Fanatics Adds N.H.L. Player Jerseys to Its Growing Pro Sports Roster

CCM was the exclusive uniform provider from 2000-1 to 2003-4. Reebok made the league’s uniforms from the 2005-6 season to 2016-17, before Adidas took over.

Many hockey fans also appreciate brands like CCM, Bauer and Koho, which “have a long heritage and greater cachet than some of the corresponding brands have in other sports,” Lukas said.

But hockey fans have also been critical of newcomers, including Fanatics.

Chris Creamer, the founder and editor of Sports Logos.net, said that having a single company design every team’s uniforms can produce “a template-y look. It would be hard to avoid some duplication in design.”

But he said that sports fans in general don’t like change. “They want what they grew up with, everyone and their opinions be damned,” Creamer said. Throwback uniforms, he said, are “like looking through an old family album. With hockey, we love to romanticize the past.”

Fanatics said that when it took over the manufacturing of replica jerseys in 2017, it tweaked the design after speaking with fans. One change included making the shield in the center of jerseys more flexible so they are more easily folded as well as more washable. Fanatics said it also will survey players and equipment managers when it takes over production of their jerseys in another year.