The Uniform History Project: 1990's

The Other 6 Seconds?

It's said that the average male thinks about sex every 7 seconds. Cole Jones spends the other 6 seconds thinking about his beloved Dallas Stars.Cole moved to the DFW Metroplex in 1991, as an elementary school student. A few years after that, the Minnesota North Stars decided to join him in the Lone Star State, and it was the beginning of a love affair that has lasted for over 16 years and counting.

Syndication

Written by Cole Jones

Friday, 14 August 2009 09:49

The Stars franchise would begin (and end) the 1990's with a bang. The 90's would be a busy decade for the team. A decade that saw 2 runs to the Stanley Cup Finals (in 2 different cities), and their first ever Stanley Cup Championship.

They began the decade wearing the same uniforms that they ended the 1980's in. The traditional N-Star in green and gold (with a little black for fashion purposes).

In 1991, the Stars would go on a magical Cinderella-run to the Stanley Cup Finals, renewing interest in the team by the local fans and introducing the world to the magic of a young Mike Modano.

This would be the second trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in team history, but the first time the Stars would wear a patch to signify it. In 1981, the Stars had made a run to the finals, only to be easily handled by the dynasty Islanders. In the 80's, NHL teams didn't wear special patches to signify the Stanley Cup Finals. In 1991, the Stars would face off against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and once again fall short of winning it all.

Around this time, the Stars would also introduce a new secondary logo, that wouldn't appear on the uniforms (yet), but would find ways to pop up in various places. On the ice, in the arena, in publications, in game programs... It featured a 5 pointed italic star, with the letters ST^RS resting on the upper edge of the shape. The logo, which would eventually become the Dallas Stars primary logo, was designed by Bill Mack, who was an artist friend of Lou Nanne. His payment? A couple season tickets in the "Observatory Club" for his father, according to Lou in the book "Minnesota North Stars: History and Memories."

As you can see in the above photo, this logo would first appear before the 1991 Stanley Cup Finals, but would eventually become the team's primary logo. By 1991-92, the Stars would fully replace the N-Star logo with the ST^RS logo, as well as minimize the green and gold on the uniforms, in order to dive head first into the early 1990's sports trend of primarily black jerseys.

The 1991-92 uniforms were a work in progress when the preseason began. In addition to the re-ordering of team colors and drastic alterations to the striping patterns, the Stars also introduced slight changes in number font (most notably on the 1 and 4, which now had a base) and a totally new nameplate font. The font used is known as "Crillee" and is widely available on the internet nowadays. Crillee has been used for everything from the Toronto Blue Jays numbers, and bags of Doritos (hahaha... Jim Lites...) However, the fans in Minnesota were not pleased. They weren't overly pleased with the drastic change in logos and uniforms, and complained that the nameplates were simply too difficult to read from the stands. Because of this complaint, the Stars would remove the new nameplates, and begin the season with solid block 1-color names.

The 1991-92 uniforms also were notable due to the fact that they had 2 commemorative patches on display. Every NHL team wore the NHL's 75th Anniversary patch on the upper right chest that season. In addition to being the NHL's 75th year, it was also the Stars 25th Anniversary. The Stars added their own patch to the left shoulder of their uniforms that season. It featured Mike Modano, dressed in black, taking a face-off against fellow Stars legend Bill Goldsworthy, clad in green and gold. It's a really neat looking patch, so if you didn't already click the link 2 sentences ago, I'd recommend you click here and check it out :)

Luckily for Stars fans in both states, the Stars didn't completely go off the deep end with the uniform re-design. Based on a prototype jersey I discovered, things could have been much worse.

This unused jersey is one of what I assume was many prototype uniforms put together by the team during the redesign. It features the crillee nameplates, solid gold (and glittery, yuck) names, numbers, and logos... with simple green pinstripes around the waste. You can see the real deal Holyfield by clicking here for the hideous front of the prototype, and here for the painfully ugly backside. Thankfully, as I said, these uniforms never saw the light of day.

In 1992-93, the NHL continued to be patch-happy. This time, making every team in the league wear a patch to celebrate the 100 year Anniversary of Lord Stanley's Cup. Other than the swapping of patches, the uniforms remained unchanged.

However, this would also be the final season in Minnesota North Stars history. Slumping ticket sales, merchandise sales, and an unwillingness to share the Target Center with the NBA's Timberwolves forced the Stars into a stalemate with the Twin Cities. Norm Green sent a letter out to the season ticket holders in Minnesota, informing them of the Stars efforts to find a new arena that would allow them to control the advertisements shown on their ice and boards. Little did many fans expect, the Stars would eventually find an arena willing to give them such control..... Reunion Arena, in Dallas, Texas.

The 1993-94 season began with uniforms familiar to Stars fans all over North America, but a location new on the hockey landscape. The Stars uniform remained unchanged from the final years in Minnesota to the first year in Dallas. The only alterations of any kind were minimal. The Stars added the word "DALLAS" vertically down the side of the pants, and added a brand new "State of Texas" logo to the shoulders (the first true secondary logo in team history). Not only did the uniforms remain largely unchanged, but the Stars relocation to Texas broke with convention in many other ways. It is common practice for sports teams to "start fresh" after relocation. This means unretiring numbers, partitioning the record books, changing names, colors, uniforms, staff, and broadcasters. The Stars did not. The record books, culture, brand, and even then color-man Ralph Strangis remained intact. In fact, the Stars are one of the only professional sports teams to hang a banner in their arena with the retired numbers from their previous location.

After the 1993-94 season came to a close, the Dallas Stars would tweak their uniforms once more. This time darkening the green considerably, and adding the word DALLAS to the primary logo. Because of the darker shade of green, the Stars were forced to swap the colors on their numbers, because dark green on black would simply be too difficult to read. The black uniform would now feature white numbers, with thin green borders. The Stars would also make bolder, thicker stripes on the jersey and socks.

These uniforms would remain intact for the majority of the decade, with white serving as the home jersey and black as the away sweater. However, in the mid 1990's many NHL teams began to experiment with alternate or "third" jerseys. The Stars were no exception, introducing their alternate look in the 1997 season.

The Stars new third jersey would see a return to green for the NHL's most beloved "green team." The design was basically a rip-off of the mid 90's NHL All-Star sweaters. (Fun video, if you click the link. Moog, Hatcher, Hull, Arnott... Hitch with Crawford as his assistant coach... good times.) This alternate sweater is unique in that it's the only jersey in team history that would be designated as a home jersey, a road jersey, and an alternate jersey, before being retired in the late 00's. This jersey would remain as the Stars official alternate sweater until the start of the 1999 playoffs, when the Stars would retire the road blacks, and adopt the green star as the road sweater.

The 1999 Playoffs would be the most celebrated in team history. For the second time in the decade, the Stars would attach a Stanley Cup Finals patch to their sweaters, as they would face the Buffalo Sabres in the season's final series. The third time would be the charm for the Stars franchise, as they would win their first (and so far only) Stanley Cup championship in team history, in their third trip to the finals.

The green jersey would become so popular among the fans and players, that it would remain the full-time road jersey starting with the 1999-2000 season, with a white version to accompany it as the new home jersey.

The NHL would once again have all it's clubs wear a commemorative patch in the 1999-2000 season. This one wasn't really in honor of anything, other than the fact that "The Year 2000" was finally here, in a very anti-climactic change of century. The NHL had a few variations that season on the patch's color. The Stars had a green version with white and silver markings on both uniforms.

The only other alterations to the uniforms were minimal. The Stars (sadly) removed the DALLAS lettering from the pants, and removed the black from the sock design. The Stars also swapped helmet stickers, and replaced the simple star with a full primary logo. The Stars introduced a green version of the "State of Texas" logo, for use on the white sweater.

These uniforms would stick around for the next several seasons, stretching into the next decade (and another trip to the Stanley Cup Finals)... but you'll have to wait a little longer to for the next addition to the uniform history project... which should include more "extra" uniforms than any other decade I've documented so far... so stay tuned.

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UPDATED 10/13/09
I recently got an email from our friends over at Vintage Minnesota Hockey. He included some photos of another rejected Stars prototype uniform, with another unused font. As always, when I get new information and new photos of prototypes, I'll add them as I get them. Thanks again to Kyle at VMH.