The Uniform History Project: 1980'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

Monday, 27 July 2009 09:47

We're picking up where we left off in the uniform history project, and entering the 1980's. The 80's hold a special place in my heart. The 80's were an eventful decade for myself, that saw my birth, my first words, potty training, my first day of school, and eventually my first episodes of Thundercats and Ninja Turtles.

The Stars on the other hand were entering their third decade and (roughly) millionth uniform design. By the end of the decade, the Stars would have drastically changed their uniforms once more, and introduced black into the color scheme full-time, for the first time in team history.

The uniforms that the North Stars were wearing at the end of the 1970's remained intact to start the decade, and the green uniform would actually remain unchanged from 1978 all the way to 1988.

The white jersey, however, would see it's major change in 1981, when the team introduced black into the color scheme. Why didn't the green jersey join in the change? You'll see at the bottom of this post, when the time comes.

The addition of black wasn't the only change in the new home jersey. The North Stars removed the contrasting shoulder yokes, revamped the striping pattern, and added the N-Star as a shoulder logo. This jersey design would remain intact until the early 90's, right before the big shift to black that preluded the Stars relocation to Texas. While the jersey would remain unchanged for most of the decade, the rest of the uniform would continue to be tweaked.

In 1987, one of American hockey's pioneers, John Mariucci, passed away. Mariucci was a former Chicago Blackhawk in an era when very few NHL players were from the United States. Mariucci, a Minnesota native, played for both the football and hockey teams at the University of Minnesota in the late 1930's and early 40's. He would eventually become coach for the University of Minnesota, and in 1967, was hired as assistant general manager for the expansion Minnesota North Stars. He would remain assistant GM until his death in 1987. Having meant so much to the Stars franchise, as well as USA Hockey, and the state of Minnesota, the North Stars wore a simple 2-color patch in honor of Mariucci in the 1987-88 season.

One of my favorite blogs, "Third String Goalie" has an interesting delve into this uniform and the "JM" patch.

After the 1987-88 season, the Stars redesigned their uniforms once more. The white jersey remained unchanged, but the green jersey finally joined in the addition of black. Both uniforms would get a new set of pants, as well. This time solid black, with a pattern of green and gold stars down the hips.

The Stars would stick with these two uniforms until the start of the 1991-92 season, when black would completely overtake the uniform only a mere 2 seasons before the introduction of Dallas Stars hockey.

As for the reason why the green jersey above took so long to come about, when its white counterpart first showed up early in the decade, this next jersey might have something to do with it. The Stars were dead set on introducing black to the uniforms in 1981, even going as far as to design a predominately black road jersey.

The rejected design was a drastic change from the traditional North Stars look, with a decidedly 80's striping pattern reminiscent of a green and gold rainbow (with 2 shades of green?). It's unclear why the North Stars scrapped this idea and kept the non-matching green and gold jersey after black was introduced to the white uniform, but thank God they did. Former Stars player/manager/everything Lou Nanne mentions in the book "Minnesota North Stars: History and Memories with Lou Nanne" that he was the driving force behind the introduction of black into the uniforms. "I had put black into the North Stars uniforms years before [the move to Dallas] in the hope it would increase our merchandise sales."

It's unclear if it helped, but one thing is for certain... this rejected design certainly wasn't the answer to slumping merchandise sales, and the Stars knew it. It would never see the light of day.