With the unveiling of the reengineered Reebok jerseys last week, I thought it was time to rate the most classic uniforms in the storied history of our league.
But before we get to the best, we have to address the uniforms that should have been kept on the rack and buried in the equipment room closet.
The overall uniform design is judged on five elements:
Tradition: Most CFL teams have a deep tradition and roots connected to their communities. It’s not a coincidence that Calgary’s dominant colour is red, or the Argos led the way for all Toronto sports teams with blue. To not respect your traditional elements costs you points.
Functionality: Are the numbers on the uniform discernible to the naked eye if you’re sitting in row 50? There are a surprising number of new designs throughout the sports world which violate this basic premise of having a uniform in the first place.
Continuity: The development of a solid and reliable brand is evolutionary. Nothing reeks of desperation quite like an overhaul of your colours and logo.
Originality: How does your team’s persona stand alone in the crowd? How have they been able to take the technological innovations of the time and incorporate them into the story of your team?
Balance: In the same sense that one should not wear a baseball cap with a business suit, teams should thoughtfully coordinate and balance all elements of colour in their uniforms.
All black uniforms with a different coloured helmet are the biggest offenders of this rule. Also, do your stripes match up? Are they the same pattern throughout the uniform?
All elements are scored out of 10. The total score is divided by five for the final placing.
Let’s get started!
16. 1960s Ottawa Rough Riders
In the 1960’s, there were many design trends springing up across the continent. Unfortunately for folks in Ottawa, every one of those design elements were tossed at the dart board and landed on the Rough Riders uniforms.
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Shoulder inserts? Got ‘em. Shoulder piping? Got that too. They even put a dividing line down the middle of the shoulder to cut the numbers up. Busyness is not a redeeming quality for a football uniform and this is one of the most cluttered of the last half century.
The origins of the name Rough Riders are also not reflected in the helmet logo which rides way out west to a rodeo. The inspiration for the team name came from Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, the name of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry who fought in the Spanish-American War.
Rough Riders was also later applied to lumberjacks who hopped from log to log on the Rideau. Instead, we have something closer to a Stampeder holding on for eight seconds on a bucking bronco.
This uniform fails for pulling in way too many directions.
Tradition: 6
Functionality: 7
Continuity: 5
Originality: 9
Balance: 5
Score: 6.4
15. 1989 Toronto Argonauts
When frugal former NHL official Harry Ornest took over the St. Louis Blues in 1983, his first move was to pull a page out of the NCAA Division III playbook, and emblazon the team name “BLUES” over the logo.
Let’s jump to 1989. For the first time in known memory a professional football team was about to do the same with Harry at the helm of the Argos as their new owner.
In an effort to be hip, Harry-O rechristened the team the “Argos”, perhaps not wanting to spend the extra money on the “naughts”. With team history in the form of a name cut in half, Ornest had “ARGOS” screen printed above the numbers.
He also added a hint of red to the double blue, for no particular reason other than to emulate the Blue Jays or indicate that this Canadian Football League team was from actually from Canada.
Ornest would eventually run into then-LA Kings Owner Bruce McNall at the Hollywood Park racetrack over drinks, setting the stage for a sale. The Argonaut name would return when Ornest sold in 1991, while the team name disappeared from the jersey.
Tradition: 1
Functionality: 6
Continuity: 4
Originality: 6
Balance: 6
Score : 5.6
14. 2006-07 BC Lions
If you’re going all-black, do just that. For most of their history the Lions have had black in their colour scheme so there’s no break with tradition with dressing like midnight from head-to-toe.
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However, when teams don’t think their design through you’ll end up with team pumpkin head or all-black uniforms with a white dome that looks completely incongruent.
The Lions had used orange helmets back in the 1950’s, but that was when they had orange tops at home or orange pants on the road. They worked when they were balanced.
The jack-o-lantern look was done in part as an inspirational element worn in the 2006 playoffs and Grey Cup.
The Lions would later retire the orange helmets for black ones, creating a fantastic all-black look still used until 2011.
Here’s hoping the Ichabod Crane unis will never ride again.
Tradition: 4
Functionality: 7
Continuity: 1
Originality: 6
Balance: 1
Score:5.2
13. 1965 Edmonton Eskimos
Without question, the 2009 Reebok retro of this uniform was better than the original. The cut of the original jersey was so bizarre; no modern uniform designer could wrap their dye cut around it.
A strange butterfly wing shoulder insert, with a lonely, hovering “E” at the base throws the whole design out of whack. It’s a major distraction for the eye, and these uniforms would soon be substituted for the Eskimos dynasty-era uniforms.
There are some quality elements to this uniform. The colours are solid and the same as the ones the Eskimos inherited in their inaugural season from the University of Alberta Golden Bears. It’s also the first year the Eskimos employed the iconic “EE” logo on the helmets after never having a helmeted logo.
Tradition: 5
Functionality: 5
Continuity: 6
Originality: 5
Balance: 5
Score: 5.1
12. 1995-97 Winnipeg Blue Bombers
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It’s always a letdown when a team or organization tosses out something that is working perfectly well in favour of something that no one asked for. The blue-helmeted mid-90s redesign of the Blue Bomber duds was the “New Coke” of CFL uniforms. As part of turning blue to something closer to the trendy black of the day, Winnipeg decommissioned the royal blue and cashed in most of their gold. That was a shock to the system of many Bomber fans.
The silliest accoutrement to this package was a mini-lighting bolt added to the pant stripe. It seemed to ape the San Diego Chargers iconic design, yet so small it seemed to be powered by a Ray-O-Vac 9-volt battery.
An eventual reintroduction of gold helmets and pants in 1998, and a cleaner redesign by Reebok in the mid ‘aughts eventually washed the Reinebold-era threads into obscurity.
Tradition: 5
Functionality: 7
Continuity: 3
Originality: 2
Balance: 3
Score: 5.0
11. 1994 Ottawa Rough Riders
These actually were not bad looking uniforms. They were just bad uniforms for the Ottawa Rough Riders.
It was an era of turbulence for the franchise. Coming off the trendy yet functionally-challenged uniforms of the previous two years (see #8 on this list) the Bruce Firestone ownership era commenced with a uniform which completely broke the bond of history with past teams and loyal fans.
The Riders also introduced a new logo which can be best described as a Coureurs de Bois with a pike pole through his head.
Tradition: 4
Functionality: 7
Continuity: 1
Originality: 5
Balance: 8
Score: 5.0
10. 1970-73 Montreal Alouettes
Caught between the tradition of the Montreal Canadiens, the space age, and the Expo ’67-fuelled optimism of the Montreal Expos, the Alouettes must have felt caught in the middle in 1969. Change was in the air.
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In the summer of 1970, the Alouettes stepped onto the field of the Autostade with perhaps the only graphically abstract logo in football married with the colours of Joyeux Noël.If you need help translating the graphics of the logo, it’s a lower case “a” which also represents a bird. The red dot is the eye.
The mint uniforms were actually worn to victory in the 1970 Grey Cup.In just three years the green was left to the Saskatchewans and Edmontons, and Montreal was back on the same page as all of the city’s teams in red, white and blue.
Tradition: 0
Functionality: 5
Continuity: 3
Originality: 9
Balance: 7
Score: 4.8
9. 2010 100th Anniversary Commemorative Saskatchewan Roughriders
Green is the colour. Remember that. The Green Riders fans live by that axiom and no matter how well intended it was a red, black and gray outfit on Taylor Field was just too much to handle for Ridernation.
Red numbers on black were hard to read. It’s also a challenge for jersey makers to build a retro design which featured sleeve stripes in today’s era, since sleeves don’t really exist anymore.
The road of good intentions in this case led to a place that looked like Calgary or Ottawa.
Perhaps the Rider outfits worn by the likes of Frank Tripucka in the 50’s may have been a better choice.
A Green Rider is a guy named Elgaard, Lancaster or Reed. Red Rider is a band led by Tom Cochrane.
Tradition: 6
Functionality: 2
Continuity: 0
Originality: 5
Balance: 5
Score: 3.6
8. 1992-93 Ottawa Rough Riders
Troubled former Pro Bowl defensive lineman Dexter Manley took to the field with uniforms – like so many others of that era – that emulated the LA Raiders/Kings black and silver look.
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Except where there was white in years before what was supposed to be silver was actually gray.The road gray uniform tops gave the impression that the Riders were battling through a torrential downpour even if it was a sunny 30 degree scorcher at Ivor Wynne Stadium. The Riders also went from the iconic white “R” on a black lid to a flaming pair of “RRs” which would have made the cartoonists at Rocket Robin Hood proud.
Tradition: 0
Functionality: 5
Continuity: 4
Originality: 3
Balance: 5
Score: 3.1
7. 2005-2007 Edmonton Eskimos alternate yellow
Yell-NO.
The very few times the Eskimos dared to toss on their short-lived yellow jerseys Commonwealth Stadium unofficially became Citrus Bowl North. The radioactive glow of the yellow jerseys and helmets was somewhat contained with green pants.
Eskimos staff informed me that all three quarterbacks were dressed in the yellow jerseys, yellow helmets and yellow pants at a practice for a test of the look. Rumour has it that all records of that practice, photographic, video or otherwise have apparently been encased in a concrete block and reside at the bottom of Great Slave Lake.
Tradition: 2
Functionality: 5
Continuity: 0
Originality: 6
Balance: 2
Score 3.1
6. 5. 4. Saskatchewan Roughriders 2002-06, Montreal Alouettes 2002 , Calgary Stampeders 1990
For special occasions, wear black.
However, if your team has never featured black in your colour scheme it comes off as gimmicky.The Alouettes simply deny their fans one of the best uniforms in the land when they wear black.
Their black uniforms have improved over the years with easier to read numbers. The first black uniforms get the thumbs down for blue numbers on a black base and for the fact they look suspiciously close to the XFL New York-New Jersey Hitmen uniform.
The Riders black uniforms may have unintentionally provided the suggestion to fans to wear melons on their heads, although sales of gumballs didn’t skyrocket in Calgary when they rolled out their blackout jerseys with the glaring red lid. In fairness to the Stamps, the folks who designed the current black uniform get it and have come up with a design that makes the top 16.
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Tradition: 1
Functionality: 3
Continuity: 2
Originality: 5
Balance: 0
Score: 2.2
3, 2, 1. Memphis Mad Dogs, Birmingham Barracudas, Toronto Argonauts – 1995
All of these three shirts with team logos on the front and a small number on the shoulder are to football what Cooperalls were to hockey.Like many bad ideas it came from somewhere else. The World League of American Football experimented with the look of their European teams with a sublimated logo on the front of the uniform, with six inch numbers on the front of the shoulder.
It was one thing to have one-year wonders named the Mad Dogs and Barracudas runabout with cartoons on their bellies. It was completely another tragedy to witness North America’s oldest football team – the Toronto Argonauts – play with a slate green and blue graphic spillage at the beltline.Like most great uniform mistakes, the Argo uniforms were gone in time for the next season.
Tradition: 0
Functionality: 1
Continuity: 0
Originality: 3
Balance: 5
Score: 1.8
