26, 2023
🔴 RED COLOR RUSH🔴 pic.twitter.com/wqJ24A9mkN
These jerseys immediately became a must-have for any Western New York sports fan.
Can we also talk about how a hockey jersey is much more appropriate to wear for those snowy, outdoor Bills games? If you think these jerseys look nice now, just imagine how nice they’d look when someone’s jumping through a folding table in one (it’s a Buffalo Bills fan thing).
The jerseys were mostly identical to the Bills’ color rush jerseys, minus the long sleeves hockey necessitates, although there are a few notable differences. The Bills logo on the Amerk’s jersey along with the Buffalo patch are both not on the NFL color rush jerseys.
Even if the jerseys say “Amerks”, it feels more like a hockey rip-off of an NFL jersey. It would have been nice to see some more of Rochester’s identity on these. Maybe replace that Buffalo outline logo with the Amerks’ time-tested and classic logo?
Like most other special minor league hockey jerseys, these will be auctioned off with proceeds going towards Golisano Children’s Hospital. If the Amerks made more of these, they’d be sure to sell out.
The Sabres could even consider making their own, although their color scheme differs greatly from the Bills, so it wouldn’t look as “clean” as Rochester’s. There might be some legal paths to cross considering the Bills logo is the property of the NFL team.
Fun fact, the Amerks, the Bills, and the Sabres all share the same owner, so that might be able to be arranged easily.
This ambitious crossover works way too well to be a one-time thing. We’ve seen a lot of fun promotional hockey jerseys, but this is one that hardcore Buffalo sports fans wouldn’t mind being seen wearing in public.
The Amerks might have created the season’s most sought-after, must-have jersey.