Tex Rickard wanted his Rangers to stand out, and in New York that means a distinct deviation from the norm.
The ability of the New York Americans to draw scads of people to Madison Square Garden made Rickard believe the city could support another team. As Garden president, he convinced the NHL the world’s most famous arena should be home to a second club, one owned by MSG itself that would begin play during the 1926–27 season. With his wish granted, Rickard decreed the Rangers sweater should have the team name dropped diagonally from top to bottom, thereby making it distinct from the popular Americans, who featured a more common horizontal design.
Two years after their debut, Tex’s Rangers (the team’s name originated from that play on words popularized by sports writers) added a small flourish with a white outline of the red lettering. In the early 1940s, the signature white drop shadow was added to the lettering and numbers, cementing the look of the “Broadway Blueshirts.” The only real departure from the format came in the mid-’70s, when the Rangers put the actual team crest on their chests for two seasons. The lettering was also switched to “New York” on the club’s blue road jerseys from 1978–87. As is the case with other forms of haute couture originating in Manhattan, the Rangers have proven to be tastemakers among NHL clubs, with both the Pittsburgh Penguins (in the early ’90s) and the Colorado Avalanche (with their current alternate jersey) imitating their signature diagonal lettering.
Rickard, who died just three years after the Rangers began play, would have been proud in the early 1970s when the team again pushed the limits of hockey fashion as one of the first squads to put player names on the back of their sweaters. For a squad playing in the Big Apple and wearing American colours, identifying each individual star seems natural.
The Rangers also got it right when the NHL’s alternate-jersey craze kicked in. While other teams were giving us grotesque, gaudy alterations, the Blueshirts created an instant classic with their Statue of Liberty crest. It was a sharp look that incorporated an iconic symbol from one of the world’s great cities. It also demonstrated that, decades after Rickard set the company line, the Rangers were still sporting threads that gave them the look of a winner before they even hit the ice.
This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Subscribe here.