Friday, September 28, 2007

Rbk EDGE Review: Lightning

Part 5 of 30. All 30 NHL clubs have unveiled new jerseys under the new Rbk EDGE Uniform System for the 2007-08 season. Here at the NHLToL, we're going to review every one of them. Read up and then rate the new sweaters. We'll do a full ranking after completing all of the reviews.

Rbk EDGE Uniform System

Tampa Bay Lightning


New Uniforms

Old Uniforms

The Unveiling
Saturday, August 25. The Lightning unveiled their new uniforms to fans at ICEfest held at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa. Among those players in attendance were Chris Gratton, Filip Kuba, Johan Holmqvist and Marty St. Louis donning their new jerseys.

Home vs. Road
Home: Black. Road: White. The two sweaters are essentially mirror images of each other in terms of overall design and both feature secondary logo patches on each shoulder.

The black home jerseys feature white cuffs with thin blue piping at the wrist. A blue stripe around the arm rounds up on the inside to the armpit. The collar is blue and the primary logo serves as the crest.

The white road jerseys feature black cuffs with thin blue piping at the wrist. A blue stripe around the arm rounds up on the inside to the armpit. The collar is blue and the primary logo serves as the crest.

In The Details
The same shoulder patches featuring the secondary logo are found on both shoulders of each sweater. The block style numbering and lettering have been retained. The white sweaters feature the jersey number on the front right shoulder. The black ones do not. The unique thin stripes found under the armpit have been carried over from the old style jersey. Another noticeable change was to the pants where the lightning bolt now sits on a blue stripe.

New & Old
The Lightning were one of seven teams to introduce new logos. Aside from that, the overall jersey designs saw drastic changes. The shoulder yokes found on both sweaters are now gone, making the jersey a solid color throughout. In addition, the horizontal stripes at the waist are gone and the sleeve stripes have been greatly altered.

Standard FAQ
Numbers on the front? Yes.
Laces at the collar? No.

UPDATE (10/5 2:01 AM): Originally, the Lightning were only going to be wearing the number on the front of the white jerseys. Apparently that's changed as they wore the numbers on the front of the black jersey in the regular season opener. So the information here has been changed to reflect that both jerseys now have numbers on the front.

NHLToL Editorial by Chris
I should first say that with the Lightning being my favorite team, I may come off as biased. But this is the opinion area after all. As a Lightning fan, I've always thought our uniforms were dull and second rate. I can now proudly say we've taken a huge leap forward. I don't know if I can honestly say I believe the new sweater stands up to the likes of some of the others, but I'm very impressed. My favorite aspects include the increase in the use of blue in the uniform and the removal of the shoulder yokes. A fact worth noting that I own a black Rbk EDGE premier jersey and I love it. 4/5



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Buy your new Lightning jersey!

11 comments:

Unknown said...

The only team whose logo change actually looks better than what they had the previous year.

Unknown said...

Personally, I hate the bolt on the pants, but I guess that isn't the jersey.

Overall, I like these ones. I think the new bolt could have been set up a little better. The dark colour in the top corner of it (by the 'y' in Bay) makes it look a little cartoonish in my eyes

Anonymous said...

I like this jersey...not super jazzed about the new logo...but it is better than before

I like the no striped bottom and the color panels on the under side of the arms adds an overall sleek look...nice job!

Darryl said...

white = the suck
black = not terrible

Drew Celestino said...

I'm surprised no one mentioned the curvy socks... I'm not too keen on those.

Jason said...

The logo and pants are improved. The over-all jersey design and the socks are worse.

NHLMAN said...

Happy to see number on the front of the home jersey's, I didn't know they changed their mind until I was at the home opener game tonight. BTW Chris, I'm the Biggest bolts fan here!(lol), but I would not mind sharing the title with you, great job on the site, I've been on it every day, Go Bolts!!!!!

Finny said...

I liked the Lightning a lot back when they first came into the league, awesome logo and colors. Now many years later I have gotten bored of them and it's nice to see they renovated the logo albeit a little cartoonish but looks good. Will definitely look at getting a black home jersey with Cavs.

Only real downside is when watching them on ice the black can be a bit strong and overshadow the blue and give it more of a practice jersey look.

zdaddy said...

Yesterday I reviewed what I said was the best looking jersey in the NHL (Canucks) today Im proud to review what I would call the second best looking jersy in the NHL, the Lightning..!! Cant seem to find a thing wrong with it, the colors on both the home and road jerseys look great! Awesome logo! If anything it would have been cool if they came up a different logo for the shoulder patch. 5 out of 5 stars.

ranndino said...

Loved the TB unis ever since they first came into the league. These new ones are sweet as hell. I want one.

It's funny how people's opinions differ so much when it comes to design. I've seen many comments from people who think that TB unis are the ugliest in the NHL. I could not disagree more.

Anonymous said...

These new Lightning jerseys are an improvement upon the previous ones. I like that there's more blue in them, whereas the old ones were just black, white, and a tiny, almost unnoticeable amount of blue. The black/blue has always been a cool color scheme. I don't like the road socks, though. Too many stripes, plus they're curved. if they were just curved, like the home ones, i wouldn't mind that, or if they just had a lot of stripes but were straight. but both curved and lots of stripes? too much for me.