We Interrupt These Team Previews...

I was going to post the team preview for the 2020-21 Trinity Western Spartans today, but it occurred to me that today was a special day in NHL history that should and will pre-empt our look at the Spartans. With the NHL preparing to flood your broadcasts with the Reverse Retro jerseys in the coming weeks starting this week, we need to jump back to the last time the NHL introduced some rather crazy alternate uniforms, specifically on today's date back in 1996 when the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim met the Los Angeles Kings at the Great Western Forum!

On this date in 1996, the Mighty Ducks, dressed in their Wild Wing alternates, met the Kings, dressed in their Burger King alternates, in what shook the NHL's "traditional" hockey look with these outrageous new uniforms. The names who wore these uniforms in this game range from "I remember him" to "he wore that?", but the likes of Paul Kariya, Steve Rucchin, Fredrik Olausson, and Oleg Tverdovsky all wore the Wild Wing jersey while Wayne Greztky, Jari Kurri, Kelly Hrudey, and Kevin Stevens all donned the Burger King jerseys.

Today, I present to you the January 27, 1996 Fox broadcast of this game between the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Los Angeles Kings. I take no ownership or credit for this as "Serg 72" posted this to YouTube, but it's pretty interesting to see how the game was played 25 years ago in comparison to today's game. I'll post some notes below, but here is that game.

Yesterday, for what it's worth, would have been Wayne Gretzky's 35th birthday in 1996. He turned 60 yesterday. Let that sink in for a moment as you ponder where the years have gone. Happy belated birthday, Wayne!

You'll hear Greg Millen talk about Gretzky's days possibly being numbered in Los Angeles, and he was right. Exactly one month after this game - February 27, 1996 - Wayne Gretzky was traded to the St. Louis Blues for Patrice Tardif, Craig Johnson, Roman Vopat, a fifth-round pick in 1996 who turned out to be Peter Hogan, and a first-round pick in 1997 who turned out to be Matt Zultek.

The trade that saw Kevin Stevens go from Boston to Los Angeles in exchange for Rick Tocchet was completed on January 25. There's no real mystery around this trade, but what is interesting is that Stevens and defenceman John Slaney were teammates with the Kings in 1996, but were traded for one another on January 14, 2001 when the Penguins traded Stevens to the Philadelphia Flyers for Slaney!

You'll hear that Darryl Sydor gave up his #25 to Kevin Stevens when Stevens arrived in Los Angeles, opting to wear #2 after giving the number to Stevens. He would wear that number for the Kings for less than a month because the Kings would trade Sydor to the Dallas Stars on February 17, 1996 along with a fifth-round pick in exchange for Shane Churla and Doug Zmolek.

How about another weird Darryl Sydor trade fact? Sydor was traded by the Pittsburgh Penguins on November 16, 2008 to the Dallas Stars for Philippe Boucher, a Los Angeles Kings teammate in this game!

Mike Sillinger arrived in Anaheim late the 1994-95 season after being dealt to the Ducks by Detroit, and it would represent one of the twelve teams he played for in his career. It makes one wonder how many different jerseys he wore in his career as he would have worn three in Anaheim with him wearing the Wild Wing jersey.

More weird Darryl Sydor trade facts? July 22, 2003 saw Darryl Sydor traded from the Dallas Stars to Columbus Blue Jackets for Mike Sillinger and a second-round draft pick in 2004.

Bobby Dollas was selected 13th-overall in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft by the Winnipeg Jets as Greg Millen points out, but he played just 56 games for the Jets before being traded to the Quebec Nordiques for Stu Kulak. Guys that the Jets could have selected instead of Dollas include Claude Lemieux, Peter Zezel, Bob Probert, Brian Bradley, Marc Bergevin, Esa Tikkanen, Petr Klima, Garry Galley, or the 108th-overall pick in 1983 by the Los Angeles Kings, Kevin Stevens!

You'll hear Dave Strader reference the 1993 injury that Stevens suffered in the playoffs against the New York Islanders. That injury saw Stevens spend four-and-a-half hours in surgery to repair a multitude of injuries. Dan Robson of Sportsnet wrote,

Stevens's nose was broken and twisted to the side. His orbital bone was busted, too. His forehead was completely shattered. He was carried off the ice on a stretcher and rushed to hospital, where a surgeon used nine metal plates to reconstruct his forehead. His nose was also rebuilt.

Bones could be repaired, but the brain was another problem. It was clear that Stevens had suffered trauma to his frontal lobe, but the effects of that damage were much less predictable. Doctors had serious concerns about the impact the injury would have on Stevens's cognitive ability.

Stevens was never the same following the injury as his addiction to painkillers and drugs began to control his life, leading to a number of teams to simply give up on Stevens by trading him away.

You'll see Jari Kurri score a power-play goal that moved him into seventh-place all-time on the goal-scoring list back in 1996 with 574 goals. Fast-forward to 2021, and Kurri currently sits in 20th-place all-time with 601 goals in his career. He never caught Bobby Hull's 610 goals before retiring. The closest active player to Kurri's 601 markers is Patrick Marleau who sits in 25th-place all-time with 564 goals.

The captaincy letters on the Burger King jersey are clearly on the non-traditional side of the jersey thanks to the logo's placement which bothers me, but you'll hear Greg Millen talk about how hard it is to read the numbers as broadcasters on that gradient that the Burger King jerseys feature. I don't think Millen is a fan of the Burger King jerseys.

I have to admit that the Fox robots were pretty kitschy at the time, and I don't think they aged very well. What kept distracting me on this Fox broadcast, though, was Millen's live mic that seemingly picked him up yapping with people off-air and ringing telephones. You'd think Fox would have had those things nailed down being that this is their second season broadcasting hockey, but apparently that doesn't happen on the regional Fox broadcasts in 1996. Good times!

Just for the record, Wayne Gretzky recorded a goal and three assists in this game. Paul Kariya, described as the "Prince of the NHL" as the broadcast opened, had a goal and an assist. For the Kings, Dmitri Khristich had a goal and an assist, Vitali Yachmenev had a pair of assists, and Marty McSorley had a goal and an assist. For the Mighty Ducks, Shaun Van Allen had a goal and an assist, Steve Rucchin had a goal and an assist, and the Sacco brothers - Joe and David - had an assist each.

Will the Reverse Retro jerseys be as poorly received as these two alternate jerseys were in 1996? I can already tell you that I'm not excited to see them on the ice as they, too, seem a little kitschy for my liking. Perhaps my feelings will change as more and more NHL teams wear their new duds, but I honestly feel that there are a lot of duds in these jerseys.

Leave your thoughts in the comments below about this game or the Reverse Retro jerseys we're going to see as this season progresses! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the original Wild Wing jerseys and the Burger King jerseys!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!