Montreal Canadiens Unveil Winter Classic Sweaters

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The Montreal Canadiens have unveiled some smooth looking retro sweaters for the 2016 Winter Classic.

The Habs will meet the rival Boston Bruins at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts on January 1 and they’ll be sporting these fellas below.

I’d think that they’ll get pretty dirty if you wear them out and about casually, but the cotton base look is pretty fantastic.

Not only are the designs combining some good retro elements and some nice contemporary design, every element of them appear to imbued with the team’s rich history.

From the team’s press release:

The jersey recalls multiple elements related to the Canadiens rich history. The chest stripe is a shade of blue inspired by the first-ever Canadiens jersey worn after their founding in 1909. The central crest features a “CH” with colors inverted from what has been the norm for 90 years. The “C” is white and the “H” is red, as they were in 1923-24, the season the team won its first Stanley Cup® championship as part of the NHL. An image of a globe on the sleeve borrows from the “World Champions” design worn by Montreal the following season to celebrate its championship, a season where the franchise also began its longstanding rivalry with the newly-founded Bruins, then playing in their inaugural campaign. The jersey also features a distinctive red collar originally is reminiscent of that worn in 1945-46, a season that culminated in the Canadiens, led by the “Punch Line” of Maurice Richard, Hector “Toe” Blake, and Elmer Lach, defeating Boston to earn their sixth Stanley Cup® Championship.

That’s a mouthful, but a pretty fantastic explanation of everything that’s going on with these jerseys.

And there might be more to look forward to as PK “JJ Abrams” Subban teases something else that’s going on. I’m putting my money on Christmas mitten gloves.

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