The history of the NHL jersey goes back almost one hundred years. With its long sleeves, giant numbers and surprising trademarks, the hockey jersey has for some time been a statement of pride for hockey fans of every age. NHL fans buy NHL gear including jerseys and wear them to the ground games and at home to show their support for their local team.
While all thirty NHL groups now have home, away and often alternate jerseys to wear and sell, that wasn't always the case. The NHL started in 1917 with 5 teams. Their uniforms were originally made from heavy wools and cottons to keep players warm and they weren't awfully appealing.
For the 1st decade of league play, groups only had one uniform they wore for both home and away games. The main traits of their NHL jerseys were long sleeves and stripes. The Toronto Arenas were the sole team to sport a solid blue jersey with white trim. The league slowly made its way to the US in 1924.
The 1st team in the states was the Boston Bruins. The NHL jerseys related to this team was a solid brown color with gold trim. At this time Hamilton Tigers wore an National Hockey League jersey with thin lines of black and gold on their sleeves. In 1927-28, the Toronto Maple Leafs revealed a new blue-and-white trademark that encompassed a heavily striped jersey for home games and a straightforward white jersey with a blue leaf trademark for away games. As the 1930s passed or rolled around, ultra-skinny lines of alternating color were seen in groups, eg the Chicago Black Hawks and the Detroit Falcons. Stars highlighted the NHL jerseys of the Long Island American citizens red, white and blue color scheme.
In the 1940s, the Long Island / Brooklyn northern Americans folded and the NHL was reduced to only 6 groups. It is now that we see the emergence of more coloured pants, as well as a spread of home and away NHL jerseys. In 1950 Black Hawks changed from a barber pole appearance in their black NHL jerseys to a red jersey with an Indian head on front. This is the beginning of the official NHL product we see related to the Black Hawks of today. It was in 1955 the Bruins became the first Ice Hockey team to introduce the color gold in their NHL jerseys. In 1951, the NHL remitted white jerseys at home getting the Rangers to make a new uniform. that modified 4 years after, and colored uniforms became home jerseys till 1970, when it modified again. It might change many times during the following couple of decades. The league expanded in 1967 to twelve groups and kept adding groups every couple of years till the mid-1970s, leading to more styles and more colours being added to the NHL collection to the excitement of fans who buy NHL gear supporting their team.
On the back of jerseys Names appeared in 1971, but only home groups wore them. However, by 1978, all groups were wearing names on the backs of the jerseys. The Toronto Maple Leafs was the last team to conform, but did so with protest. The team put blue letters on the blue jerseys and white letters on the white jerseys, as the team's owner, Howard Ballard, feared he would lose income from game programs if fans knew the names of players. The Montreal Canadians wore 3 different jerseys in the 1946 season. 3rd jerseys failed to get used again till 1995 when the league added the idea of alternate jerseys to help bring in profits. The majority of the groups have made use of a 3rd jersey at a previous time or another since that point, and the Canadians remained pioneers by employing 5 jerseys in the 2008-09 season to honor their centennial party. The NHL jersey is just one case of showing team support and pride when fans buy NHL gear of their fave team.