The PWHL says Vancouver and Seattle will have names and logos in time for the 2025-26 season that opens in only a month. Yet the league still rolled out generic jerseys. As Pat Laprade writes, the hope to sell those jerseys, and then more next season could be involved.
The PWHL unveiled today the jersey colours of its two expansion teams. And while I have nothing to criticize about their creative and artistic side – in fact, the home blue and orange Vancouver jersey is a big favourite of mine – the same cannot be said for the process and logistics of the name and logo.
In fact, the league surprised me a bit with its statement.
Let me explain.
I expected that this season, the teams from Vancouver and Seattle would not have names or logos. Like it was during the first season in 2024.
Especially since then, there was the case of the Utah team in the NHL, which last year played without a team name or logo. This provided the perfect argument for the PWHL: if it's good enough for the NHL, it's good enough for us as well.
But today, when the league unveiled the jerseys of the two teams, with season one retro style where the city name is diagonally across the front of the jersey, the PWHL also mentioned in their statement that the names and logos would be revealed later, just before the current season, but that they would only appear on the jersey for the 2026-27 season.
I'm sorry, but as my grandmother used to say, that's dumb as a bag of rocks!
Because it's one thing to start the first year of a new league with six teams without names or logos. It's also one thing to add one or two new teams and not give them a name or logo in their first year. But it's a whole different thing to have a name and a logo and not put it on the jersey.
Good grief, when Utah joined the NHL, they didn't tell the fans, “Your team will be called the Mammoth, here's the logo, but none of that will appear on the jersey until next year!”
What The PWHL Is Trying To Do
I'm not naive.
I understand what the league wants to do. They want to maximize jersey sales because they remember that fans bought a jersey in year one and then another in year two.
But that's only going to work once, when you start a league. You can't do that every expansion. Fans will eventually see through that.
“These designs also connect our expansion teams to the league’s foundation while they continue building their own traditions and ties to the community,” said Amy Scheer, PWHL Executive Vice President of Business Operations.
The league’s foundation. That's all well and good. But you can't always go back in time. You have to move forward.
“Players wore wool sweaters when the league started in 1917, so we decided that the next expansion team will play with wool sweaters. We'll still release the regular jersey, but no one will actually play in it!”
I'm exaggerating, but you get the point.
The only other reason I could see is the lack of time to have the jerseys with the names and logos made on time. I don’t know when the names and logos were confirmed and approved. We are still a month away from the start of the season. But if that’s the reason, the league should have waited before releasing the name and logo. Do it exactly like the first two years then.
Either you release the name and logo at the same time with the jersey, or you release just the jersey with the city name and you wait until next year to do an official unveiling with the new jersey, name, and logo.
It seems like the PWHL really struggles to make the right decision in situations like this. And unfortunately, it’s often been that way for the past three years.