The NHL should get rid of home and away jerseys like the NBA did

This new system of choosing between four jerseys is an option the NHL should consider.

NHL jerseys have often been held as sacred by fans and their teams alike. It’s why there’s backlash to even the slightest change on iconic looks like the Blackhawks or Canadiens that comes along every few years or so. Many were hesitant to accept Adidas as the producer of both the World Cup of Hockey jerseys and the NHL’s own uniforms for next season, though both have come out relatively fine when all was said and done.

On Tuesday, the NBA and Nike announced that starting in the 2017-18 season, they will do away with the traditional home and away uniforms. Instead, home NBA teams will choose from a set of four jerseys while the away team will pick a “contrasting uniform” from their own. The idea is not unlike how soccer teams choose between a set of kits, where the home team selects theirs and the road team must pick a contrasting color.

Though the NHL has already signed on to a deal with Adidas and have cast their lot for the 2017-18 season with their recent announcement of the new uniforms, this idea is a tantalizing one for the year after. Adidas would already have one year under its belt at the helm and can easily phase into this second step in its second year as a partner with the NHL.

Hockey in general would seemingly do well to adopt this model. The sport already plays at a big disadvantage in the home-and-away uniform situation, as the standard-color home jerseys vs. white aways can be tough on the eyes against a white sheet of ice.

That being said, white hockey jerseys are historic to the sport despite that color clash with the ice surface. The NHL has played with white home jerseys and dark away ones for most of its history, and only within the last 15 years have we seen the switch to what we know today as the league standard. Taking white jerseys off the table is likely a non-starter for many traditional hockey purists, but this rotation of sorts may be the best of all worlds.

Hockey already has a strong history of alternate jerseys and historic throwbacks to choose from. With the Adidas takeover this upcoming season we won’t be treated to them at all next year, but who’s to say they can’t re-introduce those jerseys — and more — for 2018-19 in a way similar to the NBA’s new deal.

With that, we’d get the color-on-color jerseys that were a hit when the Red Wings and Maple Leafs squared off in the 2014 Winter Classic. Teams could choose to go back to white jerseys at home, fulfilling many fans’ wishes to return to the classic look of NHL games. The return of fan favorites such as the Penguins’ powder blues, the Coyotes’ cubist-inspired look, or other retro and alternate jerseys would spice up midseason games easily.

Of course, the idea would make things a nightmare for colorblind fans, much in the vein of the NFL’s “Color Rush” jerseys. The NFL found a way around it by running the combinations through an expert panel, but with so many jersey combinations the NHL would likely have a harder time making sure every game passes for all fans.

Giving teams a choice of four jerseys per game all season is a breath of fresh air for the four major sports, and one that really opens the door for a system like this to take hold in the NHL. There are hurdles, of course, and there will likely be new ones discovered by the NBA this upcoming season when the uniform system is implemented. Even still, it’s not a bad idea for the NHL to keep their eyes on how well this does in the NBA, and potentially beyond.