NHL marks St. Patrick's Day with weekend of green

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As part of the annual tradition, the last few days have seen a handful of NHL teams go green in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Typically, clubs wear green practice jerseys during warm-ups and auction them off for charitable causes. Let's take a look.

Boston Bruins

There's no way the team from Boston could avoid celebrating Irish heritage. The Bruins wore their green tonight before beating the Minnesota Wild 4-1. By the way, they wore their third jerseys during the game.

Buffalo Sabres

The Sabres did the green thing on Sunday prior to facing their old captain Thomas Vanek and his Montreal Canadiens. Buffalo was shut out 2-0 while wearing also wearing their new thirds for the game. That jersey sure is taking a beating.

If you're interested in adding a green Sabres jersey to your collection, here's the auction.

Chicago Blackhawks

The Blackhawks also donned their green on Sunday ahead of a 4-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings. If you want one, here's the auction page.

Nashville Predators

The Predators got pretty creative with their St. Patrick's Day jerseys. Skip to the other photo in the mini-slideshow above to see the musically-themed screen printed numbers. Fittingly, they then faced the Blues, but lost 4-1.

New York Islanders

St. Patrick's Day celebrations started early on Long Island. The Islanders wore these Saturday prior to beating the Sabres 4-1. Okay, at this point I have to ask. What is it with all these 4-1 finals?

Pittsburgh Penguins

The Taking-It-Too-Far Award this St. Patrick's Day has to go to Pittsburgh. The jerseys might've been fine but then they started adding flags to the sleeves. But that's not what won them the honor in my book. For that, you have to flip to the second image.

The Penguins took their primary logo and dressed the penguin up in a leprechaun suit. They've been using that as their Twitter icon the last couple days. Then they had to go and put it on a T-shirt as well. Amazing. Winner, hands down.

The green jerseys were worn Sunday in advance of a 4-3 loss to the Flyers. If you want more photos from warm-ups, the Pens have dedicated an entire gallery on their website.

Washington Capitals

We can usually count on the Capitals for green jerseys. They round out the list this year, wearing this set on Sunday before a 4-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Speaking of the Leafs, I'll leave you with this tweet.

A handful of minor league teams also wore special St. Patrick's Day jerseys this weekend. I aim to gather some photos for another post later this week.

Maybe it is a "turd burger" after all

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Sabres skip out on night scheduled for new third jersey

The Buffalo Sabres skated out in their regular blue home jerseys Wednesday night, despite being scheduled to wear those new blue and gold thirds we've all been talking about.

Over the weekend, the Flames pulled the same thing — but admitted superstition was to blame. Was it the same reason in Buffalo?

At 15-33-8, the Sabres are far and away the worst team in the NHL season. So maybe they'd just had enough of being an object of derision, particularly while being featured in a nationally televised game — where they ended up being knocked around by the Penguins 5-1.

Of course there's a third possibility. Last Monday the Sabres opened an online auction of game-worn jerseys including the new alternate. Maybe they sold them all. Just kidding. Who would buy that?

Anyway, in the previous six games where the Sabres sported yellow, they went 1-4-1, including a run of three straight 3-1 losses to start. Their only win came last month against the Devils.

I haven't seen any official acknowledgement of the break from the announced third jersey schedule, but the next date isn't until March 16.

For what it's worth, Sabres president Ted Black was on WGR 550 Sports Radio back on Oct. 3 and was asked about the initial fan reaction to the jersey design.

If it doesn't sell, it won't really mean anything to our bottom line. It's a third jersey. If it's a turd burger, I'll have to put it on a bun and eat it. It's the way it is.

So I have to wonder. Was last night the unofficial confirmation that we have a "turd burger" on our hands? (And way to coin a hilarious nickname for your jersey, Ted. You know that's never going away.)

Black also said, "I know that our team is going to wear it very proudly for 10 games."

That may or may not be true now. Maybe they add a game. Maybe the number drops to nine. Maybe it drops to six and the jersey never sees the light of day again.

Whichever way, Black isn't bothered. 

It's received a ton of criticism and a lot of attention. I think it had over four million mentions on Twitter. I've seen it. It's something that doesn't offend me. I think people have had a lot of fun with the criticisms of it.

Definitely true.

The interview also left a nice door open for the future. Black said no focus groups were involved in the development of this jersey, but that might be considered in the future.

I saw that the Dallas Mavericks put it up to a fan vote. I think those things are cool to do. I'm not ruling it out. I'm not a fashion designer.

Black's best line was this.

I think it's a beautiful, beautiful jersey.

Even if I don't fully agree with that statement, I do fully support the Sabres for trying something different — which is what you're supposed to do with a third jersey.

“It’s a third jersey. If it’s a turd burger, I’ll have to put it on a bun and eat it.”
— Ted Black, Sabres president