Silver Knights of Henderson?

With the announcement last season that the Golden Knights had purchased the AHL franchise known then as the San Antonio Rampage with the intention to move it closer to Las Vegas for easier call-ups to the NHL club, I was one of the people who lamented removing a successful AHL franchise from its home of two decades, but Bill Foley pushed ahead and moved the club to Henderson, Nevada where it was renamed from Rampage to Silver Knights in keeping with the knights branding. Tonight, we finally got to see what the Silver Knights were going to look like on the ice, and I'm not sure Ron Burgundy would exclaim a trademark saying of approval of the new threads after tonight's unveiling in Las Vegas.

I'm not here to keep you in suspense or draw this out in any way, so here is your first look at the Henderson Silver Knights!

If you're getting a Golden Knights feeling from these Silver Knights, you're definitely seeing the the same thing I am as the jerseys, gloves, and feel of these new uniforms have a certain "deja vu" feeling to them.

I'm not a fan of contrasting name bars for teams. I've never liked it because it seems frivolous at best, and I won't start now in looking at these two jerseys. I get that the purpose of the name bar has to be darker against the gold lettering in order to bring contrast, but it feels forced and unnecessary. The Golden Knights do find with their lettering, so why make this change here? The numbers do work well with the dark outline on them, and I think they'll look good on the ice, but these name bars seem out of place when looking at these uniforms. The long name bar on the white jersey is especially pronounced, so let's hope that the Silver Knights aren't signing guys with last names of ten-or-more letters. As it stands, the long name bar on both of these jerseys detract from the clean look of the two uniform, and that's not what you want in a design.

I'm still confused what the purpose of this embossing is on the sleeve. According to the Silver Knights' website, the jerseys "feature an embossed filigree pattern, in dark gray on the silver jersey and metallic silver on the white". Again, why? Filigree is defined as "ornamental work of fine (typically gold or silver) wire formed into delicate tracery", but this is a hockey jersey, not some piece of jewelry or other metalwork. The design doesn't even look like fine wire or delicate tracery in any way. It literally serves zero purpose other than just being there for the sake of being. That reason isn't good enough, so this annoys me.

If you were wondering, the gloves for both the Henderson Silver Knights and the Vegas Golden Knights are identical - black with gold accents for the dark uniforms and while with gold accents for the white uniforms. I suppose this will enable Bill Foley to buy gloves in bulk with this coloration since both his teams use them?

I guess, if you stand back and look at these uniforms, there's not a lot wrong with them. It's just that it's been done before. And while a lot of NHL-owned AHL affiliates follow their NHL team's look, the Henderson Silver Knights legitimately are identical outside of the coloration. It's in saying this that makes me wonder why we had to wait so long for this grand unveiling when it could have been done at the same time as the Vegas alternate jersey unveiling since there's virtually nothing different about these uniforms.

I long for the days when AHL uniforms were fun and colourful. Gone are the days of the Manitoba Moose looking different from the Canucks, the Bakersfield Condors looking different from the Oilers, and the Springfield Falcons being identifiably different than the Florida Panthers. Outside of a handful of teams, the uniqueness of the AHL is all but gone. That's a shame since the Henderson Silver Knights could have done so much with their uniforms had they flexed a little creative muscle into these uniforms.

There's a joke that "NFL" stands for "No Fun League", but it seems NHL teams are bleeding the fun from the AHL with their lack of creativity in uniforms. I'm not sure why that has to be, but let's hope that there's a few fun nights where the Silver Knights can show their lustre with a few creative jerseys.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!