S20 WJC Uniform Rankings

It's the most exciting time of WJC again, where I critique the uniforms that team owners have created for their countries. This is the 4th seasonal installment of these rankings, and I thank those of you who put the time and effort into your uniforms to make this possible. To those who don't, you're dead to me.

Before we get to the actual rankings, let me throw out a few of the usual caveats:
- I tried to find the dark/home uniform option for every team off streams linked to games.
- For some teams I could only find a white jersey on stream, so we're rolling with that.
- It is possible that the dark jersey I found is an alternate. If that's the case, I apologize and I hope you made a beautiful alternate for these rankings.
- I am judging the whole uniform, not just the jersey itself.

And with that, let's get into the countdown.

18. Finland

As always, those who chose to not create custom uniforms will fall at the bottom of the list. Finland I have at the bottom of the bottom because the navy blue + light/sky/powder/baby blue is a fun color scheme to work with, and forgoing that opportunity is a waste.



17. Denmark

Our 2nd contestant in the pre-set uniforms category, Denmark got a leg up on Finland simply because they're a boring country to design uniforms for. Granted, Denmark took 1st place in S19 due to how surprisingly nice of a jersey was created, so shoot your shot. This season's Denmark shot no such shot.



16. Great Britain

Great Britain rounds out our pre-set category. I don't blame them too much as the uniforms in the game are actually pretty nice for them. How can you not like those arms? However, defaulting to the easy option is not the name of the game here, so they come in at 16th.



15. Austria

We now enter the custom uniform arena, and if you remember from past WJCs I do not like seeing plain uniforms with no logo. Maybe Austria didn't have a pre-existing club to work from, but it's September and most everyone who isn't in the playoffs or in WJC has checked out from NHL 21, I'm sure there was a club you could've gotten loaned from someone else with more options.



14. Russia

Russia comes in using the Coyotes kachina jersey template, and I just don't think that it was a good match for them along with execution leaving something to be desired. It's just an awkward amount of white on the arm and color transitions throughout.



13. Canada

The jersey that Canada is using is pretty solid, utilizing one of a few maple leaf options and a Blackhawks-ish template. Where I subtracted points was the odd decision to use black socks with this uniform. I also would've liked to have seen more equipment cohesion, as a red helmet, red gloves, and black pants seems a bit mismatched to me.



12. USA

Team USA rolls out with a pretty Rangers-esque uniform. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, there simply wasn't anything that jumped out to excite me. The only element I'm not really a fan of is the white piping across the shoulder that reeks of the RBK Edge era of NHL uniforms, but overall this is a decent but unspectacular setup.



11. Belarus

With the opportunity to utilize a fairly unique flag color scheme, Belarus comes in with green shoulders on top of a predominantly red kit. It's a solid jersey overall. I don't love how the socks match with the jersey, but overall it's not bad.



10. Jamaica

This was very close to being one of my favorite uniforms in WJC. Unfortunately, while other teams fall short with equipment or socks, Jamaica fell short with the jersey itself. I thought the socks and pants were perfect for what I'd want to see out of Jamaica, but the jersey is lacking yellow in the striping that I feel would balance the whole thing much better. While there is some yellow piping around the shoulders, that gets lost while being surrounded by white. Maybe the dark uniforms have this handled better, but since all I could find was the whites, here we are.



9. Germany

Every season I have very high expectations for Germany because the black/yellow/red color scheme is just so nice to work with. This season the German uniforms didn't do it for me. I don't mind the horizontal stripe on a jersey, but with a predominantly yellow logo being used, a lot gets lost within the stripe. The collar colors look confused as well, going back and forth from red to yellow to red.



8. Norway

This is about the spot in the rankings where I don't have a lot of negative things to say about the uniforms, where instead I simply had to decide which ones I liked more. Norway doesn't have a ton of creative elements to work with, so it's difficult to come up with something that pops. The horizontal stripe style here isn't bad, it has a bit of a Habs feel that gets offset a bit with the blue shoulders and white helmets. I don't quite understand the Alaska logo, but aesthetically it's not bad.



7. Switzerland

I have to give major props to the Swiss uniform creator for creativity. The most noteworthy element of the Swiss flag is the Swiss Cross front and center on it, and they took the LA Kings Chevy logo, whited it out, and created some sort of post-modern cross. It's not perfect, but I never would've thought to do that. The rest of the uniform is decent. The white gloves are always a risky pick, and I'm not quite sure they landed here. They also made quite the bold decision to use red numbers with no outline on a red jersey on the stream I watched, which is, um...interesting.



6. France

Another team for whom I could not find a stream with a dark jersey (I know it's out there because Eamonn screenshotted a play from it, but alas), the French jersey is pretty solid with the double horizontal stripes. They used the correct socks fort his uniform, and while white pants are often an unpopular opinion, for some reason it seems to work alright for France.



5. Netherlands

Team Holland comes in with the orange and blue color scheme that the country uses in international play. I like the lion logo on the crest, I like the colors used, and the striping is ok to me, as the busy underarm striping seems to have gone out of style by 2010. The gloves are also a little heavy on orange to me given the rest of the equipment, but not enough to make it a major detriment. Luckily the team can feel good with their appearance, as they surely don't feel good with their on-ice play.



4. Japan

This is a very clean setup utilized by Japan here. I only have two qualms, both of which aren't very significant. I would've liked to have seen the white moon filled in red as well in order to emulate the rising sun on Japan's flag. I think different socks could've been utilized as well to better match the jersey striping, but as always I never know what socks were actually available to be used. Neither of those critiques though draw back on the uniform too much, I'm a fan.



3. Sweden

Somehow Sweden varies greatly season to season, which is surprising for a country that uses damn near the same uniform in international play every competition. I thought these were a very nice and clean setup. The stylized S logo works very well on the jersey, there's good cohesion between the jerseys and socks as well as the equipment. I have zero complaints about this.



2. South Korea

I love the jersey here. The double horizontal stripes with the thin stripe in the middle is one of my favorite jersey templates in the game, and I think it was utilized exceptionally well.. I don't love the socks that got paired with the jerseys, and in some cases this might've knocked the uniform down further, but I think the jersey and logo were done so well that I can't drop this too far.



1. Italy

Once Eamonn got ownership in WJC, I knew he was going to create a nice uniform. He got blessed with the rights to design Italy, a country with a unique style of the red/white/green flag as well as using two shades of blue on their national uniforms. With many options at hand, he did not disappoint as we get Italian flags scattered through the arms, logo, and socks. There's even a slight homage to last season's Chef Italy team with the logo used on the pants and shoulders. Off to a 12-0 start and pre-season favorites for gold, the team dressed for the occasion.

 

Well done man, I agree with pretty much this entire order. I always look forward to WJC jersey rankings.

 

Solid list. I don't like the Netherlands or South Korea ones myself. Netherlands orange is a bit off and the color combo kind of clashes, South Korea I think could add a bit of white to the jersey and improve it 10 fold.

 

That optical illusion Italy has for their logo takes the cake!

 

For Sweden, all credit to @Chab x 19 who did an outstanding job providing the fact that we created the club from scratch a week ago

Good job Bicktacular for that ranking

 

Alaska logo is the only one with a bear @Bicktacular

 

I did try my best with them where I could we do have a white and an alternate as well but I tried to match the orange the best I could