| 19 February 2010
Cole Jones, the Olympic Hockey Blog's self-proclaimed fashion correspondent [insert Sean Avery joke here], has taken it upon himself to choose the winner out of each of the tournaments 3 groups, based not on statistical analysis or intelligent debate... but rather based on how much he likes their uniforms. Today, he takes a look at Group B, and decides which team, out of Russia, Slovakia, Latvia, and Czech Republic deserves the Gold Medal in Sweaterology.
If Group A was the best dressed, then Group B is without question the worst dressed. The term "best dressed" brings forth connotations of neatly packaged team identities with bold striping and professional class. In Group B, the term takes on a much more nuanced definition. I'd rather call it "least poorly dressed."
The least poorly dressed in Group B is Russia, and the only real reason I can say that is the crest. Russia's logo is, and has been, one of my favorite parts of Olympic competition since the fall of the Soviet Union. The crest looks intimidating, and the Cyrillic wordmark really hammers home how international of a competition the Olympics really are. The actual jersey design isn't nearly as nice, though. Random patches of color, contrasting armpit stripes, shoulder caps galore. Lucky for Russia, they aren't alone with this affliction in this group, or in this tournament.
Click here to see their white jersey.
Only slightly worse than Russia is the great nation of Latvia. The color scheme of maroon, black, and silver really sets them apart in this tournament, and the crest adds something visually interesting to a tournament with such bland logo marks. Luckily they avoided the armpit coloring that Russia decided on, but they still decided to go with contrasted shoulder caps for some reason. The large intrusive stripe-interrupting LATVIJA wordmark is probably what kept this uniform out of the top spot in the group.
Click here to see their white jersey.
The Czechs avoided both the dreaded armpit coloring and shoulder caps, but decided to base their identity on curly, rounded, super-contrasted waves. Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of the design, but what makes it even less appealing to me is the stark contrast of the sleek stripes with the bulky traditional crest. I love the crest to death, and it brings back memories of the old "Czech-butt" jerseys from Nagano and my younger days, but I've seen rec-league sweaters that looked less patched together.
Click here to see their white jersey.
Closing out the group of ugly is Slovakia. They aren't so much ugly as they are boring and cliched. With a blue sweater that looks like what I'd expect Russia's third jersey to look like, if they had such a thing, the Slovaks are the stereotypical Nike hockey jersey. Nothing we haven't seen before in this Olympics, or previous World Championships, or Torino. Shoulder caps, colored pits, square collars... yawn/puke (Your choice.)
Click here to see their white jersey.
Remember when Nike Swift designs were running rampant online, with people worried that they were a precursor for the Reebok Edge uniforms? Thank you Reebok, for not forcing every NHL team into 2 templates like Nike does. Someone should have told the designers in charge of Group B that just because a panel CAN be a different color than the body of the jersey doesn't mean it HAS to be. Oh well, at least they all have cool crests.
Cole Jones covers the Dallas Stars at The Other 6 Seconds in addition to his work on Bloguin's Olympic Hockey Blog.
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