On June 20th the Columbus Blue Jackets will have their “new” jersey revealed. Although it doesn’t appear to be that new.
The 2017-2018 season will see “new” jersey designs for 12 NHL teams, including the Columbus Blue Jackets. Yesterday, Adidas released small previews of the jerseys in their #FormTheFuture campaign.
I say “new” because it appears as nothing has changed. There was discussions of the cannon being the primary logo, color scheme shifts, or a combination of the two. The tweet appears to take all of those changes off the table.
New #CBJ jerseys from @adidashockey coming soon 👀!#FormTheFuture pic.twitter.com/8MAcvr2Dlo
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) June 12, 2017
The bottom left quadrant of the flag and star logo appears in the tweet. The colors remain the same and there is no sign of a cannon.
Missed Opportunity
This unfortunately is a missed opportunity for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Adidas, and the NHL. The Jackets coming off their best season ever are starting to make waves and could have rebranded for the next 20 years.
Columbus Blue Jackets
I love Ohio and love our swallow-tail flag. But the logo currently is a poor representation of the flag. It first off you can not see the swallow-tail design that is so iconic. Most people outside of Ohio couldn’t recognize the flag even with the two tails but without it no one could point it out. The logo just appears to come to a point behind the star. If the logo is supposed to represent Ohio, there needs to be a more distinct gap to making the flag stand out.
Also it is backwards. The flag should start either on top or to the left. Otherwise it just looks odd. Also one must understand the rich history the state of Ohio has with the civil war to understand why our logo is just our flag and a star.
The logo should have been cannon centric. It is a central part of our game experience that people around the NHL know. It also is one of the most iconic images of the Civil War. A logo that draws upon not only the team and it’s game culture but the history behind the nickname is what the Columbus Blue Jackets needed. Instead, we got the same old thing. What a missed opportunity for the team.