Back to the Orange Third Jersey

A few days ago Oilers’ Twitter started talking about an orange third jersey for the Oilers. Like I had seen in days gone by I figured this was just some fans and fake rumour guys talking about it. Well it turns out there may be more to the rumour than I thought. Thanks to Jason Gregor the rumour now has some teeth to it. Here is the quote:

The Oilers will have a new third jersey this season. I’ve been told that orange will be the dominant colour. I’ve also been told they won’t be available for purchase until late September, or realistically, early October. I haven’t seen the jersey, but it sounds like it might look similar (but not exactly the same as pic above) to the orange jersey the OKC Barons had last year. I like bright colours and if orange is the dominant colour, I’m all for it.

The great thing about this is that many Oilers fans have been "all for it" for years now. A couple years back I wrote a piece about the Oilers bringing in an orange third jersey and the response to it was pretty decent for a Fan Post.

History

Bringing in an orange jersey has more significance than you’d think though. Back in the Oilers’ early WHA days their two jerseys were the dominantly blue with orange stripes like we know today, the other was the exact opposite dominantly orange with blue stripes.

If you want to read more about the Oilers’ WHA days Ben did some great work on it back in the day.

• The Five Best Oiler Teams to Miss the Playoffs
• J-E-T-S (Before the fake Jets came back)
• Our Forgotten First Overall

Ryan also did a post a few years ago discussing how the Oilers need to acknowledge their WHA days.

Expectations

Even if a relatively prominent radio host is reporting this information, I’d still be a little skeptical until I actually saw the jersey. For those of us that have been waiting for this day it couldn't come at a better time. I’m guessing that there will be a lot of orange McDavid 97’s out there.