Then & Now – Dale Hunter

Once, he wore a really bad hat and modeled the new Capitals jerseys on a hockey card:

1995-96 Topps - Dale Hunter

Now, he is their head coach and they are wearing red, white and blue again:

Dale Hunter, ladies and gentlemen.  Pretty tough dude, unless you ask Pierre Turgeon.

Fantastic Fashions – The Jofa

1995-96 Topps - Pat Verbeek

There is nothing to call this other than The Jofa.  Everyone will know what you mean.

It’s not cool like The Gretzky Jofa, or even cult-cool like The Arturs Irbe.  This is just a spectacular monstrosity of an ugly helmet that should never have seen the light of day.  Mario Lemieux should be ashamed.

Fantastic Fashions – The New York Islanders

1995-96 Topps - Brett Lindros

Oh, the saga of the Islanders’ uniforms.  They had a great one, a classic that got them four Stanley Cups.  Nothing special, but a good, solid uniform that fit well – I always kind of thought of the Islanders as the Mets of hockey.  I figured you either cheered for the Yankees and the Rangers or the Mets and the Islanders.  That was the only possible combination.

Around the time of the lockout, they moved to this Captain Highliner monstrosity that Mr. Lindros is modeling above on 1995-96 Topps.  They realized that was a mistake, but then they put the old logo on the new jersey design, which might have been worse.  Finally, in 1998, they fixed the mistake, and introduced the classic jerseys in a nice navy blue.  Other than the team, all was right on Long Island.

However, they found a way to fuck it up again by inflicting this orange disaster upon the unsuspecting public.  And THEN, when the Reebok Edge system took over NHL jerseys, it got WORSE AGAIN!  Finally, finally, in 2010-11, after toying with the classic as an alternate for a couple of years, it looks like they’ve fixed it.  It only took them the length of a Rick DiPietro contract.

SIDE NOTE: Check out www.nhluniforms.com for the most comprehensive database of NHL uniforms over the years.  It’s addictive as hell once you start looking around.

Fantastic Fashions – Late 1990’s Calgary Flames

1995-96 Topps - Gary Roberts

Do you think their late 1990’s jerseys were to blame for Calgary almost losing their NHL team?  They were just trying so hard to put that C on a pedestal, and that never works.  That jersey even made someone as great as Gary Roberts look like a schmuck.  Combined with the 1995-96 Topps design, that card is soooo 90’s.