2010オリンピック・ユニフォーム

もちろん、バンクーバー五輪のアイスホッケー各国代表のジャージの事ですよ。このブログの事ですから。

ベラルーシ

カナダ

中国

チェコ

フィンランド

ドイツ

ロシア

スロバキア

スウェーデン

アメリカ

ラトビア

ＩＯＣのスポーツ連盟ロゴ使用禁止令が下りてしまったので、ほとんどの国はレトロ調なデザインになってますね。皆が皆レトロだから、逆に新鮮味が無くなってしまった。まあ、逆に言えば変に頑張りすぎてるデザインも無いんだけど。レトロユニ好きなんだけどなー。

WBC uniform watch

I’m sure many people noticed this, but some WBC uniforms are alarmingly similar to MLB uniforms. Guess that’s template at work (and lack of creative colour schemes due to flag colours, though not every nation adheres to their flag stripes). Anyways, without further ado, here they are:

Australia

South Africa

It was difficult to tell them apart on quick glance, especially since they played in the same pool in Mexico City.

Oakland Athletics

Different font, obviously, but pretty similar otherwise.

Canada (home)

LAnaheim Angels

Canada has the faux vest thing going.

Canada (away)

Arizona Diamondbacks

Reverse the font colouring, and you’re basically there.

Dominican Republic

Future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez pitching for his homeland, earning a job with the Mets in the process.

Texas Rangers

There’s that annoying underarm panel in many WBC jerseys, and the helmet bill’s different colour, but otherwise…

Italy

LA Dodgers

(Immortal Manny at work)

Obviously. Was this done because of the Piazza-Lasorda connection from the first WBC?

Netherlands (the Cinderella!)

Baltimore Orioles

Cap colours need to be reversed, and MLB teams seem to be fond of cursive fonts while WBC unis tend to use block fonts.

Now for the more far fetched connections after this jump

Frozen Four Unis

The wonderful UniWatch blog does a great job in reviewing all 16 teams’ uniforms that made it to the Frozen Four (Sixteen). Eri Kiribuchi’s Bemidji State makes the list, but Paul Kariya’s alma mator Maine doesn’t (though it does in the comments). Lots of great classic looking unis (some resembling NHL unis) all around, with some horrendous alternate jerseys. Why do you need alts for college hockey? Marketing rules.

Pink baseball merchandise

From the AOL FanHouse post, MetsGrrl.com writes

“No real female baseball fan I know wears a pink hat,” wrote Caryn Rose, a writer living in Greenpoint, on her blog about the Mets, called MetsGrrl.com. “The pink hat exists so that boyfriends or husbands (or heck, lesbian partners of girly girls), who feel guilty that they have dragged their girlfriend to the game, can go to the team store and buy something to placate them: ‘Oh, it’s pink, it must be for a girl.’ Give me a break.”

Of course things are very different here in Japan. Not only are there pink hats, there is pink everything for the female fans, and they’re not designed just for the casual/bandwagon/unwillingly-accompanying-the-bf-to-the-park female fans either, but then again pink is the national colour for Japanese women, and being cute is everything. So, there are hardcore female fans in Japan in the bleachers with the oendan cheer squad who stand on their feet and constantly cheer for their hitters while their team is up at bat.

Here, a couple of Hanshin Tigers fans in their pink jerseys. I bet they’re not fairweathr fans, but I could be wrong.

Do Japanese female fans like pink merchandise because they’re cute? Sure. Are Japanese women oppressed in society? Well, there is definitely still a glass ceiling, but Japanese wives and moms completely rule the household, controlling everything in the household from finance (holding the hammer on what to buy for the house, or receiving the husband’s entire pay cheques only to give him small montly “allowances”) to other matters like deciding on which school to send their kids to. This behind the scenes power sort of balances thing out in Japanese society where women don’t try to compete with men by becoming more like men, but are very good at controlling men anyways.