Dallas Stars, Tom Gaglardi Reveal Plans For New Jerseys

Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi was on with Norm Hitzges of 1310 The Ticket on Wednesday and aside from heavily veiled comments about ongoing labor negotiations, he confirmed that plans are in place to reveal a new jersey for his team.

This was something that has been speculated on for a while now, with Mark Stepneski tweeting that team officials had been shown some designs earlier this week. We've been discussing possible jersey changes for a while now with our own Cole Jones even working hard on a design that would appease the sensibilities of the hardcore fans among us.

So what would the new jerseys even look like? What would the colors be? That's not being revealed just yet, but Gaglardi did have some interesting insight into why the change is being made.

"It's true, yes," Gaglardi said when asked if the Stars are working on a new jersey. "I think that it's been speculated that we're doing that. I think our jerseys have taken an interesting... team, we've had a history of changing our jerseys quite often. Ended up in the place now with our current jerseys, which I quite like. But a couple things bother me, and one is that we're the only team of 30 that doesn't wear our logo on our chest... bit of a lack of color with our current kit. We're looking all those things, up to and including if we want to modify our primary logo as well."

The first big nugget out of this is that the Stars are not only working on a new jersey but are also looking at a new primary logo. This would indicate that the team is not only looking to create better, more popular jerseys but are also looking at a "rebranding" of the team, that would go along with a change to the primary logo.

While changes to the logo might create some distress among fans (personally, I'm not adverse to a change in logo) the big question here is not only what the new jerseys will look like, but what colors they would be.

Said Gaglardi, "I'm a purist, and I'd like to see us with a timeless classic jersey with timeless classic colors."

What does that mean, exactly? It's tough to tell, other than it's likely the team is looking at jerseys that aren't just white and black but more iconic in their design and color scheme. For nearly every single Dallas Stars fan, that involves the color green in one form or fashion and for most that means green as the primary color. For Gaglardi and the Stars, going along with the "rebranding" that would be involve a new logo, it's possible that a color scheme change would be in the works as well.

It has been speculated for the past year, thanks to Razor's design scheme revealed last September, that the Stars could be looking to move to a red, blue and white scheme similar to other teams in the area. Gaglardi even hinted at this with this subtle gem dropped at the very end of the interview:

"We've got some nice history here in Dallas with some of the older jerseys that are really quite attractive."

There's been talk that the Stars could possibly desire to fall into the same color scheme enjoyed by the Cowboys, Rangers and Mavericks which all involve blue in some form or fashion. The Mavericks, it must be remembered, have blue and green as primary colors. The problem with going with such a scheme for the Stars would be the danger of looking too much like the Vancouver Canucks.

Which, coincidentally, happens to be the team that Gaglardi attempted to purchase before the Stars. He also resides in Vancouver.

Conspiracy theories aside, it's more likely that the Stars stick with some form of the current scheme and decide to highlight one of those colors, be it gold, green, black or white. A complete change in color schemes, even with a logo change, would essentially mean a complete relaunch of the franchise and runs the risk of alienating a very dedicated fanbase that has stuck by the team the past five years while the casual and bandwagon fans jumped ship.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I wonder just what the value would actually be in such a "relaunch." It's true, there's a very hardcore and dedicated fanbase but the size of that group has shrunk significantly the past few years and the team is faced with the tough task of building the fanbase back up again.

Is winning going to be enough? Is signing a player like Jaromir Jagr enough. Is the allure of Jamie Benn, Loui Eriksson and Kari Lehtonen enough? The Stars have a number of young players coming soon but none have the "star power" of the big names around the NHL. There's not a Mike Modano on the way to help sell the team to what is not traditionally a hockey market.

So I can see how a new color scheme, new logos and new jerseys could be something the team is thinking about. Such a drastic change could potentially create some buzz and excitement about the team in the public eye and in the media and help bring attention to a team that is, supposedly, on it's way back to being a playoff contender soon. We hope, at least.

Of course, such a move could be seen as a drastic and desperate move by a struggling franchise that takes away from the product on the ice and completely alienates a fanbase that is very, very vocal about their color scheme desires.

It's a tough choice, but I have to believe that the team and the people in charge will make the right decision. They've been working on this a long time, with Gaglardi mentioning that many of these designs have existed since before he purchased the team.

In the end, Gaglardi was very right about one thing. The Dallas Stars have changed jersey designs more than a few times since coming to Dallas in 1993 and while we can all agree the old "star" design is the most revered, it's very unlikely we will get to go back to such a design in the future. A team constantly changing jerseys is a sign of inconsistencies in the franchise and the Stars are looking to build and project stability.

An iconic, timeless jersey that wouldn't need another change in seven years would go a long way towards accomplishing that.

While there are going to be some very vocal concerns over the possibility of a complete color scheme change, that possibility is far from absolute. What we can all agree on is that change is necessary and that is something the team is now actively working on.

You can find full audio of the Gaglardi interview here.