The Calgary Flames wearing their home jerseys on the road was awesome and it should happen more

Since the early days of the NHL, teams have been required to have two jersey designs, a dark base and a white base. The 2003-04 season was the first time NHL teams started wearing dark colours at home, and it has been the norm since then. However, since specialty jerseys entered the locker rooms of NHL teams, there are certain occasions when the visiting squad will wear their home colours on the road.

The Flames wore their home jerseys in their most recent game against the Vegas Golden Knights, and boy, did they look good with the dark grey backdrop of the seats at T-Mobile Arena.

With the Flames wearing their reds on the road, it brought back a thought: what if every team found times during their seasons to wear their solid colours on the road instead of just when specialty jerseys are being used? Or what if they switched back to the old ways and exclusively wore white at home?

But, why? What does it really matter?

First of all, it doesn’t *really* matter, but it’s a fun thought.

Bringing back white jerseys at home and dark jerseys on the road would give fans of every team the chance to see their club’s away jerseys in person instead of only on their televisions. As of now, it’s essentially impossible to see your favourite team’s away jerseys or even some of their specialty jerseys, depending on their colour, unless you decide to make a trip to a road game. But, even for the most dedicated of fans, going to road games can be very expensive and sometimes not worth it, especially if the product their favourite team is putting on the ice isn’t worth the time or the money to go and watch. But what if there were nights when fans could see their team’s other jerseys (like the nights that the Flames do with their black Blasty alternate jerseys) that didn’t involve any travel other than their normal commute to the home rink? An easy and affordable way to go and see a hockey game where your favourite team has switched up their jerseys at home doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea.

Second, it would give fans in other markets exposure to different team’s jerseys as well.

For example, there probably aren’t many Golden Knights fans that would see the Flames home jerseys in person if it weren’t for wearing their Winter Classic jerseys (their alternate jersey for this season) at home. However, because of this night, I’m sure there were more than a few fans who walked into T-Mobile Arena and were more than excited to see not only a different Golden Knights jersey in person but a different colour for the visitors as well.

Hockey jerseys have become even more of a staple in sports and pop culture. Athletes in other professional leagues walk into arenas with hockey jerseys on, singers in all genres of music will wear the hockey jersey of the team in the city they’re playing in for that night or weekend, and some will just wear them around the town. Nonetheless, they’re a piece of clothing that is more unique than other sports jerseys, and exposing fans that go to games to different uniforms from different teams would be a way to help attract more people and potentially even earn more money on jersey sales.

All of this, of course, is just a fun thought experiment to help keep the good vibes rolling. The likelihood of any of the current norms changing regarding NHL uniforms is rather low, especially considering the kind of moves the NHL is making in regards to the companies that make their uniforms in the first place. The Flames have some of the best uniforms in the entire league (at least, in my opinion), and seeing how there were plenty of positive reactions to wearing the reds on the road, it would be interesting to see the reaction if there were specialty nights where away jerseys were worn at home or something of that nature.