Welcome to this website’s off-season sports sartorial content. We are counting down the world’s top 50 most iconic sports uniforms. Only current uniforms apply, we are not including one-off or alternate uniforms. Let’s stick to the basics.

#7

Montreal Canadiens 

This is it for hockey, the very best the sport has to offer comes out of the Bell Centre in Montreal. Complete with 24 Stanley Cups and buckets full of tradition, including a hockey sweater known all over the world.

Few sports teams have nailed their original uniform but the Canadiens pretty much did just that in 1917 with the debut of their “CH” logo inside a blue banner with white trim, complete with that same trim on the arms but then two very thin blue and white stripes on the bottom of the jersey. Over 100 years later, Montreal keeps this look intact.

The early decades of the club did see some overall uniform changes through the years, including:

• An all-red logo in 1919
• A return to the original logo and a switch from light cream to tan pants in 1921
• A white crest with red “H” in the middle for 1922
• 1924 saw them place a globe on the front as world champions and the normal logo moved to the sleeves
• One season later, the normal logo came back
• A solid white collar arrived for 1927
• Blue pants finally were worn starting in 1936
• 1958 saw player numbers added to the sleeves, then they were moved inside the stripes in 1966
• The collar changes to a blue/white/blue stripe and the arm numbers move above the stripes
• All white collars return for the 2015 season
• Since 2017, the collars have featured a thin blue stripe by the neck

It’s not a lot of change. I’m partial to the white uniforms worn at home from 1970 through 2006 with the light blue board trim on the ice as that’s just quintessential French Canadian hockey to me. However, the red sweaters have been the envy of the sport for such a long time.