Penguins go full “Snoop Dogg” with new alternate jersey

After last season’s “reverse retro” jersey saw the famous and popular diagonal jersey brought back by the Penguins, many were wondering if the team would just bring back the old jersey design back in its entirety. That wish was granted when the team announced this season’s alternate jersey, which takes away the reverse (white) aspects and brings back the full diagonal jersey in all it’s 1990’s glory.

(insert requisite picture of Snoop Dogg from the ‘Gin n Juice’ video here)

Now that that is out of the way, this jersey does bring back the ‘90s, where the Penguins used this from 1992-97 in various roles in their sweater arsenal. Depending on how old you are, but given the metrics of blogs, chances are this jersey represents a nice little reminder of your hockey childhood. I know it does for me.

The Pens have announced these will be available at Pens Gear starting on December 11th and then at other retail locations starting December 16th. (Just in time for Christmas, how nice and coincidental).

The team has announced which games they will be wearing these bad boys for yet this season, and they are as follows:

Third Jersey Schedule

December 11 vs. Anaheim

December 17 vs. Buffalo

January 2 vs. San Jose

January 23 vs. Winnipeg

January 28 vs. Detroit

February 26 vs. NY Rangers

March 11 vs. Vegas

March 13 vs. Carolina

March 27 vs. Detroit

April 9 vs. Washington

April 12 vs. Columbus

April 21 vs. Boston

Lately, and somewhat surprisingly, a vocal portion of the fanbase has been clamoring for the return of the “RoboPen” design for some reason. Even though the logo was introduced in 1992 and the Stanley Cup streak was broken, so I couldn’t know why the (ugly) design has fans, but it does. One reason why the team hasn’t brought that back is referenced indirectly by the team in their release.

The primarily black throwback jersey will feature the yellow diagonal “PITTSBURGH” text centered on the chest and includes the skating Penguin sans the traditional triangle on each shoulder.

The skating Penguin logo on the shoulder (as seen in last year’s white reverse retro jersey) is the current logo and mark associated with the team. In the old jerseys (see Mario’s picture in the header) they had the triangle logo, another sign the “RoboPen” isn’t that high on the team priority list to bring back just yet.

For marketing and #branding purposes, the team is going to want to emphasize that as much as possible, and not deviate or muddy the waters by wearing a completely different logo. This is also the reason why it’s been over a decade since the team has introduced an alternate jersey that hasn’t been the traditional colors (black, yellow, white) and probably isn’t likely to go back to a shade of blue soon. Especially since the team announced today:

Pittsburgh will don this unique throwback uniform for at least the next three seasons.

That might give some reason and staying power to go buy one, since they will be around on the ice for a little bit. Also, as a PSA, if you’re on the fence about buying a jersey, keep in mind that this is the last year before the NHL adds a jersey advertisement on the chest. So that might tip you towards wanting to get one of these now before they’ve got more than just adidas and team branding on it, assuming that the jerseys sold to fans are like European soccer shirts that tend to keep their sponsors on it.