As Pittsburgh takes on Tampa Bay in the NHL Eastern Conference Final series, the Penguins will do so in their retro black and “Pittsburgh gold” uniforms. The Pens will be celebrating their 50th anniversary next year and it’s been widely speculated that this look will become permanent going forward.
Three Stanley Cup championships removed from their expansion roots, it’s a good time to reflect upon the team’s first look, a decidedly Rangers-like set of home and road sweaters that simply read “Pittsburgh,” diagonally displayed in two shades of blue. The New York-centric approach could well have been the brainchild of coach George “Red” Sullivan who coached the Broadway Blueshirts just prior to being named as Pittsburgh’s first coach.
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Why not “Penguins?” Why not the now-beloved skating penguin logo?
Because Jack Riley, the franchise’s first general manager, hated the name “Penguins” so much that he refused to acknowledge it on his team’s inaugural set of sweaters.
It’s all right here in this article from the Sept. 7, 1967 edition of the Pittsburgh Press :
Riley chose the team’s first set of colors, navy blue and a lighter blue, a palette that was unquestionably un-penguin-ish. Of the name “Penguins,” Riley opined “(i)t’s a bird…and one of the dirtiest birds in the world. A guy in Toronto sent me a clipping about the habits of penguins.”
The Penguins fully embraced their identity starting the following season, when they sported a set of uniforms that featured their skating penguin logo, albeit without the trailing scarf.
One can only imagine Riley, faced with a choice of prototype sweaters, reluctantly choosing a version with the flightless embodiment of the franchise, saying “OK, OK, fine…but lose that damn scarf.”
The Lightning won Game 1 of the series 3-1. The second game will be played Monday at 8 p.m. in Pittsburgh.