San Jose Sharks Unveil New “Cali Fin” Black Alternate Uniform

The San Jose Sharks officially unveiled their new third uniform tonight, the fourth different black alternate uniform design used by the Sharks since the 2006-07 season. The uniform was unveiled at an exclusive Sharks365 members event at the SAP Center in San Jose.

The team is referring to this as their “Cali Fin” uniform due to the use of the club’s “Evolve Fin” shark fin logo on the chest of the sweater. While the Sharks have been less than shy to fiddle around with their uniforms, this is still somehow the first time in their 35-year history that any of their home, road, or alternate sweaters have NOT included the team’s primary stick-chompin’ shark logo on the chest.

SAN JOSE, CA – JANUARY 18: 3rd Jersey Photoshoot at TechCU Arena on January 18, 2024 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Kavin Mistry/San Jose Sharks)

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A striking feature of the new uniform is the striping design down each sleeve, a slow transition in which each line is a little thinner than the previous until all that’s left is black. This same style is carried over to the socks.

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“The franchise strived to find ways to make the jersey meaningful to the larger Bay Area community, in particular honouring the heritage of Northern California,” reads the press release from the Sharks. “One symbol of Hispanic heritage and influence in the region are yarn-dyed textiles. The unique technique and striping patterns used to produce serapes and other items has a long history and still has a place in California apparel and surf culture. As a nod to this influence in the community, the team incorporated a teal yarn-dye-esque pattern on the sleeves and at the bottom of the jersey.”

Inside the back collar is a shark tooth pattern “to give the design a more aggressive look,” the Northern California shoulder patch from that one time the Sharks got to play in the Stadium Series back in the ’10s has been revived and re-coloured to match the modern pallet. Player numbers are white with teal trim and match the same style of typeface as their home and road set.

The uniform was designed in a collaboration between the Sharks, the National Hockey League, and Adidas. Fanatics will be replacing Adidas as the official on-ice uniform provider starting in the fall, but this design will be carried over with that switch.

“For third jerseys, our approach is to introduce new designs or elements that may be more unconventional to balance the more traditional primary home and away jersey,” said Doug Bentz, Chief Marketing Officer for the San Jose Sharks in the press release. “With the Cali Fin uniforms, we had two primary design goals to achieve. First, we wanted the uniform to be consistent with our organizational goals, our brand, and recent uniforms by looking forward to the future of the organization while simultaneously honouring our past. Secondly, to design a jersey for the ice, the street, and the community – one that would connect with our most tenured fans, attract new audiences to Sharks hockey, and relate with the Bay Area culture. We are proud of the final result and feel we accomplished our goals with the Cali Fin uniform.”

SAN JOSE, CA – JANUARY 22: 3rd Jersey Merch Photoshoot at SAP Center on January 22, 2024 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Kavin Mistry/San Jose Sharks)

The Sharks will debut the new uniform on February 17 against Columbus and will then proceed to wear them for eleven consecutive home games, taking them through to the end of March. As these are officially a third uniform, the Sharks are committing to keeping them in their regular uniform rotation for a minimum of three seasons, so get used to ’em; this ain’t a one-game-only special.

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Here’s the full list of games in which the Sharks will wear the new Cali Fin black third uniforms in 2023-24. All games are home games and times are listed in Pacific Time:

Saturday, February 17 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
Monday, February 19 at 1 p.m. vs. Vegas Golden Knights
Saturday, February 24 at 7 p.m. vs. Nashville Predators
Tuesday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. vs. New Jersey Devils
Thursday, February 29 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Anaheim Ducks
Tuesday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Dallas Stars
Thursday, March 7 at 7:30 p.m. vs. New York Islanders
Saturday, March 9 at 4 p.m. vs. Ottawa Senators
Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
Saturday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Chicago Blackhawks
Tuesday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Dallas Stars

As we touched upon in our article about this last week, the addition of black helmets and pants to the Sharks wardrobe allows the team to mix-and-match even more with their sweaters, buckets, and breezers. Since the league got a little looser with helmet colour rules, the Sharks have routinely swapped back-and-forth between their teal and white lids for road games. San Jose, of course, wore black helmets and black pants with their teal sweaters for their first thirty seasons… so there’s certainly some nostalgia attached to this combo — here’s hoping we see them again!

Fans can purchase their new black San Jose Sharks third jersey using our affiliate link here; Canadian fans can use this link to purchase using Canadian dollars and domestic shipping rates.