Tim Gleason and the black sweater

During Wednesday's press conference, the media asked a few questions of the players as they debuted the new alternate black sweater. Tim Gleason stood there and, when it was his time to talk, he said only this:

I'm standing here. You make the move. You make the move. It's your move.... Don't try it, you %@#!.... You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking to? I'm the only one here. Who the %@#! do you think you're talking to?

He was next seen shaving his head in the locker room, leaving a thin mohawk.

Canes officially reveal third sweater

The Hurricanes revealed their third sweaters today, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Black may be a played out color for alternate jerseys in all of sports, and of course my opinion is biased, but I think these look great. Hopefully, the Canesvision folks will resist the temptation to use AC/DC's "Back in Black" as the team takes the ice while wearing the alternates.

As expected, the sweater is primarily black. As expected, the secondary "storm warning" logo is the crest. As expected, the "sightless eye" moves to the shoulders.

There were a couple of things that were slightly unexpected. The storm warning flags along the hem line have remained, but now they're a black background with a silver square in the middle as opposed to the traditional (and nautically correct) black on a field of red. The "sightless eye" is grayscale, almost blending in entirely with the sweater. The player numbers and the C or A will be in red with white outline. The white outline is a really fantastic touch, which will make the numbers jump off the sweater. Almost a "glow in the dark" feel. The player name will be in white.

Here's the gravy... Everything about the third sweater outfit will be black. The pants, the socks, the gloves, even the helmet will be black. As my pal Stephen Patrick Morrissey says, "I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside, and if I seem a little strange, that's because I am." Check out the specs in this PDF file.

The dates for which the third sweaters were announced today, and are as follows:
October 13 v Detroit
November 2 v Toronto
November 16 v Tampa
November 26 v Philadelphia
December 7 v Washington
December 27 v Boston
January 2 v St. Louis
January 15 v Toronto
February 14 v Columbus
February 22 v Colorado
February 26 v Boston
March 9 v NY Rangers
March 21 v Washington
April 4 v Pittsburgh
April 7 v NY Islanders

According to the official team page, the sweaters will be available for sale at the Caniac Carnival on Sunday September 21. The release indicates that the pricing will be in line with the pricing of the normal sweaters: $300 for authentic and $115 for "premier". Customizing makes it more. I'm definitely getting one. Even with my STH discount, the authentic is a little rich for my blood. I'd rather by a "premier" (replica) AND a new digital camera.

I highly recommend a visit to the photo gallery of the event.

More on this in a bit

Sneak peek at Carolina's third?

I received an official e-mail from the Hurricanes today, confirming what had already been confirmed a day earlier: the Hurricanes will unveil their alternate sweaters in a press conference on Wednesday September the 10th. The e-mail included this "tease" of a photo:


Is this really a sneak peak? I don't think so.

One thing I am pretty sure of is that this is some modified version of what will be the shoulder patch. After examining the photo at some length, including the stitching, it seems like there's no way that this is the chest crest.

It also seems pretty clear that the colors have been altered. This isn't the real thing. There's a part of me that thinks that this charcoal gray look would be really awesome, but I just don't think that it's really it. As much as everyone else in the world says it's overused, the sweater will almost certainly be black, and the "sighless eye" logo will maintain its red and black scheme.

I've pretty much decided that I'm signed up for a new third sweater, and I only need to decide whose name and number I'll wear. Sorry, but I just don't like blank sweaters.

Again, we'll know exactly what it looks like at 12:30 on Wednesday. I won't be attending, so I'd appreciate a photo text message from anyone who does attend.

Canes to unveil third sweater on September 10

On Thursday, the Hurricanes announced that they will be holding a press conference at 12:30 on Wednesday September 10 to unveil their new third sweater. This is 11 days earlier than originally planned, and they will now be the first team to introduce the new sweater.

The press conference will be open to the public, but RBH will be unable to attend. Y'know. That whole "job" thing.

According to an official team announcement, Eric Staal, Cam Ward and Tim Gleason will model the new sweaters and pose for photos. Presumably, they will also announce the 15 games in which the new black sweaters will be worn.

The sweaters will be available for sale on September 21.

horrible looking third?

Today, the good folks over at Icethetics were able to present some visual representation of the third sweater desriptions given by Toronto Maple Leafs beat writer and pal of Eklund Howard Berger.

Keep in mind that the image you see is only an artist's rendition of a questionable description given by an unreliable source.

If the desription that Berger gave is accurate, and this rendition is a fair rendition of what he saw, I've gotta say that it looks horrible. There's no way in the world that I'm going to shell out a hard earned $200 or so to get one of these. There is nothing good about this rendition. The stars are crap. The white triangle is crap. The traditional logo inside that white triangle is crap. The sleeves look halfway decent, but the rest of it is crap.

I'm hoping that Berger's account was completely wrong, and the forthcoming thirds feature the "storm warning" secondary logo on a black background. No white triangle and no stars.

We won't know for sure until September 21, but I'll tell you right now that I hate the way that rendition looks.

New sweater design leaked???

Although we won't know for sure until September, our friends at Icethetics have an inside man, and he has a description of all 18 alternate sweaters set to debut this fall. The Hurricanes alternate isn't quite what we were expecting.

Here's what their inside guy says

Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes will introduce a black third jersey, with red and white trim – different than their customary red home uniform with the black and white trim. Each arm will sport red and white angular stripes. The bottom of the jersey will feature a narrow white stripe and a thicker red one. In between, will be 10 white stars. The club’s red logo on the uniform front is placed within a white triangle, presumably to honor the famed Research Triangle that dominates the Raleigh-Durham area.

We were all expecting the alternate logo to appear on the crest and the main logo on the shoulders. This description doesn't indicate whether the "red logo" refers to our traditional crest logo or our alternate "storm warning" logo. Either way, the "white triangle" is a bit unexpected, and the "ten white stars" come out of nowhere.

No pictures are available, although their inside guy says he's seen evidence. Now, to be fair, I should point out that the "inside guy" is one of Eklund's lackeys. Therefore, this shouldn't be trusted just yet.

Here are the details about the other 17 sweaters.

The description of the Sens new third makes it sound an awful lot like the all-star sweaters from last season.

I can't wait to see these. Especially the Hurricanes.

Out with Scorpions, in with AC/DC

Finally, on Friday we got some semi-official word about the third sweaters that have been speculated upon for the last two years. Luke Decock spoke with Jim Rutherford on the matter, and JR has indicated that the third sweaters could be worn as early as October 13, against the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings.

Everyone has speculated for years now that the third sweater will be black and will flip-flop the primary and secondary logo. Rutherford declined to comment to Luke about that, but it seems like one of only two options. The other being a diagonal wordmark "CAROLINA", similar to the one the Rangers wear, or the Penguins used to wear on the Avalanche used to wear as thirds. The picture above is from a concept gallery at NHL Tournament of Logos, (which has since migrated to the new website, Icethetics). It's not dramatic, but it's the one that most of us have imagined ever since we first started dreaming about a third sweater.

In Luke's article, Rutherford indicated that the team hopes to unveil them at the Caniac Carnival in September, but they won't interfere with the pageantry of opening night. They'll wait a little while, but it sounds like he's pretty set on debuting them on October 13.

Having obtained NHL approval for the alternate jersey, Rutherford said they could be seen on the ice as soon as the Detroit game, when owner Peter Karmanos figures to be in the stands. League guidelines encourage teams to use the alternate jerseys no more than 10 times per season.

"We wouldn't wear it opening night," Rutherford said. "Our jerseys as they are now are really nice jerseys in red and they're really popular. ... It could be [Detroit]. It won't be opening night, but after that sooner rather than later, probably. We haven't made that decision."

"Rock You Like a Hurricane" by the German hair band Scorpions, has been the Hurricanes semi-official theme song since day one. Except for the 2005-06 playoffs, it has been played as the players hit the ice and during the starting lineups. It will almost certainly be supplanted by the over-used in sport "Back in Black" by AC/DC.

Like Dave over at Carolina on Ice, I can't wait to snap one up. Every day at work, I get a few free dollars. Literally a few. Never more than six; never less than two. Instead of passing this money through my liver and kidneys, I've been quietly squirreling it away. Three dollars here and five dollars there doesn't sound like a lot, but in just two months, I've stashed away $192 of free money that would otherwise go to beer. That's my sweater money. If I have to buy an authentic, I'm about two-thirds of the way there. If they produce replicas of the third, I'm already there. Since I'm already squirreling the money away, I'll just keep doing it, and call it parking and gas money.

According to the same article, as many as 18 NHL teams will have alternate sweaters this season. Last year, with the rollout of the "RBK system", no team had an alternate. This will be the first time the Hurricanes have had an alternate sweater, leaving Detroit and New Jersey as the last teams standing to have never had one.