A Few Thoughts on the Possibility of a New Dallas Stars Alternate Sweater
It appears more possible than ever before
Anyway, uh, consider the rest of this a window into my thought process for posterity. At least I wasn’t entirely wrong, I guess? Check out the new video here.
On Tuesday morning, the Dallas Stars teased exactly what fans have been speculating on all along: a new sweater of some kind.
This Tweet came on the third consecutive day of vague teasers by the team, starting with one of President/CEO Brad Alberts’s famous “eyeballs” drops late on Sunday night:
That was followed by an Esa Lindell/eyeballs mashup on Monday (which Alberts also re-tweeted):
And today, Alberts even retweeted this comment by Lia Assimakopoulos:
All that to say, it’s clear the team is teasing something they expect the fans to be excited about, and I think it’s fair to say that today’s jersey Tweet is a pretty strong indicator of just what that something might be.
After the Blackout sweaters began to be marked down and cleared out of inventory a few months back, word began to trickle out that the eye-popping alternates of the last five years were going to be retired.
That naturally led to speculation about what would be replacing them. But the team has been pretty tight-lipped about what (if anything) that replacement might be.
In case you missed it, we did a top-five Dallas Stars Jerseys ranking in a piece over the summer, in which we mentioned a few of the factors that can make for great jerseys: subtle accents, distinctive design, unique and complementary color combinations, and good use of space.
Or at least, I think we mentioned those things. Implicitly, perhaps? Let’s say me mentioned them implicity, just to cover all our bases.
Anyway, now we’re here in November, with a couple of Retro Nights looming on the schedule this weekend. And the most obvious clue before this week that new sweaters are on the way is the fact that we’ve seen the Stars wearing what look like some kind of throwback breezers (hockey pants) in practice, which Friend of the Site Amanda photographed in all their excellence at practice a few weeks ago:
Those pants seem likely to be a clue about the new sweaters, since the “DALLAS” lettering between green stripes is heavily evocative of the pants the Stars wore from 1993–1999.
By the way, in asking players about breaking in new pants (while being careful to say that I wasn’t trying to get anyone to spill the beans), most of them said it doesn’t take more than a couple of uses in practice to make them game-ready.
Similarly, Jake Oettinger doesn’t need a ton of uses for new pads, some of which he was also wearing in practice on November 16:
For comparison, Oettinger didn’t start wearing his Four Nations goal pads in practice until the end of January last year. And from what he’s said in the past, he prefers his pads new and responsive, rather than broken in and “deadened.”
I’m not comfortable sharing rumors about what exact design going to complement these pants, but here’s one thing that seems logical: the Stars will do something distinctive from the dark and the white Reverse Retro sweaters we’ve seen in prior years—both of which featured similar pants with the “DALLAS” lettering down the side rather than the normal green-and-white stripes of the usual uniforms’ pants—but distinctive doesn’t have to mean entirely different, either.
Over the summer, I poked around a bit to see what we could expect in the way of any supposed new jersey plans. But the fact of the matter is that this organization has gotten pretty good at keeping surprises quiet when they want to.
That’s why Alberts’s eyeball tweets tend to elicit so much speculation in the first place, in fact. Sometimes they’ve come before a big trade or contract extension (or both, like last March), and other times they’ve been for organizational achievements, like Jim Nill’s winning a Jim Gregory Award or the Dallas Stars Hall of Fame selections.
And frankly, I think that’s fine. It’s one thing if we’re talking about trades or contracts or other hockey things, where reporting and digging can elicit new information for the fans. But announcements like new sweaters are more and more being kept hush-hush in the NHL, with some teams like Los Angeles this year even surprising people en masse by warming up in old sweaters before coming out for the game in the new ones for the first time.
It’s also why I’d expect we won’t see any hints about the Stars’ Stadium Series sweaters for their game in Arlington until the league announces them officially, which will probably be a year or so from now.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to put some puzzle pieces together right now. So here’s what we have in terms of publicly available information:
The Stars stopped wearing their alternate Blackout sweaters after last season.
The new pants (and goalie pads) that Stars players have practiced with this month are dark with black and green, with the pants themselves having a “retro” element from 1993-99 shown on the side lettering.
The timing of the Stars players’ breaking in those pants along with the Tweets this week seems to correspond with scheduled Retro Nights this weekend.
The two Reverse Retro designs the Stars have done in the last few years are a white star-design jersey and a dark 1993-94 design.
A few teams around the league have gone with throwback-type alternates this season, including Chicago, most recently.
And given that the Stars already have their standard Victory Green home sweaters, I would also expect any new sweater to be very distinct from those (which is why black with Skyline Green for the Blackouts made sense).
So, if I were a betting man (which I am not, because betting on sports is foolhardy), then I would be sorely tempted to put a finif on our seeing some kind of dark sweater incorporating elements from the star-pattern the team won the Stanley Cup in. But again, I am very much just speculating based on what is publicly out there. I could be entirely wrong. But given that the new pants are dark and have a retro element, I think it’s at least a reasonable guess of what sweater will complement them.
That’s where I’ll stop for now, since all signs suggest we’ll have the answer soon enough. So, you tell me: What makes the most sense for the rumored new sweaters, based on what we know already, and why is it absolutely for definitelys a neon yellow version of the Winter Classic sweaters??!111one
I updated the article with a note to the reveal, but I'll keep this up for posterity, at least.
Probably should check the rumor mills (which I generally loathe) before publishing this sort of thing in the future. Alas.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRfegGQCEyA/?igsh=cWlmeWpocW5hcTF1
Looks like you are pretty spot on based on the leaks