The Hurricanes yesterday unveiled new uniforms which provide a "cleaner look that discards and simplifies much of the striping, updates the lettering and moves the old warning-flag trim across the bottom to a hidden spot inside the collar," according to Luke DeCock of the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER. The logo and the colors are "the same, the look considerably updated" from the old uniforms. The new jerseys are "clean and simple and modern." If there is an "issue with the new look, it’s that it’s so simple it veers dangerously close to generic and anonymous." The old sweaters, "love them or hate them, were unmistakably Hurricanes sweaters." That has "been lost, the price of progress on other fronts." The Hurricanes "maintain merchandising profit wasn’t the motive behind the redesign, but at a time when the team’s performance on the ice isn’t much of a selling point, ticket prices and parking fees are skyrocketing." Even if it "isn’t deliberate, putting a bunch of new jerseys on the shelves feels like another move to squeeze every possible penny out of the fan base" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 6/5). ESPN.com's Paul Lukas noted the jersey crest is "now about 15 percent smaller," and in a "really unfortunate move, the warning flag pattern near the bottom of the jersey, which had been the team's secondary visual signature, has been eliminated and replaced by a generic striping." Lukas: "All in all, not an ugly uniform set, but definitely a downgrade." The home jersey looks "so generic, so minimalist, and the loss of the warning flag pattern robs the team of a big share of its identity" (ESPN.com, 6/4).
STORM WARNING: In Raleigh, Chip Alexander notes there are still "scheduling conflicts" between the Hurricanes and N.C. State Univ. over the use of PNC Arena, but both sides said that the differences "can be resolved." Hurricanes President & GM Jim Rutherford yesterday said, "I would hope the two sides could meet and have a better understanding of how it’s worked over the past 13 years." NCSU has "first priority on dates for its men’s basketball games and winter graduation ceremonies." But Rutherford and arena operator Gale Force Holdings "claimed the university put a hold on too many dates for the fall, waiting for the ACC conference schedule to be released while the Canes faced a June 1 deadline by the NHL for turning in their dates" for the '13-14 season." NCSU Chief Communications Officer Brad Bohlander said that the university had "released all but four dates through the end of the calendar year." It is "not known if the dates turned into the NHL by the Canes are among the four not released by N.C. State" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 6/5).
