We are here for the S27 edition of the WJC uniform rankings. I didn't even play in LG this season and was caught off guard when I suddenly started receiving uniform pictures, but I must perform my civic duty of judging all of you on your use of a uniform designer that hasn't been touched in 5+ years by EA. Let's get the usual caveats out of the way: - I am grading every team on one jersey. The intention was to choose the home jersey, but I may have accidentally grabbed an alternate jersey within those images. And in the case of one team, the only custom jersey they created was an away jersey so we're rolling with that. - I understand that some people are working with brand new clubs without many uniform or logo options. Poverty gets no brownie points here, your ranking will be impacted. - The entire uniform matters. I tried to ignore the goofy-ass custom equipment that has become rampant in EASHL, but if it's not impossible that it distracted me from the rest of the jersey. And please give love to your socks. - I am at the mercy of the picture quality that people sent in. People still don't realize you can screenshot with your console, and one jerk of a team didn't provide a picture. And now we will kick it off from #16. 16 - Czechia On one hand, Czech management was kind enough to submit a picture of their EA default Czechia jerseys. On the other, they used the EA default Czechia jerseys. Laziness will not be tolerated here and they are awarded with a last place finish. 15 - Kuwait Once again I don't really know how Kuwait made into this tournament over the likes of Finland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Estonia, Panama, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but they're here. Their uniform looks about as confused as me though as the socks and jerseys are from two completely different worlds. Between that and the lack of a logo, Kuwait needs to drill for a better set. 14 - USA The team USA jersey here is pretty basic but it works well enough. Management sent a picture with a note saying a logo will be coming later. It is now later and the logo did not come. It's not bad, but there's just nothing to move it up the rankings. 13 - Poland Polish management came through with the unusual strategy of using the default red Poland jerseys but using a custom white jersey. The dragon is kind of nifty, and while the striping is busy I don't hate it. My main complaint is that it looks like the jersey and gloves use a different shade of red from the logo and pants, and that is not sitting well with any OCD tendencies. 12 - Japan We now reach what I would consider the B tier in my rankings, starting with Japan. This is a pretty solid jersey, the red circle is always a nice logo to encapsulate Japan. I feel like it would've been better without the white outline, but that's just me. Pretty clean as a whole, but also a bit plain which is what held it back in the B group. 11 - Canada This is a decent Canadian iteration here. Personally I like Team Canada jerseys when there is some white incorporated as opposed to straight up red/black. While I noted that I would try to disregard custom equipment when making these rankings, this blue set is really distracting and possibly made me subconsciously rank this lower. 10 - Italy Italy is looking very Atlanta Thrashers when looking at the shoulders and the body of the jersey. They incorporate some green to remind people that they are indeed Italian, and I think this was a pretty good attempt to imitate what Italian national teams do. The socks are hurting me a bit and I don't think this was the best jersey template they could've used for their colors, but it's not a bad effort. 9 - Ukraine A pretty basic yellow and blue uniform from Ukraine, there's not really a whole lot to say about it. Simple and not a lot going on, but I think they struck a very nice balance of the two colors across the whole uniform. 8 - Norway Norway comes in looking a little different than we typically see, as almost everyone uses the default uniform template since that's basically what Norway uses in real life. I like that they diverged into different striping, however the socks were not able to keep up and they drag their score down a bit. I also think these may have been better with blue gloves & helmets, but that's not a big detractor to me. If I was grading the jersey alone, this would be much higher. 7 - China A very solid red and gold look here for China with some black mixed in. I might've liked a straight-up red and yellow design better without any black included, but I can't really complain about this one. The dragon is a good logo choice as well. It does look like they used black socks, which would bother me greatly. But the creator wisely didn't include them in the picture so I can't say for certain. 6 - Kazakhstan In the absence of Finland, Kazakhstan steps up with the two-toned blue jersey that I always like. I kind of like that the Kazakh gold is only seen in the logo and numbers, I think it makes it pop a little more with the scarcity. Since I haven't played NHL in a solid few months, I'm really not sure if the equipment matched in the first place or if you can color the honeycomb looking helmet and gloves. Whatever the case, it's a nice little touch to everything else going on. 5 - Russia We now get to what I would consider the A tier of these rankings, with Russia coming up first. It's a very nice attempt at a jersey with the dragon and the Russian flag stripes that came through on the arms and socks (but not on the waist because this jersey template is an OCD nightmare). While I appreciate the different shade of red to emphasize that the flag is indeed there, I think I would've preferred not having that there and letting the negative space speak for itself. I also would've gone with blue gloves if we're using blue helmets and pants already. 4 - Sweden Ignoring the white figure skates, Sweden came through with a really nice yellow jersey. The crown logo is always a winner and the stripes work well. I really have no complaints about this uniform other than the creator's skate choice. 3 - France The cock squad has been stepping up their game in recent tournaments, and I think this is my favorite Team France iteration yet. A big beefy chicken as the crest, some simple red striping, I think this came out really nice. The most minor complaint I could possibly have is that I probably would've done away with the white stripe on the socks to keep the cohesion with the jersey striping, but that's extremely small. 2 - Spain Last WJC, I liked the Spain offering and wondered aloud how they would've come out had they copied the format of the Spanish soccer team. This season, this is exactly what this group did, and I really like it. Red/yellow/blue is a really good color combination and I think they did an excellent job here. Would the jerseys have benefitted from a small amount of blue somewhere in there? Maybe, but it's more of a curiosity than a complaint. 1 - Latvia Taking the crown this year is Team Latvia, with what I think is just a gorgeous uniform. The white center stripe with a silver accent, a logo that looks good on the jersey and added a black outline for clarity, I think these came out great. The perfectionist in me wants to question the big white strip on the jersey with the big silver stripe on the socks, but I'm also fighting my own thoughts by wanting to maintain white being on top of silver. I would've liked to have seen these with normal equipment instead of this chrome nonsense, but I'm hoping that was just a player custom choice and not what the entire team uses. I will choose to believe what makes me happier, and Latvia is your winning nation. If you made it this far before angrily replying about your team's ranking, I appreciate you. Team managers have been getting more enthusiastic about sending in their submissions and it makes my life a lot easier. My thumbs have slowed down to the point of no longer enjoying NHL, but I am still enjoying critiquing you all.
We made blue the dominant colour for our alternate (P.S. thanks for the praise!! I made our uniforms because the management were at a loss on what to do design-wise lol)
I didn’t go with Chrome gloves on Latvia uniform the gloves are Maroon with White and Grey accents. Chrome is hideous! Thanks for the write up great read!
