Carolina Hurricanes Unveil New Road White Uniform for 2019-20

Three uniforms, three different logos.

The Carolina Hurricanes unveiled their new road white uniform this morning, borrowing elements of uniforms past and present; while adding a few new flavours to give it its own unique look for the future.

Across the chest is the club’s new wordmark logo, introduced last season, featuring their abbreviated “Canes” nickname with the hurricane warning flag design incorporated into the “C”. The logo is laid out in red and black diagonally across the front of the white jersey with a hurricane flag pattern across the bottom waist stripe. A thick red stripe trimmed in black is on each arm with the warning flag/hockey stick secondary logo on each shoulder.

“We are proud of our new wordmarks that were introduced prior to last season”, the Hurricanes explained. “Our ‘Canes’ nickname is how the vast majority of our fans affectionately refer to us and we want to bring a piece of our fans with us on the road by featuring it as the crest logo”

CANES logo aside, the uniform feels a lot like an updated take on the original white uniform Carolina adopted upon their relocation from Hartford in 1997 and continued with until 2007 (and then into 2013 with that additional and wildly unnecessary striping they added around the shoulders). Like this latest design, that original uniform also featured a checkered-flag stripe across the waist with the clean shoulders and simple red-and-black trim.

“This uniform is intended to be a modern take on our classic road jersey by incorporating many updated elements from the 1997 – 2013 models, as well as a similar striping pattern to the 2013 – 2019 model”, said the Hurricanes. “We wanted to create a cleaner look off of the most recent iteration with more white showing, a return to red numbers/letters with a black outline, as well as inclusion of some of our most recognizable brand features such as the warning flag pattern in the waistline as well as the reintroduction of shoulder patches featuring our new secondary logo.”

Close-up of the “CANES” logo across the front of the jersey

The shoulder patch features their secondary “Hurricane Warning Flag” logo

Additional elements on the new uniform include the continuation of the flag pattern into the inside back collar as well as what may be the most underrated addition to the Hurricanes uniform set — a raised-3D helmet decal with a re-coloured primary logo.

A recoloured and raised 3D decal added to the road white helmets

With the introduction of their new road white uniform, the Carolina Hurricanes become the first NHL team to feature three completely different logos across their three primary uniforms (home, road, alternate). We’ve seen teams like the Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, and Tampa Bay Lightning come close, but ultimately they were merely their same logo with an extra shape or text added — this isn’t that.

“We feel that we now have the most diverse uniform set in the NHL with three uniforms that utilize three different brand assets as crest logos, not to mention a fourth uniform when you factor in our Whalers set“, said the team. “We looked at many options in the creative process and ultimately decided that we wanted to make this jersey stand apart from our home and third jerseys”

With the diagonal wordmark it’s natural for immediate comparisons to the New York Rangers to come to mind – the Rangers, of course, have used a diagonal wordmark for over 90 years. The style has also since been tried and ultimately discontinued by the Pittsburgh Penguins on their road uniform in 1967 and again in the mid-1990s, and the Tampa Bay Lightning, Colorado Avalanche, and Ottawa Senators all on their alternate uniforms in the two decades following Pittsburgh. Like Carolina, both the Lightning (Bolts) and Senators (Sens) opted for a nickname of the team rather than their actual name but unlike those other two examples, the Canes are doing this on their full-time uniform, not an alternate.

We’ll get our first look at the new Carolina Hurricanes road white uniform in regular season action on October 5th when the Canes travel to Washington to face the Capitals. The first pre-season game on the road will be September 17th at Tampa Bay.