Going Green: OHL’s Sudbury Wolves Introduce New Third Jersey Rooted in History

The colour scheme for the Sudbury Wolves’ new third jerseys might seem like it comes out of left field, but there is historical precedent for the radically different palette.

On Wednesday, September 17, the Ontario Hockey League team launched their new green and gold third jerseys on their social media platforms, and they’ll make their on-ice debut during their home opener on Friday, September 19, against the North Bay Battalion.

It’s a sharp left turn from the blue, white and silver on the Wolves’ usual home and road jerseys, but it’s a look rooted in Sudbury’s hockey history.

*Courtesy **@Sudbury_Wolves** / Twitter*

The jerseys are mostly green, with white shoulder yokes and gold and white stripes around the waist and sleeves. It features a green wolf crest outlined in gold on the front; the wolf has white markings, a red tongue and red blood on its fangs and dripping from its mouth. The collar is green with a gold stripe through the middle and white laces at the front.

According to an article on the Wolves’ website, hockey teams in Sudbury have been wearing green as far back as 1915; when a local team won the Gordon Cup that year, they wore green jerseys because several players played for a local club with the same colours.

When the Wolves joined the Ontario Hockey Association in 1972 — the franchise relocated from Niagara Falls that year — they too sported green jerseys. Different iterations of a green wolf logo appeared on the front of those jerseys until 1989.

In 1989, though, Wolves owner Ken Burgess — who, a few years earlier, wondered out loud, “Who ever heard of a green wolf?” — changed the team’s colour scheme to blue and silver. Those particular colours may have been chosen as they matched those used by Burgess’s company, Burgess Power Train and Manufacturing.

Since then, the Wolves have not strayed far from blue and silver — though they did try out a black and silver alternate jersey in 2010-11. But green and gold have continued to hold a special place in the hearts of Wolves’ fans, and the team has dipped into that well a few times over the years. For their 40th anniversary in Sudbury in 2011-12, the Wolves broke out a green and white alternate jersey mirroring what they wore when they first moved to the city.

“My father wouldn’t be very happy,” then-Wolves CEO Mark Burgess, Ken’s son, told Sudbury.com at the time. “If he was alive today, I don’t think he’d let this happen. He really did hate the green and white.”

“Green and white has played a tremendous part in the Wolves’ history for 40 or 50 years,” he added. “I owe it to the fans. … But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Neither Burgess would enjoy the Wolves’ look in Friday’s home opener, then. The green jerseys will be paired with green helmets and green gloves with gold accents.