Reviewing the 2023 All Star Game uniforms

Jan 20, 2023 - 3:00 PM

On Thursday morning, Adidas and the NHL unveiled the jerseys for the 2023 NHL All Star Game, to be played in Sunrise Panthers early next month. Unfortunately for them, there had already been three separate leaks of the design prior to that point. Which sucks for Adidas and the NHL, but made it way easier to write this article in a timely manner!

For those unaware, Reverse Retro is the NHL’s response to the NBA’s City Edition and NFL’s Color Rush series. The idea is you take a throwback jersey, typically from the 1990s, and either mix up the colors or put in modern colors. For those who are interested in my prior thoughts on the 2022-23 edition, here’s my breakdown of the league as a whole, as well as Columbus’s individually. For those who aren’t, the TLDR is that it’s a neat idea that’s resulted in some amazing designs, but some teams’ decisions are questionable at best.

For the All Star Game, Adidas went back almost 30 years, to the 1994-97 design. The front side features a massive star cutout, dividing the jersey into two colors. On the originals, it was a purple/black and white/teal split. The back of the jersey is divided right below the namebar, but above the numbers.

The 2023 reboot uses the Miami Vice color scheme, first popularized (in the sporting world, at least) by the Miami Heat’s City Edition jerseys. It’s a fun color scheme for a one off, and ties in perfectly to the host city.

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The majority of this design is fantastic, but there’s a couple changes I’d make.

There’s a lot to like here! Tying into the Reverse Retro program is low-key genius, and in terms of being faithful to the original, you can’t do much better! The Miami Vice colors are unique to hockey, and is a fun departure from the usual monochrome look the ASG has had since 2015.

Except it’s only half a departure. And that’s where I have an issue.

The choice of what colors go where is questionable at best. The white/teal pairing is mildly annoying, with them being the two colors closest together of the four, but the black/white jersey is the worst offender. It relegates the two most fun colors to mere piping between two monochrome blocks. You have a fun, unique color scheme, take advantage of it! At minimum, the pink and white should be swapped on it.

The other main quibble I have is with the number of jerseys. You have a four-team mini-tournament. You have four unique colors that all contrast with each other. Why are there only two jerseys? You did four jerseys in 2017 and 2018, why the insistence on two per year since then? Imagine if you had a pink and black jersey and a teal and pink jersey to go with these. That’d be so fun!

Having two jerseys also presents a logistical issue. While a natural bracket would see the Central play the Pacific and the Metro go against the Atlantic in the first round, these jerseys, as presented, require cross-conference matchups. And then what happens if you have both divisions from the same conference advance, which has a 50/50 chance of happening? One of them is going to have to change, and posing as a member of the other conference, unless you have both crests on both jerseys. But then you’re back to having four jerseys again, and at that point have four unique designs!

That issue aside, I do still really like this design. I’d probably put it fourthall-time, behind the beautiful 2017 design, the 1994-97 jerseys these are based on, and last year’s pleasantly reserved take. Now, that more speaks to the awful, horrendous, dreadful, terrible, no-good, very-bad history of All Star Game uniforms, but it’s still a shame they couldn’t improve upon the originals.

What are your thoughts on the 2023 All Star Uniforms? Sound off down below.