The 2023 Uni Watch NHL Season Preview
The 2023 Uni Watch NHL Season Preview
Your definitive guide to this year’s new uniforms, logos, goalie masks, ice designs, and more.
If you’re anything like me, you may find that hockey season often sneaks up on you while your brain is still in baseball and football mode. But ready or not, it’s time for another NHL season, which means it’s also time for the annual Uni Watch NHL Season Preview, your go-to source for all of this season’s new uniforms, patches, goalie masks, center ice designs, and more.
The sad news this season is that the Reverse Retro uniform program, which most fans seemed to like, has been mothballed. That may be because the league’s uni outfitter, Adidas, which came up with the ЯR concept, is in the final year of its contract and will not be back next season. (The new on-ice outfitter, starting in the fall of 2024, will be Fanatics, a development that no doubt will inspire confidence in anyone familiar with their retail merchandise. But I digress.)
Okay, ready to check out this season’s new threads? With the season set to begin on Tuesday, Oct. 10, here’s our annual team-by-team rundown of what you can expect to see on the ice.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Atlantic Division
Boston Bruins
As you can see from the logo shown above, the Bruins are celebrating their 100th season, and they have a bunch of things in store to mark that milestone, beginning with a new centennial uniform set:
The heavily striped designs on the left and right are this season’s road and home uniforms, respectively; the one in the middle is an alternate that will be worn for 11 games against fellow Original Six teams. The team’s full 2023-24 uniform schedule is available here.
If the yellow elements on the home and road uniforms look a little off in that photo, that’s because they’re a new shade of metallic gold that’s designed to sparkle under the lights. The effect is hard to capture in a still photo, but you can get a better sense of it in this very informative video:
As you’d expect, the new “B” logo on the centennial jerseys is also being used this season at center ice:
You can learn more about the team’s centennial celebration here.
Meanwhile: Goalie Linus Ullmark has a new mask that celebrates two of the most famous goals in Bruins history. On one side is a depiction of Bobby Orr’s Stanley Cup-winning “flying goal” from 1970:
And on the other side is Patrice Bergeron’s overtime goal that capped a series-winning comeback against the Maple Leafs in 2013:
Finally, speaking of Bergeron, the Bruins plan to retire his No. 37, although to my knowledge no date for that has yet been set.