We all have an aesthetic, even if you don't want to accept that you have one. An aesthetic near and dear to the Squad's heart is floral jock, aka soft sports, aka pastel bro. It's difficult to become a curator of this aesthetic while also displaying the facets of the aesthetic, but we're here to help! While we wait for an NHL team to come out with a lavender ombré jersey, let's look at some of the best aesthetics for your Bro who isn't that into hockey, but still wants to be stylin'.
10. 2003-2011 Atlanta Thrashers
Atlanta Thrashers powder blue is the perfect jersey for your Bro who's a jock but needs to remind everyone that they're soft and have feelings. This is the jersey for posing in front of a white to medium-gray wall during your Bro's bro's street fashion photography session. Atlanta Thrashers powder blue is the Drake of jerseys1. The fact that we lost out on this magic is just reason to believe that the NHL actually doesn't care about anyone and hell is real.
Honorable mentions: 1974-1976 California Golden Seals. That is all.
9. 1995-1998 New York Islanders
If you don't do the wave and the fisherman you're weak and I hope you know this. You either do he wave and fisherman or you don't do a Islanders jersey at all. Do you understand? You start here or you start nowhere.
Honorable mention: While we're here with the most reviled jerseys in NHL history, I have to hit you with the 1996-1999 Tampa Bay Lightning thirds. If you have time, find more pictures. I honestly don't know what to say about it.
8. 2001-2006 Vancouver Canucks
My notes for this article read "GRADIENTS" on this part2. That probably sums it up for you real well. The great part about the NHL is that they're like, almost always a few steps behind on the current trend, which is why you still had gradients on jerseys well into the 2000s. When jersey sublimation became An Actual Thing you could see this little ripple across the league where teams really, really wanted to sublimate everything. The Tampa Bay thirds from last time? Sublimation. The short-lived Ducks "Wild Wing" jersey in 1995-1996? Sublimated. The 1996-2003
Honorable mentions: EVERYTHING THE CANUCKS DID FROM 1978-1997. It was like the entire Canucks organization was hungover for 20 years. Yellow/orange/black is the color scheme you get when you wear sunglasses in the office because you're a little or a lot blurry on what happened last night. I honestly have no idea if I'm recommending this or just telling you to look at them, because who. Who thought of this. But it didn't stop there! 1997-2007 had red accents on a blue/white/silver combination. I'm in awe. If I did this at my hypothetical job I'd be fired.
In terms of gradients, though, 1995-2002 Pittsburgh Penguins jerseys were good stuff. Just a nice, gentle gradient splash. Honestly, I'd have asked them to go full gradient with a gold to silver fade across the entire front, but that's just me4.
7. 1992-1995 Ottawa Senators
Sideway-facing senator or bust. The use of negative space in the logo is stunning and I wish the Senators brought it back once in a while. Black and red is a slept-on look, especially black and red jerseys that use black as the base. Black jerseys are pretty boring, but if you do it right you can make them look like nothing else in the world. Not to mention the sparkle. Probably the finest decision ever made by an NHL organization was to let the gold part sparkle. There's glitter, you guys. If that isn't aesthetic then I don't know what aesthetic is. The perfect jersey for your Bro who's serious on the outside but got that gentleness on the inside.
Honorable mentions: Anything Rihanna wears with no pants on is a win for me. Ottawa's 2011 thirds. Bing, bang, boom.
The next best thing is the 2000-2007 thirds with the chevron print. Why? Who did this? Turn on your location, because I love it.
6. 2007-Present Minnesota Wild
Home? Glorious. Away? Wonderful. Third? Perfect. I mean, you've got some great colors right here. A nice dark green; red, not too dark, not too light; some sort of off-white that they call "wheat" or something. You could own all three and no one could fault you for wearing them. Maybe they would because it's from Minnesota, but who cares? You gotta make sacrifices for the Look.
Honorable mentions: None. Minnesota takes the cake on this one by itself.
5. 2013-Present Dallas Stars
"Victory green" was a good decision. Hands down. Okay, it's just green, but have you seen the other Stars jerseys? Good lord. We'll just pretend all other Stars jerseys don't exist. If you can pull off the Dallas Stars green, you can pull off anything. It's like, a difficult color but an easy one at the same time? I think. Something like that. Just get a Stars jersey. A Demers Stars jersey5.
Before we get to the honorable mentions, we need to talk about everything else the Dallas Stars have done. Okay? We need to talk. We need to have a heart-to-heart. We need to discuss this because this is important and we need to talk about these decisions that were made. Because the Dallas Stars can do something great like "victory green," and they can do the 1997-2006 star pattern that they stole from the All-Star Game, but then they pull a Mooterus. The red didn't help, Dallas! The red didn't help!
Honorable mentions: Anyways, 2011-present Nashville Predators is incredible. The only reason why the Predators aren't an actual part of the list is because yellow is a difficult color to pull off, but it's a gorgeous jersey all around. Have you seen all the little musical details? It's wonderful.
4. Beginning of time-Present Montreal Canadiens/Detroit Red Wings
You don't mess with classics for a reason. You want the jock aesthetic but you don't already own a Red Wings or Canadiens jersey? You're a joke. Get out of my house.
Honorable mentions: I'd accept an argument for the current iteration of the Edmonton Oilers, since they're technically a throwback. We can pretend that whole Dark And Gritty 1996-2012 didn't happen.
3. 1993-2006 Anaheim Ducks
Kariya-era Ducks is the aesthetic for your Bro who doesn't mind getting a little saucy with colors and angles. "Eggplant," "jade," white, and silver are four colors that have nothing to do with each other, yet this disgusting mixture of retro/cartoon hell has aged like a fine purple and dark green wine. If I wasn't physically incapable of touching anything that had to do with Southern California, I'd own seven: one for every day of the week, and all of them would have Paul Kariya's name on the back6. Do you understand how miraculous it was that we got this? The fact that the Ducks gave this up for whatever OC disaster they put together now is just a sign that sometimes, to move forward as an aesthete, you have to move back. The 90s were amazing. As long as your Bro doesn't put it on and immediately start sobbing while whispering "Paul" to themselves, we're all good.
Honorable mentions: The Ducks don't really have much else going for them. The rest of their uniforms in the 90s were atrocious—not even good atrocious, just plain ol' atrocious. Remember when I mentioned those Wild Wing jerseys? Look at them again. Whoever designed that probably disappeared to Iceland out of shame, and for good reason7. The brightest mark on the Ducks jersey track record in the past 10 is the fact that they changed from that hideous wordmark to that slightly less hideous logo8. Ugh. Just stick with throwbacks and you'll be fine.
2. 1988-1998 Los Angeles Kings
One of the best aesthetics has to be a Gretzky-era Kings jersey in black. It just has to be. This is the vintage hockey aesthetic. You can't argue against it. Anyone who says they don't like it is lying to you because they secretly paid $300 for a modern recreation and hid it in the back of their closet so no one can know that they own a jersey of one of the most recognizable names of all time and don't know anything else about hockey. "He had feathery hair, maybe?" Oh yeah, that sound believab—psych, every goddamn one had feathery hair. That's a cop-out. Just tell the truth. "I barely know who Gretzky is but guess what, he had style." Watch the crowd around you nod appreciatively while that one stats nerds starts shoving people out of the way as he barrels down the stairs to tell you just how good Gretzky was. A Gretzky-era Kings jersey is the equivalent of the "Evian logo except it doesn't say Evian, it says Naive or Satan or something" aesthetic. Is it too good? Possibly.
Honorable mentions: Depends on how ironic you wanna go. The modern ones are fine enough; the silver part is glittery so that's pretty cool.1998-2011 renditions with the purple are pretty bad, but someone out there has to be able to pull it off, right? The ones with the crossed stick crest had a lion wearing sunglasses on it. For people who just don't care about anything anymore because of an existential crisis, the 1995-1996 Burger King alternate is The One. It's the jersey you wear when you need to go to the gas station at 4 am for a donut and a cup of coffee because your life is crashing down around you but you might as well be fed.
1. 1991-1998 San Jose Sharks
You may be suspicious that jerseys from the favorite teams of the Squad show up in the top two, but can you blame us? It's not our fault that our teams just happen to have the greatest vintage sweaters. Anyways, there's no argument here. The jerseys for the newly-created Sharks were hella dope. It's no surprise that Sharks teal is popular in the Bay regardless of whether or not the person wearing Sharks teal cares about hockey. Both home and away are perfect choices for the night on the town where you're trying to say, "I'm good in the sheets, but you know they're Egyptian cotton and have a thread count in the high thousands9." You could get one blank, but you might as well go Full Feelings and get one with Patrick Marleau's last name on it with the 14. Odds are good you'll get a Sharks Fan For Life buying you a commiseration shot, and by the end of the night the two of you are trading war stories like best friends. The legend goes that teal was chosen as the Sharks home color because it looked equally good on men and women. If that isn't a passionate representation of gender neutral aesthetic, I don't know what is.
Honorable mentions: The 1998-2007 Sharks jerseys were still pretty hot, but definitely not as good as the inaugural ones. Recent editions have been pretty subpar, though I do like the new ones they released in 2013. I'd like them more without the numbers in the front, but what can you do? Not everyone can have the passion for bomb-ass wear all the time.
1 "Who am I gonna be when it's all over? / When it's all over? When it's all over?" ↑
2 Actually, it continued with "F***IN HELL YES F*** IN HELL YES!! F***!!!" so hopefully that sums up how I really feel about gradients. ↑
3 I don't think it is physically possible to find pictures of the red jersey with gradients on Getty. That's a damn shame. ↑
4 "Conrad, are you just saying this because Jaromir Jagr wore these jerseys and literally burst into flames with how hot he was?" To which I respond: no comment. ↑
5 No, I'm not still hurt about this. I move on quickly and easily. So quickly and easily. ↑
6 I still miss you, Paul. ↑
7 Paul Kariya wore these jerseys. The Ducks only wore them for 6 games, and for good reason. I'm surprised the league let the Ducks stay after they came out with these. I'm pretty sure these jerseys are a war crime. ↑
8 I don't actually find the Ducks' wordmark that horrible, which I'm sure knocks me down a couple of points in the graphic design category. The fact that they splashed it across a jersey when they knew full well that the visibility of said wordmark would be slim to none is the tragedy. The webbed D isn't that good but at the least you can see it from a distance. Any logo that requires me to wear binoculars from the nosebleeds is a badly made logo. Also, I hope I never have to see or hear the words "webbed D" for the rest of my life. Anyways, if you need me I'll be in the locker that the local high school bully shoved me into. ↑
9 "I also have no idea what this means, but we good girl. Let's go home and watch the music video to "Feeling Myself" together. I know you like that." ↑
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