A Definitive Ranking of All the Winnipeg Jets Jerseys, Finally
I know what I love as a consumer. I’m an avid reader of sports blogs, too, I don’t just help run one. And I wanted to see what someone felt was a definitive ranking of the jerseys of the Winnipeg Jets franchise. So I made one.
This came to my attention, since, watching the game the other day, I took note of the Winnipeg Jets new aviator jersey.
For those of you who may have forgotten my post, I’ll keep my judgment to myself until we get there. Out of fairness, you know.
I feel obligated to tell you what you’re about to encounter. I’m usually not with the majority on these things. I love the Miami Marlins uniform, and the current Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s an eclectic mix for your boy, and I hope that helps.
But I know that the WHA and early NHL Jets had about six different jerseys, but I’ll stick to logos when it comes to things like that.
This isn’t a very long list, of course. And, while I have no problem using the old Winnipeg Jets jersey (wouldn’t be much of a list if I didn’t), I’ll refrain from including Coyotes or Atlanta Thrasher sweaters.
And hey, you gotta start somewhere. Just because there’s only a few Winnipeg Jets jersey styles doesn’t mean you don’t get to know how to rank them. Let’s start at the back end and work in.
It’s a top 9. What can you do, they only had so many jerseys?
#9 – The New Aviator Jerseys
Big surprise. You saw it coming. I saw it coming. I’m not saying the Winnipeg Jets have the best jerseys in the NHL, but I really like it. I think the logo is sleek and it’s not too busy.
That aside, I was excited when I heard the Jets had leaked a new jersey design. Oregon milks new jerseys for all they’re worth, and they know people love new ones.
It’s human nature. But then I saw it. I thought about it today, more than a month removed from high expectations, and I thought, “Those are okay”. In a vacuum, they’re not..terrible.
But within the context of ‘putting in even marginal effort’, they’re bad. It looks like a Christmas design. Powder blue with ‘Jets’ in script across the front? And a couple wide stripes?
Sure, there’s not a lot going on, so it’s not too busy. But at the same time, there’s not a lot going on. It’s just…a jersey. It’s like the monochrome New Era hats. They make em for everyone in just about every color, but it doesn’t mean they should.
And it certainly shouldn’t be the Jets alternate uniform. But here we are. Stuck with a Christmas sweater, or something I would think was a cool Jets t-shirt I found at a Ross, if this idea never existed.
That’s when I realized how bad it was. That the idea would be cooler if I were introduced to it again, at an outlet store, hopefully in an XL. But if I didn’t know it existed, it would be the only way I would like it.
#8 and #7 – The WHA Jerseys.
The Jets home and away versions of the WHA inaugural season both come in at the back end.
Since the two are essentially the same, and both not enjoyable, I figured I’d include them on one slide. That’s not the best picture, but what can I say, Getty images can only do so much.
I have included a link here, though, where you can see the white. Doesn’t look so bad in the greyscale, huh?
The Bobby Hull jersey in that link sold for over $122k, which is insane. I get it, it’s a crazy piece of history. Well, there’s one reason this wasn’t last: The era.
We’re in the 70s here, what did I expect? And honestly, the white one isn’t the worst, which is why it’s at 7, and the blue at 8. Era be damned, that blue doesn’t belong anywhere.
I’m factoring in expectations here, which is both A) unfair, and B) I don’t care. It’s all unfair and subjective. Make your own list. @ me on Twitter. But only one of these jerseys came with expectations for me.
That’s how a jersey that is worse gets a better spot. It’s why I think Inception is the worst movie I’ve seen, once you factor in how good it was supposed to be. Same reason why Reign Of Fire is so good: Because it should be the worst movie ever, but it isn’t.
This should be a terrible jersey, but is it? Yeah, it’s bad. Moving on. They’re both bad. Slightly less bad in white.
#6. The Away Baby Jets. The blue and white early 80s bits don’t keep up.
I just never understood why they used a shade of blue like that. Look, I get it, I wasn’t alive, how could I know?
The 90s were terrible for stylistic purposes, everything looked like a commercial for some grossly textured kid toy that probably is just putty.
Yeah, I kinda wandered into that sentence and got lost, my bad. Either way, I have two main issues with this jersey. The logo is cool-ish. The blue is so, so bad. And the stripe!
That over the shoulder stripe is never great when white is the top shade. It’s not a great way to pull it off.
It looks vaguely pope-esque. Or maybe like a stole, which apparently is the thing that I was talking about.
Either way, it’s embarrassing, but it’s Dale Hawerchuk, so it’s not all bad? If that’s the best I could come up with, maybe we need to move forward. Let’s go.
#5 The Fading Star Aways -The 90s Jets didn’t do things the wrong way, that’s for sure. Well, on the ice, maybe they did, but whatever.
Now, the top 5. We’re starting to get to the good ones, and I can stop blasting jerseys. Well, I guess that’s probably the fun part. We’ll start with the bad. I don’t like the stripes, again, they’re too wide.
Not as big of a deal as on the last one, and I don’t love this jersey. The blue is worlds better than the other shades of blue I’ve seen, but still not great.
That being said, it’s still not an awful 90s blue. But this is a usable jersey. I would rock this on a t-shirt. One that I ordered online, not just one I chanced upon at a Marshall’s. Or a Ross.
I feel like there’s always hockey stuff at Ross but never at Marshall’s. Whatever. This isn’t my favorite, honestly, but it’s fine. Perfectly adequate. We needed that.
We couldn’t go screaming from terrible jerseys into great ones. I do like the logo on the last jersey more than this one, but not enough to override the clergywear and terrible hue of blue.
This is the okay jerseys. The decent boys, the beginning of the end for the Winnipeg Jets, and the end of the beginning. But still, could be worse. I wouldn’t want one, though, and that’s a big deal.
#4 The Fading Star Home – Clean. Cut. 1990s.
This 1990s fad worked, as buying into having a mostly white outfit has really taken off in recent years.
The 1990s found it, and it’s stuck around. It works here. The sweater of the jersey is basically just white. That’s it’s thing. You got little elbow stripes and the bottom stripe, but otherwise, clean.
All white would’ve been weird, but, honestly, I’d love to see it. It’s the Winnipeg WHITE OUT. The name of this website is literally Jets White Out. This is what it’s all about.
The Winnipeg Jets are the white out. Their fans are actually the white out, and this is one of the best home arenas in sports to play in. Last season, the Jets were the best home team in the NHL.
And the Winnipeg White Out is Jets history, and this jersey is about as close as we get to that. Plus it just feels like it could still work. The logo and blue needs and update, but hey, I’d buy it almost as-is.
When you can say that about a jersey, you know you have a good one. And this is a really, solid jersey. It’s not in my top ten all time, but I really like it.
#3 The Teemu Home Special
The Alumni game really got me into this jersey. The Heritage Classic got me into Winnipeg Jets jerseys, period, and they don’t get enough credit for that.
This is the Teemu Selanne special. Also, 2016 Teemu Selanne looks a bit like Mads Mikkelsen, which is just fantastic. Really good actor by the way, good stuff.
Really good Finnish hockey player, by the way. But this jersey. I’m sorry. I know, it has the stole stripe up top and the blue isn’t ideal. The red isn’t even ideal, but it’s okay I guess.
The bottom stripes are nice, as they hem the jersey. The top stripe isn’t my favorite, but that logo might be. It’s great. And I’ll use this photo every chance I get.
I would rock this. If I had to buy a Winnipeg Jets jersey, it would be second. And I hate wearing white. I don’t own anything white just so that I can do one load of laundry.
Is it lazy or brilliant? Or both? No, it’s just lazy. But I would give up my ban to buy this jersey. And you should, too, we sell em here for $349.99 (I’m just kidding we don’t sell them), but we do sell stuff.
Regardless. This might be the all-time great of Winnipeg Jets jerseys. But it finished third? Huh. What is above it, you might ask? Not as straightforward as you might think.
But I’m throwing a curveball here. Zigging when you thought I was zagging.
#2 BOTH the current Jets
Our runner-up is the Jets home jersey, the current version. But it’s also the away jersey. We have a tie.
Am I cheating? Yeah, totally. I can’t make them one spot on the list. It’s a top ten that I intentionally shoehorned into a top 9, only to do this to you? What a tool.
Regardless, I did it. I wanted to throw you a curveball. What better way to make sure you don’t know what I’m going to do than to break the rules I had previously set with my behavior?
You couldn’t have seen it coming. My genius aside, these are really great jerseys. I’d put the blue one above the white one, but it’s really close. I love the current logo.
I really do. I have the sticker on my computer and the keychain of it on my keys. I have the Dustin Byfuglien shirsey, in the dark blue.
Again, if I wore white, I probably would have a white one, too. I’d really like a jersey. Never had a hockey jersey. I almost bought one, but I swerved and got the team Sweden hoodie instead.
I linked to the women’s by accident, but the design is the same. Best piece of sports clothing I own. But I do love these Jets jerseys. It drew me to the team initially, so I can’t hate.
I know you guys will probably disagree that I had them so high, but what can you do? It’s my list. I told you it would be strange. But the logo is so good. It’s clean, it has a jet, but also a maple leaf, non-traditionally in the background. Nice.
Could you make it with clip-art and some talent? Absolutely. Does that take away from it? Nah, not really. It’s the Occam’s Razor of NHL jerseys. It’s simple, but why deviate from simplicity if it works so well.
Number one is…the Atlanta Thrashers?? No, it isn’t, I’m just kidding.
I like the Thrashers jerseys. The red one is really cool, and if I was including all of the jerseys, that would’ve been up there. They had really cool jerseys, but not good ones.
You know what I mean? It looks cool, but it isn’t good, kinda like a John Woo movie. But this is the real #1. And it’s still cheating.
#1 The Heritage Classic
Look how tall Tyler Myers is. Insane. Either way, these are the Heritage Classic jerseys. I alluded to how much I loved the classic earlier, and this is its crowning achievement.
These are perfect. Crisp white. A nice, deep, greying blue. The perfect logo. They took the Teemu special and made it modern.
A great idea, taken from the past and made to fit modern standards. They didn’t change too much, and ruin the source material. But they upped the color scheme and modified the pattern enough so that it looks new.
They hit that perfect medium that’s so difficult to find. The crisp white played so well in an outdoor game, too. It couldn’t have been better, and I think most of the Outdoor Classic games have great jerseys. The NHL does a good job, and this was top of the line.
There’s nothing I don’t like about the jersey. Maybe the elbow triple stripe could be better, but if I can’t think of immediately how, maybe I’m wrong. It looks fine.
I wish the Winnipeg Jets would bring this back for some reason or another. For now, you’ll have to live with it being our #1 All-time Winnipeg Jets jersey.
Next. Winnipeg Jets Biggest FA Misses. dark
As far as NHL teams, the Jets have an above-average jersey crop, despite the eyesore they currently use as their alternate. It was a good time ranking them, thanks for coming.