Quick Slants: New Era for CFL Apparel and Humboldt Stronger

Quick Slants: New Era for CFL Apparel and Humboldt Stronger

Published: Thursday, Sep 13th 2018, 4:09am

by: Greg McCulloch (@GregOnSports)

New Era For CFL Apparel

I am a bit of a sports design snob.

And by a bit, I mean I am the type of guy that looks at an awesome giant saw blade that a Redblacks fan had custom painted to look like the Redblacks logo and tell him that saw teeth are facing the wrong way.

He spent all that time and money and did it backwards… sigh…

So, when the announcement dropped that New Era was taking over as the official supplier to the CFL I was excited. I like new logos, designs, techniques, patterns, etc.

New Era is the premier cap company on the planet, they have the exclusive cap rights to the NFL, MLB and NBA. That makes them the only company with an exclusive deal in what most consider the top 3 leagues.

However, my excitement was tempered in a hurry when I read that New Era wasn’t going to be changing anything for 2019. Which while it sucks because I want to see some new designs, it is a smart business decision by New Era.

While New Era has been really good at the cap game they haven’t really ventured out into the apparel world. The CFL is a first for them so they want to get it right, even though they could have made a big splash redesigning the whole league like Reebok did in 2005. (And by redesign the whole league I mean Reebok had 3 different templates and randomly assigned a look to a team)

Keeping the same looks was the approach that Nike took when they took over the NFL apparel contract. Yes, they tried their own innovation with the “flywire” collar, which made some uniforms look like the players were wearing a golf shirt. But it didn’t come across as a cash grab all at once.

New Era would be smart to start with a one team redesign or introduce new alternates for a couple of teams to put their stamp on the league.

If they are asking me, I would recommend a complete overhaul for Alouettes as their logo hasn’t changed since they returned to the league and their look has been stale since they introduced that jersey as an alternate in 1999.

I am just excited that I have an excuse to do some new concept art.

Humboldt Stronger 

This piece took a little longer than it usually does to write as I was kind of distracted. Like most of Canada, if not North America, I was glued to Twitter and TSN for the first game of the Humboldt Broncos since the bus crash.

I know how emotional I was sitting at home, I cannot imagine the feelings pulsing through that building.

With tragedy comes a ton of pain, but with healing comes hope.

Humboldt showed the world that there is still hope out there, even after the unthinkable happens.

Humboldt could lose every game this year by 20 goals and it is not going to matter. The fact that they have picked up the pieces and are moving forward is more of a victory than any trophy, or any title, or any championship.