Carolina Hurricanes Throw Back to 1997 for New Third Uniform

The Carolina Hurricanes are throwing things back again this season, but this time, they’ll actually be throwing back to a time in their current home.

In recognition of the 25th anniversary of their relocation from Hartford, the Hurricanes will wear the original red uniform design from their first seasons in North Carolina as their third jersey in 2022-23.

Check it out:

It’s a relatively faithful reproduction of the original look, worn from 1997-98 until the end of the 2006-07 season. The original run of this design included two Canes’ trips to the Stanley Cup Final and the franchise’s only Stanley Cup Championship in 2006.

“In celebrating our 25th anniversary in North Carolina, we felt there was no better time than now to honour our past and blend it with a modern Adidas cut by introducing our vintage-inspired red jersey which will serve as our third jersey this season,” Carolina Hurricanes Chief Marketing Officer Mike Forman said in the press release. “With the move to make our current black sweaters our primary home uniforms, the addition of this year’s vintage-inspired jersey has allowed us to round out our primary uniform collection consisting of our home black, road white and third/anniversary red. We hope our fans are as excited as we are to see these back on the ice this year.”

The Hurricanes will wear the uniform a dozen times in the upcoming season. A schedule of what uniform will be worn and when will be released by the Hurricanes soon.

“It gives you a second to reflect and look back on the organization’s history, plus it certainly goes with the times right now,” Carolina Hurricanes Special Advisor to the General Manager (and former player) Justin Williams said in the release. “It makes me think of 2002. Even though I wasn’t on that team, I remember them wearing those uniforms and it was kind of their coming out when they made the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time. Now our organization has evolved into a team that competes every year. The logo really means something and that’s what we’re going for.”

The only noticeable difference between the two uniforms, aside from making concessions to account for the Adidas jersey cut, is the collar striping — the original jersey had a large white stripe on the outside with a thinner black stripe inside; the 2022-23 throwback third jersey has flipped these around. The warning flag squares are also slightly different; the black square within the red is more significant than they were in the originals.

Take a look:

The introduction of this sweater brings red back to the Hurricanes’ uniform rotation; the club announced earlier this off-season that they were dropping their previous red uniform in favour of their black design.