It’s safe to say that the Islanders have one of the most iconic logos in the NHL.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder if you think it’s a good logo or not, but everyone knows the Islanders logo when they see it.
Their color scheme is also very fitting with the royal blue and orange, the colors on the NY State flag. The Mets wear those colors, as well as New York City Football Club (to a lesser degree). The blue and white jerseys for the Isles are simple and clean, no added patches necessary, or waves on the torso (gross).
So why is it that whenever they make an alternate uniform to pair up with their home blues and road whites, they always aren’t good?
Perhaps that’s a harsh word, there were some good uniforms in the bank of Islanders thirds. But most of them have been duds. I’m not going to give each jersey its own paragraph, rather I will split them up into groups.
Typical Logo
A few of the Islanders’ third jerseys have had that iconic logo. The first of these was basically the fisherman jersey with the classic logo. This was made to counter the outrage that the fisherman jerseys caused when they were first unveiled. That entire era in Islanders history was a mess, and the uniforms were a microcosm for the franchise’s descent into a perpetual laughingstock, that they really only came out of in 2018.
The other more notable jersey was the orange one from the early to mid-2000s. People liked them when they were first released, but they couldn’t contend with the classics. Either way, they were playoff contenders with those jerseys in tow, and they always pop up on the back of a fan every once in a while.
A few years later they brought back the classic uniforms as a third jersey, but seeing the iconic blue as a third jersey makes no sense; so the team made them the main uniforms from 2010 onward.
The NY Logo
What the team has done in the mid to late-2010s for their alternate uniforms is use the NY from the classic logo and put in on the jersey. It started with the 2014 Stadium Series at Yankee Stadium against the crosstown-rival Rangers, with a blue jersey hosting a silver NY logo; they then carried over into Brooklyn where they were all black with some white stripes and text.
The team finally ended with their current third jersey, blue with white shoulders, and a weird number font. My favorite of the three is admittedly the black one since I believe it to be the cleanest of the three, but I’m not really that fond of any of them.
Whatever the Heck They Did in 2011
Photo: —You know what these uniforms were, and they’re perhaps the worst of them all. Black with gray shoulders, and the word “Islanders” across the chest. No one liked these uniforms then, no one really likes them now.
Everyone hated the fisherman uniforms, but there is still a sect of fans that want to see them return on the ice. There’s no Islander fan that wants to see those black uniforms come back.
Should the Islanders keep trying until they get one right? Should they just stop trying, and keep the two main uniforms that they have?
We may never know the answer, but as long as businesses are driven by the almighty dollar, we can always suspect another uniform every so often.
Featured Image: 1000 Logos
