There have certainly been some ugly moments for the Sabres in the 2010s, but we’re not just talking about the team’s record.
At the start of the 2013-14 season, Buffalo rotated in a new gold third jersey to go with their home blues and road whites. Let’s just say it did not go over well among both players and fans.
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“I think it was a big pile of turds,” former Sabres tough guy John Scott recalls. “That’s the most appropriate thing I can say about it. It was just a big swing and a miss.”
Unlike the big logo change the Sabres made in 2006-07, dumping the red and black “goat head” and returning to blue and gold only to have the “Buffaslug” take its place, the traditional circular logo with a charging buffalo and two crisscrossed swords came back in 2010 and was a modernized version of the old jerseys.
After the franchise celebrated its 40th anniversary with a lighter blue colored fauxback jersey with “Buffalo” in script writing across the front — a nod to the Buffalo Bisons AHL team that predated the arrival of the Sabres — the time had arrived for another third jersey in 2013.
The Sabres creative team – led by Pegula Sports and Entertainment vice president of creative services Frank Cravotta — collaborated with Reebok to design a new alternate jersey. Cravotta previously had a hand in designing the “slug” jerseys as well as the 40th anniversary thirds, but this particular undertaking did not end well.
In July 2013, the Sabres began posting sneak peeks at what the new sweater was going to look like. The teases began in summer and periodically popped up to keep the fans stoked for what was to come.
Ready for another sneak peek of the #Sabres new third jersey? HERE IT IS: pic.twitter.com/qjf1LMKWJh
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) August 1, 2013
*Exclusive* PHOTO: Here’s your next puzzle piece for our new third jersey… pic.twitter.com/ye3AEYs3Hw
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) August 15, 2013
A piece of our new third jersey you haven’t seen yet #NewThirdJerseys #Sabres pic.twitter.com/C28oymYZ08
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) August 29, 2013
By September, players were back in town informally practicing ahead of training camp. The final tease turned out to be a bit of a troll:
Your favorite part of the week… here’s a *NEW* sneak peek of our third jersey this year! pic.twitter.com/tO3Is5okID
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) September 4, 2013
Steve Ott, who would be named captain along with Thomas Vanek in October, took to Twitter to say enough was enough and he was going to finally give the fans what they wanted.
*Breaking News… Times up! @BuffaloSabres 3rd Jersey Leaked #MiseryIsOver Can’t wait for the season to start!! pic.twitter.com/7diRxEhDBJ
— Steve Ott (@otterN9NE) September 4, 2013
And here’s the back @BuffaloSabres pic.twitter.com/p8zi0I9PVM
— Steve Ott (@otterN9NE) September 4, 2013
“We were in the stick room area in the locker room there and (equipment manager Dave Williams) and the boys brought Otter back there to take some pictures for social media, so I was there and I saw him throw it on,” former Sabres defenseman Mike Weber said.
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“I thought it was pretty funny how he did it. Obviously he was kind of directed to do that, but I thought it was funny because he was in his gitch, right? So he had no pants on so you could see his gitch shorts underneath and he kind of threw the jersey on over top and he was in the skate sharpening room. It was kind of awkward, but it was our first look at the jersey, too.
“I just remember being in there doing my stick looking at Otter, Otter was having a bit of a chuckle and all the rest of us were having a chuckle. I think Otter wore it all around the rink that day until we went out for practice that day. It was a bit of a gag.”
The internet was ruthless in its assessment of the new jersey. Ott’s reveal only added to it. There was also the confusion it caused as to whether that was really the way it was supposed to be unveiled.
“It’s ugly. It catches your eye, but it’s not a very nice looking uniform,” Scott said. “It wasn’t very good to wear because it didn’t breathe very well. It was a very heavy material. It wasn’t a good jersey, I’ll say that. For a third jersey you want something to be unique and catchy and kind of cool maybe, a throwback to the old days, and this was none of those things. It missed the mark, for sure.”
A month after it was unleashed on the public, team president Ted Black helped give it an unintended but now infamous name. During an appearance on WGR in early October, host Howard Simon asked Black about the jersey and the reaction the public had for it.
“If it doesn’t sell, it won’t really mean anything to our bottom line,” Black said then. “It’s a third jersey. If it’s a turd burger, I’ll have to put it on a bun and eat it. It’s the way it is.”
Black — who left the Sabres in 2015 and now serves as the president and CEO for the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg, Pa. — respectfully declined a formal interview on the subject, but said via email that he still accepts full responsibility for how the jersey was conceived, designed, rolled out, and criticized.
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“You don’t really hear anything from the fans. The opposing players? Yeah,” Scott said. “‘Mustard bottle.’ That’s what they’d call me was ‘mustard bottle.’ It’s funny — the Sabres jersey is so great on its own. I loved putting on a Sabres jersey and they could’ve went so many different ways with it, but to go that way? The guys knew it. When we saw them hanging up everybody was like, ‘Come on, really? We’re wearing these?’ Everybody knew it, nobody liked them, but it doesn’t affect your play, it reminds them. It’s like, ‘Ugh, we’re wearing these ones tonight? Yuck.’ It’s not like we were lighting up the scoreboard, too, so we were a bad team and when we wore those jerseys it was just like a double-whammy. Like, ‘We know, we’re bad, and we’re getting beat 4-0 — what else could go wrong?’”
The jersey’s lifespan also happened to coincide with two of the worst statistical seasons in modern Sabres history. Walking through the doors at the arena to play for a team that wasn’t built for success while having to wear something unflattering didn’t exactly improve morale.
Gionta (pictured) still has his ‘turd burger’ jersey hanging in his basement. (Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)“I was mixed on them because I thought the backs were really nice, the backs were really sharp,” former captain Brian Gionta said. “I was not a huge fan of the front.”
Gionta arrived in Buffalo in the second year of the uniforms after a five-year stint with the Canadiens.
“I was in Montreal for the 100th anniversary of the team, so we got to wear all the old school jerseys, too,” Gionta said. “There were some pretty cool jerseys we wore and we got to keep. There was that old candy cane one with stripes, we had socks that were striped with red, white and blue, but I’d say the yellow ones take it as the least attractive of all the ones.”
Call it a candy cane or a barber pole if you want, but while the Canadiens’ centennial throwback from 1912-13 was certainly eye-catching, it was no turd burger. There was also the matter of the captain’s letters. Even those were stylized on the new sweaters and given a different location.
“One of the refs — I don’t remember which ref it was — he was like, ‘What happened, where’s the C,’” Gionta, who still has his hanging on the wall in his basement, recalled. “I go, ‘It’s up on the shoulder,’ and I had to show him where it was. He figured it out that’s where the ‘C’ was and the assistant captain’s crests were on those jerseys. It was a different placement and the refs were caught off guard by it.”
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And while the third jersey proved to be a failed experiment during two struggling seasons, many of the players who wore it still regard that time period fondly.
“I was fortunate to be able to wear a letter for a bit of time there in Buffalo. That’s one of the jerseys I have that has the assistant captain’s letter on it, so I kept it,” Weber said. “Willy and (assistant equipment manager George) Babcock and Ripper (equipment manager Rip Simonick) were always great at making sure we had our jerseys at the end of every season. I’ve got every jersey I’ve ever worn for every season. It’s still pretty special.”
(Top photo: Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)
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