“Ice blue” is pushing through in the Kraken’s new adidas Reverse Retro 2022 jersey, which was unveiled Thursday by the NHL.
The sea foam used in the ‘S’ logo is the primary color in the sweaters, which are set to be worn throughout the 2022-23 season beginning in November. Other franchises have the chance to bring back older logos, beloved or controversial, with updates. Without that history to draw from, the second-year Kraken stayed close to the designs they already sport.
According to a release, the design includes horizontal striping “that seemingly submerges the ‘S’ crest below the Navy stripe sea.” The Kraken’s red eye is at the top of the stripe, peeking out of this illusion of water.
There’s raised embroidery in the middle of the ‘S’, giving the tentacle dimension and the impression of a raised eyebrow, according to the release. The NHL logo gets a throwback of its own and appears in black and orange.
The team’s colors, which were released along with the Kraken logos in 2020, were inspired by the area landscape.
“We looked out and we saw the blue sky, the Olympics, sort of the rocky gray down to the blue of the Puget Sound, the sort of spectrum of tones of blues,” adidas’ design director for hockey, Matty Merrill, said in an interview for a story posted on the Kraken’s website.
There will be games where both teams wear reverse retro jerseys. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres are set to debut their new looks Nov. 2.
“The first iteration of Reverse Retro was one of the most popular uniform launches of all time. Fans couldn’t get enough of not only their team’s jersey, but the nostalgia and storytelling leaguewide,” Dan Near, senior director at adidas Hockey, said in the release. A key location for the German-headquartered company is in Portland.
The jerseys are made with Primegreen, “a series of high-performance materials containing a minimum of 50% recycled content.” Jerseys for all 32 NHL teams are due to become available Nov. 15 on adidas, NHL and team websites.