HS State Hockey: Uni Watch, Minnesota Style

The hockey jersey is, in general, the coolest uniform in all of sports. Hockey sweaters are undeniably cool. Compare this to other sports: Baseball jerseys look stupid untucked in any situation, but if you wear one tucked into anything but a pair of baseball pants, you look ridiculous. The same goes for football jerseys, and anyway football jerseys are entirely variations on a theme: one color for the jersey, another for the numbers. There is not a lot of room for creativity with a football jersey, and those who do try to get creative (see: Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos, etc.) invariably look like clowns.

And nobody looks good in a basketball jersey. Not even basketball players. And if you're a member of the general public, you have the choice of either wearing a T-shirt underneath and looking like a goober, or going shirtless and exposing your armpits to the world, a decision that always ends in tears of some kind.

Rugby and cricket and soccer jerseys are basically normal shirts, but with gigantic logos plastered on them. Your choices are either to wear a normal-looking shirt (pointless if you're going for the jersey look), or to wear something that's basically a billboard in clothing form.

But hockey jerseys? They look cool on the ice, off the ice, and even on people who are not wearing pants. Hockey jerseys work.

Of course, when it comes to high school jerseys, all bets are off. It's fairly tough to find classy jerseys in high school sports. I suppose this is the product of stupid nicknames and the fact that no high schools have design gurus to make them look good.

This week at the Minnesota state hockey tournament, we had all sorts on display. There were some good, some bad, and a few in between. First, photo links to all of them, so you can see what I'm talking about:

1AA: Rochester Century
2AA: Woodbury
3AA: Hill-Murray
4AA: Blaine
5AA: Burnsville
6AA: Edina
7AA: Grand Rapids
8AA: Roseau

1A: Albert Lea (the guy getting hit)
2A: Duluth Marshall (another)
3A: St. Thomas Academy (on the left)
4A: Little Falls
5A: Blake
6A: Orono
7A: Hermantown
8A: Warroad (the guys doing the hitting)

Lots of variations there. Several teams aim for classiness by using the New York Rangers-style diagonal lettering - Roseau, Albert Lea, Duluth Marshall, Little Falls, and Orono all go this route. Only Woodbury and Hermantown go completely sans lettering on the front of the jersey (Woodbury making the curious decision to wear a cuddly-looking blue lion on the front of their jerseys.)

My rankings are based on no design guidelines, no sartorial principles, nothing except for one guiding rule: Would this jersey look good if I wore it on a random trip out of the house? Given the freedom that we all have to utilize the coolness of the hockey jersey in all situations in life, as far as I'm concerned, that's the only rule that matters.

First, I must mention the jersey that is by far the worst in the entire state tournament: the Marshall School Toppers. The darks are horrible; the lights fall into the category of "sartorial holocaust." No team not named "Bumblebees" should wear these jerseys. They are undeniably hideous.

Little Falls, they of the unbelievable purple-and-yellow color scheme, are running a close second.

Beyond that, though, here are my rankings for the top 3:

3 - Orono - Classic in every respect, from the diagonal lettering down to the red, white, and blue color scheme. You could take this template and put any letters across the front that you wanted - "TURGID", "BOLLOCKS", anything - and it'd look classy.
2 - Blake - You have to love the Hartford Whalers-style jersey and color scheme. Give the WHA credit, they could do jerseys.

And the best-looking jersey at the state tournament:

1 - Grand Rapids


So what if the color combo makes them look like skating pumpkins. I love this jersey - from the non-monochrome look, to the orange sleeve-white jersey combo, to the stripe on the bottom (something that all hockey jerseys should be required to have). These are the best ones you'll see this weekend; hardly surprising that the Thunderhawks are in the final, given how good they look every day.

Tonight, we'll see the classic Grand Rapids jerseys take on the if-toothpaste-was-a-color jerseys of Roseau. "If you look good, you'll play good," goes the old jersey aphorism. We'll find out if that holds true this year.