NHL Uniforms: Safer Is Better, Long Live the LA Kings Edition

Icethetics.info has focused on LA Kings insider Rich Hammond's report that the LA Kings are going to be making some fairly drastic, and disappointing, uniform decisions.

In short: The primary home (with purple shoulder yolk) and the primary alternate (black, silver and white Gretzky-era jersey modernization) will trade places. And the Kings' forum blue and yellow throwbacks will be at least temporarily disbanded.

It's amazing how two of the league's best uniforms will be mothballed next year—Boston's yellow and chocolate Winter Classic jersey and the Kings' purple throwbacks.

I could extend that and say that three of the league's best uniforms aren't going to be used; the Pens' powder blue is finished, too, apparently.

Only in a league run by idiots, and teams operated by people who simply don't understand what sells and what fans want, could you see that.

It'd be like if the Packers and the Vikings decided to mothball their uniforms ... or if the Bulls and Celtics dumped their recognizable colors and switched to black-based sets with just tinges of red and green, respectively.

To think that you're going to waste the opportunity to use your third-jersey option on another sweater of the same color as your primary just reeks of inexcusable stupidity, to me.

Not wanting to capitalize on the popularity of the LA Lakers (which is not always going to be a given) seems odd at best, too.

As someone who vilified the RBK Edge movement, I don't like jerseys that lack waist stripes; however, Boston and LA (my two jersey "villains" du jour) COULD have established traditional striping on their current third jerseys but either weren't forceful enough at the outset or didn't design their jerseys to be as such.

I cannot blame the ludicrousness of their thirds on RBK. I suppose LA's would be better if it had two silver stripes surrounding a white one. How hard...

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