Blue Jackets, Blue Pants: Columbus Tries New Colour Combo in Carolina

Columbus Blue Jackets? After last night’s game at Carolina, perhaps Columbus Blue Pants would be more appropriate (sorry).

In a last-minute decision while wearing their road white sweaters, the Blue Jackets put aside their traditional red breezers in favour of their blue Reverse Retro pants. It was the first time in the 21-season history of the team that they wore blue pants with a white jersey and, despite the 2-1 overtime loss at the hands of the Hurricanes, the new uniform combination looked good… real good.

I reached out to the Blue Jackets about why they made this move and they told me it was due to “the positive response to the [blue Reverse Retro] pants from team players and personnel”. When I asked if they would consider going to blue full-time they noted that *if * they wanted to make this change that it “would not be implemented until the 2022-23 NHL season”, my presumption there is the deadline for making any 2021-22 uniform changes has come and gone.

LINK: Columbus Blue Jackets logo and uniform history

With the exception of their various alternate uniforms over the years, the Columbus Blue Jackets have worn red pants since joining the National Hockey League as an expansion franchise along with the Minnesota Wild for the 2000-2001 season.

The introduction of the Jackets’ blue-and-beige “Cannon” alternate uniform was their first crack at blue pants back in 2010-11 and (with the exception of a single season in 2017-18), has continued to be worn by the team in the decade since. Note that these were not the blue pants the Blue Jackets wore last night. Instead, the club wore their second set of blue pants (these contain a red horizontal stripe at the knee rather than the beige vertical stripe down the sides of the “Cannon” alternate uniform pants). As mentioned earlier, this set of blue pants were created for use with the team’s red Reverse Retro uniform set, introduced earlier this season.

Reaction from Blue Jackets fans on Twitter appeared to be positive with many fans sharing the opinion that the white on blue looked much better than their usual white on red and should be made permanent.