KHL’s Chinese expansion team unveils jerseys featuring Great Wall

China’s expansion KHL team is making a statement when it comes to jersey design. On top of the sleek, gold dragon logo, Red Star Kunlun will have the Great Wall of China spanning across the entire base of their jerseys.

The KHL’s expansion into China has been confirmed, the new franchise’s name, Red Star Kunlun, has been established and the front office and roster are beginning to take shape with several signings and a few players inked to tryout deals. Meanwhile, though, the other aspects of the franchise are still taking shape. The logo for the club was only recently unveiled, and now comes a first look at the threads Red Star will reportedly be donning when the team hits the ice for the 2016-17 campaign. They’re unlike anything else in the KHL and NHL, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The jerseys, which boast a color scheme of red, white and a deep yellow, have a unique feature along the bottom edge of the sweater. Instead of having piping or stripes like many of the other teams throughout the pro ranks, Red Star has instead gone with an image of the Great Wall of China along the base of their jerseys. On both the white and the red jerseys, the sketch-like image of the Great Wall spans the length of the uniform. Take a look:

Kunlun isn’t the first organization to use a design of this ilk and a number of teams have used it in the past. Teams in the AHL, ECHL, SPHL and other minor professional leagues have employed the style before, but what makes Red Star’s situation unique is that they’ll be the first team in a top-tier hockey to have this type of design on their jersey for each game. One has to wonder if these jerseys would have flown had Mike Keenan gotten the job coaching the Chinese expansion club. Keenan famously

put a stop to some wacky Blues third jerseys in the 1990s during his tenure as coach in St. Louis, and maybe he would have squashed Red Star’s design. However, Keenan, once reported to be considered for the Kunlun coaching job, was passed over in favor of Vladimir Yurzinov, who had previously coached the KHL’s Salavat Yulaev Ufa.

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