Confirmed: Leak of Adidas NHL Jersey Pops Up on eBay

[Update Dec 27/16 12:57pm ET]: Can now confirm this is legit thanks to an anonymous, reliable tipster. Headline updated to reflect this. The original post follows written while we were still unsure.

We can’t confirm it’s legitimacy but there’s an Adidas branded NHL jersey for sale on eBay right now…

The National Hockey League is preparing for their switch-over to Adidas as their in-game jersey manufacturer in 2017-18, after a preview during the World Cup of Hockey it’s possible that we have gotten our first glimpse of what is coming our way in the NHL via a product listing on eBay.

At the time of this posting the eBay listing will only be up for another 5 hours, it shows what it’s calling a “PITTSBURGH PENGIUNS (sic) MEN’S AUTHENTIC PRACTICE JERSEY BY ADIDAS” later adding “REAL JERSEY MADE BY ADIDAS NOT A FAKE”. There’s a lot of reason to be skeptical based on that alone but the actual jersey itself features a plausible design and it would seem odd to counterfeit a yet-to-be-released *practice* jersey, of all things… but this is the year of odd things.

Take a look at some of the pics from the listing:

You’ll notice the shoulders feature a similar effect that we saw with the 2016 World Cup of Hockey jerseys which, as mentioned before, was our introduction to Adidas at the NHL level.

Shoulders: jersey in listing vs World Cup jersey

The chest logo adds a circle around the team’s standard logo, whether intentional or not this instantly reminded me of the old “CENTRE ICE ” style practice jerseys circa 1998. This is either a league-wide template OR the Penguins are adding a circle to their logo, which itself would be a throwback for the team. I’m betting on the former, would be a major surprise that the Penguins would mess with their logo so soon after changing it just this past season.

Logos and numbers appear to be of a vinyl-style material rather than sewn on, which wouldn’t be that unusual for a practice jersey… if this *is* legit I’d hope this style would be limited to practice and not in-game. Yes, those are Adidas stripes up each side, as we saw with the World Cup.

So I conclude this with a reminder that we have no idea if this is legit, but it’s worth sharing. What do you think?

[Update Dec 27/16 12:57pm ET]: Can now confirm this is legit thanks to an anonymous, reliable tipster. Headline updated to reflect this. The original post above written while we were still unsure. We have since learned this design is legit.

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Special thanks to Twitter user @Skippy8778 for the heads up about this listing