After three years of sporting an unconventional helmet design, the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes are getting back to basics in 2022.
The team unveiled its new helmets for the upcoming season on Wednesday, April 27. They feature the club’s red “M-Bird” logo, outlined in white, on each side of the navy blue helmet, with a thick red stripe outlined in blue and white running down the middle.
The new helmets are a more traditional look than what the club unveiled in 2019 as part of an extensive overhaul of its visual identity. That helmet featured an oversized red “M-Bird” logo with no outline facing forward on the navy blue shell.
The helmet unveiled in 2019 also featured miniature versions of historic Alouettes logos over the right earhole. Those never made it to the field on the helmet, and they also will not appear on the new helmets for 2022. The mini logos did, however, make it into the stripe on the Als’ pants, near the hip.
The facemask remains red on the new helmets, and the “M-Bird” remains on the nose bumper. “ALOUETTES” is written out in red on the white neck bumper. A Quebec flag decal also appears on the back of the helmet, to the right of the stripe.
Wednesday’s announcement did not indicate whether further changes would be coming to the Alouettes’ jerseys or pants.
The team will wear the helmets for the first time on Saturday, May 28, when they visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for their first preseason game. They’ll see home action for the first time on Friday, June 3, when the Alouettes host the Ottawa REDBLACKS, also in preseason action.
Montreal isn’t the only CFL team tweaking their helmets for the 2022 season. After just one season of sporting antlers, the Edmonton Elks are reverting to their Double-E logo on their helmets this year.
Feature photo courtesy CFL.ca