Canadian Olympic officials have unveiled the jerseys Team Canada will be sporting at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia.
The new Nike-branded hockey jerseys were presented at a news conference Monday held at the Mattamy Athletic Centre located in the old site of Toronto’s historic Maple Leaf Gardens.
Players wearing the men’s, women’s and sledge hockey team’s jerseys glided across the ice as background music played, showing off the three new designs. They include a maple leaf shape on contrasting stripes on the red and white jerseys, while black jerseys are emblazoned with the word “CANADA” written across a thick red stripe.
Nike senior creative director Ken Black said he always designs with the athlete in mind.
“When we think about performance, there are always two pieces to that,” Black told reporters. “One is function and the other is the aesthetic.”
Black said he wanted to go back to a classic design, with colours that are “supremely Canadian.”
“The psychological benefit for an athlete is putting on a uniform that makes you feel great,” Black said. “If you look good, you feel good, you probably play good. And not only for the athletes themselves, but as you step onto the ice, it makes a real statement to the opponent about what your intent is as you enter competition.”
But according to Canadian Olympic Committee President Marcel Aubut, the jerseys are more than just a uniform.
“We are launching a symbol that will serve to unify our great nation,” Aubut said.
Inside the collar of each jersey are 12 gold stars, representing Team Canada’s gold medals to date: eight for the men’s team, three for the women’s team, and one for the sledge hockey team.
Olympic hockey gold medalist Cheryl Pounder was moved by that added detail.
“I got to see the gold stars in the inside of the jersey, and that just touched me,” Pounder said. “I thought ‘wow that is something that is right directly next to your heart or very close and there’s meaning to that.”
“The picture that comes to my mind is just sitting with my teammates ready to go on the ice and all of us looking at the same emblem and the same leaf on our chest and all the work that was put into it was for that – not for ourselves, but for who we are playing for,” she added.
In September, a photo of Chicago Blackhawks forward Jonathan Toews wearing a new jersey design was leaked online, sparking a flurry of largely negative reaction including Sports Illustrated columnist Allan Muir’s comparison of the design to an “oversized pajama top.”
The jerseys officially unveiled Monday match the one in which he was photographed.
