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Atlanta Thrashers prototype(?) away uniform in old NHL game, extremely rare sight


Nas

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So you guys all know the Thrasher's inaugural blue (away, at the time) sweater back in 1999, right? Here's Patrik Stefan as a refresher.

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Very slick uniform, in my opinion. Great color choice, unique design, etc. It's too bad it was scrapped in 2006, and never brought back again.

In any case, I found something interesting I'm pretty sure a lot of people would like. In the EA Sports game NHL 2000 (which came out on August 31, 1999), the Thrashers' road uniforms are a little different than they turned out to be.

Here we are at the team select screen. I'm using the PC version of the game.

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This is the starting lineup/jersey select screen. At the right, you see the regular Thrashers jersey they worn from 1999-2007. On the right, though, is something unusual. The away jersey in this game is quite different than the one they actually used. I got some good pics, too.

Our first subject is Ulf Samuelsson, who was slated to play for the Thrashers in '99, but got signed to the Flyers in October. Here's a good initial view of the jersey. Right off the bat, you can tell it's pretty much the road jersey they eventually used, except a recoloring (it's practically the opposite of the home jersey), and the shoulder/chest logos stay at the same place instead of being swapped. The actual away uniform they used brought more diversity from the Thrashers' color scheme, more specifically red and yellow.

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Next up, Norm Maracle, the goalie.

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Here's a trio of players, side by side .As you can see, they kept the same helmet during the regular season, script and all.

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A whole swarm of obscure, unknown-to-the world sweaters gathering at center ice. But they're going to be known now. (as you probably know by now, I made both the home and away teams wear the same jerseys so I could get better shots) Man, these graphics are good for 1999.

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Here's Ray Ferraro, giving the rubber the ol' slapshot. One of my favorite pictures of all of these.

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Back view of Maracle.

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Here's a really good front view of the uniform...

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And the back. As you can see, CCM is the "manufacturer" of the jersey. As this was quite a bit before the season started, jersey manufacture contracts weren't settled for the season yet.

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Also worth of note is that the number is a generic blocky font, which is probably another aspect of these prototype unis, and is unlike the final font they used.

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I'm going to assume the home jerseys in this game have the same font.

You can find more pics of this jersey in my album.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Sorry for the massive amount of pictures, but this is something I think every jersey enthusiast should see, it's really interesting. Here's why I think these look different. Firstly, since the teams are the ones that get show the developer (in this case, EA) the uniform and tell them what they want it to look like in the game. My guess is that during the development period of the game (which was goodness only knows when, but I'm assuming it started sometime around early 1999), the time when they were making the jerseys for the game, Atlanta had the concept of their away jerseys that was, at the time, different than the final product. At the time of release, it was probably the same, too. They probably never finalized it until sometime between the time the game it was released, and the inaugural game of the season. In any case, I call this a protoype jersey, and it's probably the most obscure jersey of all time, or at least one of them.

I just brought this out because I really wanted people to see this. It's not on any other sites I've looked, not on jersey databases, nothing at all. I'm hoping people can get the word out on this very obscure piece of Thrashers history. Here's my take on what the jersey looked like, compared to the actual thing:

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Jersey artists out there, please try and do a better job than I did! And spread the word, guys! This is something I'm sure everyone here hasn't seen before. In any case, I'm glad I got to share this with you guys.

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Wow PC graphics really have improved quite a bit since then.

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I don't think maracle's blocker conforms to the new equipment rules

He's actually wearing a third leg pad on his arm.

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