The NHL Color Scale: Red, Yellow/Gold, And Orange

Before I post the next set of scales I just wanted to thanks to the people that have been spreading my blog around amongst other hockey folks.  Special thanks to Matt Wagner over at Jackets Cannon for mentioning me in a fan post, it was a a treat to see that traffic.  The response yesterday was great so I'm going to go ahead and post a trio of color scales.

First of all, you can instantly see that while red is the second most popular color in league, the color still pales (he he) in comparison to the number of teams that use Blue.  Part of that can be accounted for by the number of teams introducing new shades of blue in their palettes with 3rd jerseys.  I admit I was shocked that Phoenix and Atlanta's reds were the same and that the red outlines on the Oilers's current alternate (old regular home) jerseys is also the same.  Also of the 14 teams using red as part of their jersey design, only two use unique colors.  Its interesting how similar the shades of red are between the 4 Original Six teams that appear on this scale. 

When I first started this project I had a separate category for "metallic" colors, but in the end that just didn't work as well as I had hoped.  So, instead we've got the Yellow/Gold category.  Not a lot of similarities when its comes to yellows and golds in the NHL.  What's most interesting is that all of the teams on this scale simply tag their shade as "gold" despite the obviously difference.  Atlanta decided to call theirs Peachtree Gold, so I guess they win the contest for originality, stupid names, and reasons why I hate driving around Atlanta.

As we move on the scales get smaller and smaller....  Now we're going to take a look at the orange scale.  And there's a great question, did you know that orange is the fourth most utilized color in the league?  I included the shade that the Flyers's up until last year for the added diversity and point out that I love how much red there is in that shade.  San Jose shows us why that orange is used just for outlining, its great as what it does and makes the Sharks's jerseys look great but its just muddy.  Biggest surprise for me, that Edmonton and Philly both use the same shade of orange.  Clearly the Oilers stole the Flyers orange.

And that wraps us up for today.  Tomorrow I'll post the last four scales (the baby scales) and that'll wrap up this brief look at the color with the NHL.  Then there will be another Feature Friday, so check that out and take a break from hockey blogs to listen to some music that you might have never heard.

Also check the first and last scales.