The Uniform History Project: 1970'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

Wednesday, 01 July 2009 09:21

Welcome to the 70's. The decade that saw the Seals franchise relocate to Cleveland for 2 miserable years, before merging with our Minnesota North Stars. This merger coincided with the demise of my favorite Stars uniforms in team history, as apparently the Gund brothers had awful taste in sports fashion.

This decade's uniforms begin with the same look that we saw at the end of the 1960's, with no alterations made.

But to ensure that a few decades later, a yet unborn Cole Jones would waste as much space on his blog as possible, the Minnesota North Stars then decided to alter this uniform design again... returning the white uniform's sleeve striping to the exact style seen during the clubs first 2 seasons. The green home uniform would remain unchanged.

These uniforms would remain intact until the start of the 1975-76 season... However, during this era, the North Stars were occasionally featured nationally on NBC's Sunday afternoon broadcasts. For these nationally televised games, the North Stars added nameplates to their uniforms for the benefit of the television audience.

The 1975-76 season brought a brand new set of uniforms to the North Stars franchise, as well as a switch to white primary home uniforms league-wide. These are, as I said before, my favorite Stars jerseys in team history. They took the waist and arm stripes from the previous designs, and doubled them, giving the uniform a fairly unique striping pattern. They also introduced the drop shadow to the logo and the numbers that would last with the team's identity until the eventual switch to black in the early 90's.

Nameplates would be worn strictly on the white uniform in the 1975-77 seasons, but would not be added to the green uniform until the final year of the uniform's existence.

At this point in the history, I'll pause... as this season was the merger of the Stars and Seals/Barons franchise. Let's see what they were up to in the early 70's, in the years leading up to their demise.

Unlike the Stars, the Seals franchise decided to start with brand new uniforms to start the decade, a reworked team name (their third team name in franchise history, now the California Golden Seals), and a brand new color scheme... One that is surprisingly close to their expansion-cousins in Minnesota.

Now both franchises in this strange intermingled team orgy that bred our Dallas Stars are wearing the distinct green and gold. The Seals had 2 distinctive features, however, that kept anyone from confusing the two very different organizations. The Seals opted out of wearing white as their light colored uniform, and decided to go with a bright gold, to match their new team name. They also had a mandate that all players wear distinctive white skates, making both their color scheme and footwear mimic that of baseball's Oakland Athletics, with whom they shared an owner. These uniforms would stick with the team from the start of the decade until 1973, when they decided they no longer liked having drawstrings for whatever reason.

This version of the Golden Seals' look would be short lived, as they had another color scheme change in the works. This time ditching the noble green and gold for ugly evil teal (Booo Sharks!) and gold. Actually, while I do hate the color teal, and just about every sports team I've ever seen wear it, I think the final Seals uniforms in team history were very unique and sharp. They featured bold unique colors, and football-style shoulder stripes. Definitely a color scheme and uniform design that had potential to evolve into a stunning modern uniform, if the team had stuck around.

These uniforms would see the last hurrah of NHL hockey in the bay area until the San Jose Sharks joined the league in the early 90's. As for the Seals, they would be on the move to Cleveland, Ohio in hopes of finally establishing an identity and fanbase.

Enter the Cleveland Barons.

Clad in bold red and black, the Barons tried to start fresh and forget their forgetful years in the Golden State. The most noteworthy and unique feature of the inaugural Barons jerseys was the number-plate on the sleeves. Each player's number was set in an outline of the state of Ohio. This would only last one season (but then again, the team only lasted two.)

The Barons found it at least as difficult to survive in Cleveland, as the uniforms seen above would only last one season before the franchise dissolved. The Ohio outline was removed from the sleeves, and the numbers were moved into an awkward placement on the shoulders. At the end of the season, the Barons owner would purchase the Minnesota North Stars, and with league permission, merge the franchises into one. The new team would retain the name and location of the Minnesota North Stars, but move into the Baron's old spot in the Adams division. This merger would force the NHL to play a season with an odd number of teams. 17.

Having an assumed boost from absorbing the top players of the Barons franchise, as well as the backing of a new owner, the North Stars came forth with another uniform redesign. This time, returning to the classic contrasting shoulders that had been a part of many of their past designs, paired with thicker striping around the waist and elbows. The white home jersey would only last one season before the team decided to add an addition green outline to the logo and numbers.

This white home jersey would only remain in use from 1979 until 1981, however the green away jersey would be worn for a decade from 1978 until 1988.

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If you've stuck with reading this post from top to bottom, here is my gift to you. The 70's had lots of back and forth uniform tweaking for both the Stars and Seals/Barons, which is what made this posting so long-winded... but what I didn't mention was the rumored prototype uniform that the Barons franchise had supposedly planned to wear during their third season that never occurred. In my research I stumbled upon another mysterious photograph. This time, of an older man holding up what he claims to be an unused sweater for the club that was supposed to be part of another redesign. The front of the jersey no longer displayed the club's primary logo, but rather a Rangers-Style diagonal script, and the awkward shoulder placement of the numbers remained. The striping was also largely simplified from what I can see in the photograph. So without further ado, I give to you, my precious readers, what never was.