Minor league jerseys and logos are usually something that get fans excited to root for the home team. The Toledo Mudhens, the Omaha Storm Chasers, and New Jersey’s own Lakewood Blueclaws are some of the best minor league baseball logos in the country. In hockey, the sport has its own great logos. The Binghamton Devils logo was one of the best in the league, but when the team moved to Utica, they ditched the old logo.
Today, the Utica Comets announced their new jerseys. They’re not bad, and some people seem to really like them. However, they look eerily familiar.
https://twitter.com/UticaComets/status/1428016517707350022
Is that… the New Jersey Devils jersey with a different logo? Let’s taker a closer look.
Yup, it’s literally the same jersey. The Devils did the same thing with the Binghamton Devils. When the Devils moved the AHL team to Utica, they changed the logo from green and blue to red and black. This was an obvious move to get it away from the Vancouver Canucks colors, but did they literally just have to take a Devils jersey and put Utica on it? Does this save money?
Obviously, the Devils are looking to have a similar look across all team platforms. This makes sense on paper, but teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning have the same color scheme as the Syracuse Crunch without being the same exact jersey, pants, and socks combination.
Other NHL teams can have completely different uniforms for their NHL and AHL teams. It makes a lot of sense to keep the color scheme. That allows fair-weather fans to associate the two brands. But a cookie-cutter jersey with just a different logo? That’s not what most fans want.
The logo came out really good, and people will buy the jersey to get the original jerseys for guys like Alexander Holtz, Dawson Mercer, and Kevin Bahl. However, they could have done a lot better in the jersey market if they went a little outside of the box. This isn’t a complete miss, but the Devils could have done better.