Few teams make blue on blue look good, but the St. Louis Blues may be the only team in pro sports that can pull off the look. Over in the NFL, the Tennessee Titans have one of the worst looks in football, and you can say the same about the MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays and the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies - sorry, state of Tennessee, but it’s that bad.
Funnily enough, the Titans, Rays, and Grizzlies all have impeccable throwback uniforms, and if they cared about sports aesthetics, they’d re-implement them ASAP. It won’t happen, but I can dream. And while the Blues have a throwback uniform that I’ll admit is better than their current threads, what they’re wearing these days is still pleasing to the eye, probably because they implemented the right amount of gold and white.
Anyway, when the Utah Hockey Club unveiled their inaugural look, I was surprised to see an (sort of) expansion team actually not mess this up. These days, I cringe when teams reveal new uniforms regardless of the sport, but Utah’s rock black and mountain blue provided two things: Uniqueness, but at the same time, something familiar and classic - stairstep lettering, anyone?
That said, it goes without saying that I was looking forward to watching the Blues and Utah play tonight, not just because they’re teams I’ll enjoy following this season - one is restructuring their lineup while another is building, but I’m always up for a matchup featuring two solid uniforms.
Uniforms were what I thought of for the St. Louis Blues-Utah matchup
For some, preseason hockey can be fun to watch, but for others, it can be boring. I mean, we’re often seeing borderline NHL squads play opponents whose lines could be primarily in the AHL or junior hockey. So, just one look at who’s playing will let us make an educated guess on who’s going to win and by how much, especially early in the preseason.
It’s probably why you often hear the common phrase, “Is it October yet?” as opposed to, “Is it September yet,” even if the NHL technically starts its preseason in September. But that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the game’s aesthetics, and, to be frank, uniforms could even decide whether I tune in for a game during the preseason.
Earlier today, we saw the Rangers and Bruins, one of the best-uniformed matchups you’ll get in the NHL, regardless of the time of year. Last night, we had the Buffalo Sabres face the Pittsburgh Penguins in a game that, despite it being so lopsided, featured two teams with classic threads.
The Blues and Utah Hockey Club may not have that “classic” look many NHL fans crave, but as far as hidden gems had gone this weekend, it still made my shortlist of best-uniformed matchups to kick off the preseason.