On Tuesday evening, Michigan Tech debuted their new home white jerseys. Why a new jersey debut in February you may ask? From my understanding, the Huskies had been waiting quite a while for these jerseys to arrive due the greatly disrupted global supply train. Thanks again Covid.
As a die-hard jersey collector, I am always eager to see something new from the Huskies, so this clearly checks that box. Fans have waited a long time for the new Huskies athletic logo to find its way on to the front of a jersey. This logo made a brief one game appearance as the crest of the military tribute camo jerseys in November 2017. (Author’s note: I am still looking to purchase a camo jersey. Who has one? CASH offered!). However, it took almost six years for Piano Dog’s successor, which was revealed in March 2016, to become the crest on one of Tech’s primary jerseys.
The Design
This design is essentially recycling and tweaking the features of the two most recent home jerseys: 1) The 2015-19 round crest white and 2) The throwback white worn 2019-21. It derives the striping template, shoulder yoke and cresting from the 2015-19 set. The font used for the names and numbers is similar to the most recent set except that both are now two-color sewn twill, black edged in gold.
What’s good
Finally, the current athletics Husky logo graces the front of a hockey jersey. While the MICHIGAN TECH ring around the oval logo is questionable, scaling it up to a larger size does allow for the interior “Pensive Husky” logo to be larger as well. The traditional “Huskies” patch on the shoulder should put traditional MTU hockey fans at ease and is a welcome change over the school crest. The UP patch on the opposite shoulder locating Houghton has also become an acceptable staple of recent jerseys.
What could have been improved
The oval Husky standing alone would have been a good time to move away from the overused simple, straight sleeve and body striping. It is very common in hockey from the NHL to in-house youth teams, which is even more reason to go in another direction. The block font of the name and numbers could have been much more creative. There are plenty of rounded, sans-serif fonts that would have enhanced the oval crest. As for the overall color scheme, there is too much low contrast gold on white. While the gold edging of the crest, name and numbers looks acceptable up close, from any distance (fans in their seats, TV broadcast, etc.) the gold edging is lost in the white jersey body and almost makes the edges look blurry. Edging with a darker color (maybe the long absent official school color of silver?) would provide greater contrast.
The final verdict
Overall I give it a six pucks out of ten. The bulk of that score results from finally getting the current Husky on the front. However the lack of creativity in other areas of the design and the jersey’s appearance from a distance really holds it back. This design has a lot of unrealized potential that prevents the “wow” factor that some other recent jerseys have delivered for the Huskies. Maybe it time for the school to hold a design contest and let fans show the team their vision for the next great Huskies sweater? What do you love? What do you hate? What would you have changed?
Photo credits:
New jersey photos courtesy of Michigan Tech athletics, historical jersey photos by www.johnsonsjerseys.net.
Ryan graduated from Michigan Tech just before the turn of the century (BSME 1998). After many years in the Huskies Pep Band drumline, Ryan eventually found his way to Denver, CO where he is currently a sales engineer in the construction industry. When not busy adding to his collection of 700+ collegiate and professional game-worn hockey jerseys, he serves as a road game photographer for Tech Hockey Guide, as well as contributing the occasional off-beat editorial piece.
I have the same take as when the other circle-logo jerseys came out: Someone at CCM must’ve given Tech a smokin’ deal on blank Boston Bruins jerseys.
I also don’t think that combining the school name and a logo (be it the script “Huskies” or the oval dog) works at all. Use one or the other please, but not both.
FWIW, I am kind of partial to the name plate being underneath the numbers.
PS: If gold edging on a white jersey is hard to see, what makes you think a silver edging would be any better? I’d go with a thicker edging, or maybe swap the colors (gold numbers with black edging that’s thick enough to make numbers more readable
I think the name under the numbers is more of a throwback feature, like the current black jerseys. Certainly not a favorite of road team broadcasters. My only reason for thinking silver is that if you only have two colors, you need something darker for better contrast. Not that silver is a GREAT option (maybe it doesn’t contrast enough with the black) but white, silver, black is going to be more visible than white, gold, black at a distance. Also silver has been missing from Tech jerseys for a decade now after being heavily used in the 1990s. Time for this official school color to return to the jerseys.
Example of the late 1990s whites, which ironically also has black numbers edged in gold.
https://www.johnsonsjerseys.net/hockey/mtu/mtu05_97h_b.jpg
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