The NHL’s Winter Classic will take place on New Year’s Day at 3pm EST, and it’s a bit unusual that we hadn’t seen the sweaters for both the Seattle Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights yet. After all, the games are in a short month or so and neither side has attempted to release even any promotional videos for the upcoming event.
Then, out of nowhere, both were leaked, but not in a way you might expect.
Seattle and Utah shake hands first…
Out of nowhere on a Friday night of the 17th, the Utah Jazz did as they usually do and post pre-game fits of the players coming into the arena for their game against the Phoenix Suns.
Nobody was quite ready for John Collins and Walker Kessler to be rocking an NHL jersey, let alone the Kraken’s.
The Kraken’s sweater appears inspired by the original Seattle Metropolitans; the first pro hockey team in Washington State and the PCHA’s sole American Stanley Cup winner. While the team hangs a banner in honor of the Metros, they’ve actually been pretty reserved on trying to take cues from their predecessor until now.
…Then the Knights go All Elite.
The very next night, All Elite Wrestling had their Full Gear pay-per-view, and their preshow featured Renee Pacquette and RJ City running down the card, which featured not only the same sweater the Jazz were wearing, but also a new one that seems to be Vegas’ Winter Classic sweater:
The Vegas sweater is a bit generic, but it was confirmed by Chris Creamer of Sportslogos.net that both sweaters appear to be corroborating with separate merchandise leaks on their individual logos. It also appears that Creamer got an eagle-eyed Knights fan explain that the Vegas “V” is in fact referencing the ceremonial garb of West Point; a major point of pride for the Knights’ owner, a very proud alumni of the Military Academy.
That said…and I might be extremely biased, but I think the Kraken did theirs better. If they were really going old west on this they should’ve made sure that piping on the “V” was elsewhere on the sweater. Otherwise this is just a merely okay sweater that will end up on AthleticKnit as a very cheap option for your local beer league down the road. I am sure the combo of teal and pink will terrify the guys from a town over.
Trying Something New
So I guess now that we’ve seen them both, the real question here should be…
“Why?”
Both sides have only barely acknowledged the weekend’s Leaks, but this is a definitively calculated choice. Buoy hanging out with Utah’s mascot mere hours after this leak drops feels like more than just mere coincidence. AEW having a major online fandom is also huge for anyone who’d want to continue this particular thread just as they had one of their biggest (and most polarizing) events of the year. I imagine the goal here is to drum up interest by putting the sweaters anywhere they can for the next month or so. Both Vegas and Seattle’s sweaters will likely end up in all sorts of major entertainment products in the upcoming months.
The reason being? Now that you know they can appear literally anywhere, you will be looking for them everywhere. Turning any potential other “thing” you’re watching into a game of I, Spy. As a tactic? I applaud the audacity of it. Especially since neither team has even so much as retweeted these events with “👀”, nor commented on it via Facebook or Instagram. Do I think it’s going to work?
Honestly? Maybe.
The League has often been very…inconsistent on how it’s teams end up promoting major events. Some have been genuinely very well done, others have been very slapdash. If this is what it takes for the rusted and busted marketing machine of this league to start grinding some gears and actually putting a good effort forward in promoting their game, good on them!
Let’s just hope they commit to it.