Tampa Bay Lightning Disrupt The Night With New Third Uniforms

Well, this one’s certainly different.

Now officially official, the Tampa Bay Lightning this evening unveiled their new alternate/third uniform three months after the jersey leaked back in November. The team promptly wore their new Adidas alternate uniform in tonight’s home game against the St. Louis Blues.

With a colour scheme of “Midnight Black”, “Storm Grey”, and “Flash Silver”, the uniform carries an overall look of monochrome black with the odd hints of silver and grey throughout; there is no white anywhere on the uniform.

The jersey base is black with sublimated raindrops on the sleeves, socks, and numbers – this pattern is tricky to see on the socks so in action they give the impression that they’re solid black or a dark grey with no striping. The pants have a large silver lightning bolt on each leg.

Sublimated raindrop pattern on jersey sleeves, socks, and numbers (Photo via Tampa Bay Lightning)

“The sublimated fade print on the sleeves, number system and socks feature a rain-like graphic that draws inspiration from lightning and the electricity of the fans”, read the press release from Adidas. “The details in the sublimation allow fans to experience the jersey in unique ways based on their environment.”

On the shoulder is the team’s usual shoulder patch but now in a tonal black and grey, the inside collar pays its respects to Lightning alternate jerseys of years past with “BOLTS” in the old font used as the crest on two prior third jerseys worn by the team.

Tonal Shoulder patches (Photo via Adidas)

BOLTS from their previous third jersey on inside collar (Photo via Adidas)

“When the Bolts won the Stanley Cup in 2004, they did it in a black jersey”, noted Frank Dipinto, a designer at Adidas Hockey in a video posted to the Lightning’s official website. “In this year’s third jersey they’re bringing back black in a completely different way.”

The jersey crest is the usual Lightning primary logo but now in silver with a subtle gradient, player numbers include the sublimated raindrop pattern mentioned earlier and are trimmed in silver, player name is silver.

Raindrop pattern extends to the player’s number (Photo via Tampa Bay Lightning)

Silver arm numbers on sublimated sleeves (Photo via Tampa Bay Lightning)

“Within the number system as well as the cresting you see this really interesting gradient pattern happening”, Dipinto added. “That resembles some of the spark and the shatter, the light that you see in the sky when lightning happens along the Bay”.

As mentioned, the Lightning are already wearing this uniform as we speak, giving us an instant look at how it appears on the ice, in action:

This is the fourth alternate uniform the team has worn during their nearly 30 seasons in the NHL and while this one is certainly… different… it’s not quite the most unusual third jersey worn by the club, let’s not forget their original third jersey from the late 1990s which also included sublimated raindrops:

From there they moved to something a little more traditional, using a diagonal wordmark reading the team’s nickname “BOLTS” on a blue jersey in the late 2000s:

In the mid-2010s the team brought back this idea, but now with the team sporting a blue jersey as their usual home set, the main colour was switched to black:

Despite the late unveil (we’re already well into the second half of the season!) the Tampa Bay Lightning will wear the new look seven times between now and the end of the regular season, after tonight all the games will be played on a Saturday. Here’s the full schedule of games:

Thursday, February 7, 2019 vs St Louis Blues
Saturday, February 9, 2019 vs Pittsburgh Penguins
Saturday, February 16, 2019 vs Montreal Canadiens
Saturday, March 2, 2019 vs Ottawa Senators
Saturday, March 9, 2019 vs Detroit Red Wings
Saturday, March 16, 2019 vs Washington Capitals
Saturday, March 30, 2019 vs Washington Capitals