A New Leaf Look For Next Season

The t-shirts disguised as Maple Leaf home and away uniforms are about to change.

The club has applied - actually, the forms were all filled out with the NHL last spring - to alter its home blues and road whites for next season. The team's classy third jersey - predominantly white, blue shoulders, old-style emblem - is expected to remain untouched.

Richard Peddie, the CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, confirmed today that the uniform change has been accepted by the league, but declined to provide details.

"I'm going to leave that to when it's all unveiled," said Peddie.

The Leafs went to their current look after the 2004-05 lockout when the entire league switched to a new manufacturer. The look of the jerseys was very basic, blue and white, while the lack of any piping around the waist created a t-shirt effect that many have panned.

The new jerseys won't include dramatic changes, but will add some lines and piping to where none currently existed. The Leafs applied in April, 2009 for the uniform change, which will take effect for Brian Burke's second full season in Toronto. When he was in Anaheim, he also changed that team's uniforms to the currently black and orange scheme.

The new Leaf uniforms are likely to be unveiled in the summer, probably on a date when, it's expected, Dion Phaneuf will be named the club's next captain.

Comments

[Sandy T.]

I want to say "about bloody time", but there's a part of me that's very afraid they're going to screw the uniforms up even more than they already have. The world is aware of what a Maple Leaf uniform looks like - they are what the team wore before the lockout - those were the Leafs. Can we just have those please?

I just have this awful feeling we're going to wind up with "something new and modern". There is a terrible mental picture of all those horrible CFL same-same unis flashing through my mind.

[Jordan]

I just read in another Toronto paper that they plan to scrap the great 3rd jersey for 2011-12. What a stupid move! The 1963-64 jersey is the best jersey they ever had and should become the full time jersey. But they insist on keeping the Ballard logo ughh! The Leafs never get it right.

[Wayne Wheeler]

With the maple leaf as a crest the body of the jersey should as the flag. The front and back torso in white and the arms, underarms and flag shaped leaf in blue. The socks can remain in tradition. If it had not been loyalyty to the Conservative party in the initial stages decades ago we could have be using red and white.

[Rick]

Anyone who doesn't think the leafs need the two stripes back lacks any taste in sports uniforms. Blue and white. That's it. Hell, just go back to the ones they wore in '93. They look like they're wearin' their pajamas most nights these days. The third jersey and a blue version of it for home games sounds would be fine too. But if you don't think they look stupid in the nightshirts they wear now, MLSE might hire you 'cause apparently someone in there didn't think they looked stupid either. You think they just forgot the stripes? Like "what's missing?", "I don't know, screw it..." Or was it deliberate? It wouldn't be the first deliberately dumb thing MLSE has done.

[dave s]

Boy, I can't wait for some extra piping on the jersey. That will be so swell, I can't wait to buy one. The third jersey is boring. Just roll it out when the 49th Highlanders play or when Keon is in town. More Pal Hal logo please, are the seventies starting again?

Reading this drivel makes my eyes bleed.

I have to agree with the graphic designer, the third jersey is perfect. The logo that's on the third jersey is what the team should have moving forward. The ballard logo, created in the seventies, and it looks it, should be mothballed asap. A logo created 40+ years ago, around the time the team stopped winning with any regularity. Coincidence? Who knows. Couldn't be managerial incompetence could it? Could it?

No other Original 6 team have bastardized their logo like the Leafs. A team with such a rich history, most of it before they changed the logo.

As an art director who works on major advertising brands, I cannot fathom why MLSE cannot get this right. They have a logo which is timeless and classic. A
logo comparable to the Black Hawks, Habs, Wings or Bruins. Even the Rangers haven't messed with their basic wordmark. Hey MLSE, the seventies want their logo back.

Imagine if the Yankees changed their logo or the Black Hawks - how wrong that would be.

What they should do is have home and away of the third jersey as their official jerseys.

The third could be some weird hybrid - experiment with it, get creative, where could you take it within the confines of the Maple Leaf look? It could change every year, flavour of the month - who cares, just get their official home and aways right. It could be a black and blue version for games with the Flyers or Bruins. Pugtestligerence at its finest.

Can't wait for that extra piping. Golly.

[Matt]

All the jersey needs is to bring back the two stripes at the bottom of the jersey, and some sort of shoulder patch. (Either the leaf that appeared on the 90s teams, or the TML logo, which I actually did not mind)

[Kevin]

Does the expression "lipstick on a pig" mean anything?

[Tom Hallick]

The Reebok "re-do" of the uniforms has been a big flop from where I sit. The Oilers road jerseys are just plain bad. Dallas just looks too damn high school like. The Leafs jerseys are too plain. Have the 3rd jersey as the road uniform & put the leaf crests back on the home jerseys. Would add a touch of class!

Too many NHL jerseys aren't worth the $130+ price tag!

[Jamie]

Peddie is getting an early start on the marketing spin. The boys aren't even on the golf course yet and he's priming suckers for more money to be spent on the 'new look Leafs'. Bah Bah Bah. Line up Sheep Nation. Get your 'New Look Leafs' jersey before they are all gone. Bah Bah. I'm still a fan, but won't spend a dime on this crap.

I never thought of it that way - but now that I do - you're so right.

[Rick Grace]

If you ask me, the Leafs traditional blue and white has become synonymous with losing. Time for a complete colour change in my opinion to rid this team of their demons.
How about red and white as someone mentioned?
Why not wear a jersey similar to the one 1972 Team Canada wore?
I mean if you want to start a winning tradition, you couldn't get a better jersety then the 1972 team Canada.

[Chris]

I actually agree with the bashers on this one: just another gouge of Leafs nation. Don't make the playoffs? Produce a new jersey. As much as the Habs have some brutal 3rd and 4th jerseys, at least they never touch tradition and neither do Chicago, the Bruins, the Red Wings and the Rangers; only minor augmentations. Not the Leafs though. It better be good.

[Kevin]

The real reason for the new jersey is in the timing of the revelation: during the off-season, to keep the Leafs in the news.

[Ryan]

I've been preaching '72 Summit Series or Canada Cup Styles since the lock out. Just replace the word CANADA with LEAFS or TORONTO.

Obviously modernize it a bit like the 2008/2009 World Junior's 3rd Jersey's from Ottawa. Then you'd have a winning Jersey. Save the Traditional Maple Leaf Crest for the 3rd Jersey. Almost 45 Years of losing signifies TIME FOR CHANGE.

[Online tshirts]

I think the new jerseys won't include dramatic changes, but will add some lines and piping to where none currently existed.