EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsThe first thing to know about the Florida Panthers' new pink Hometown Remix jerseys is that they claim they're not pink."It's a color of the sunrise. It's a shade of coral," Michael White, the Panthers' president of business operations, told ESPN."I do think it'll come across as not pink. It's going to come across as coral," said Brian Jennings, NHL chief branding officer.These are noble protestations that probably won't change the general perception that the Florida Panthers are the first NHL team to use pink as the primary color of a game-worn jersey, as one of 32 new sweaters released on Monday morning as part of Fanatics' new Hometown Remix campaign."If there's a team that could pull off a pink jersey, it would be the Panthers," said Dom Fillion, VP of creative, design and innovation for Fanatics.Hometown Remix is the first "all 32 teams" campaign for Fanatics, which became the official outfitter of on-ice uniforms and authentic jerseys for the NHL starting in the 2024-25 season. The design details draw on local landmarks, culture and tradition, while also nodding to classic looks from the franchises' history.The Hometown Remix program will run for only one season, with teams wearing their uniforms several times in 2026-27. In total, there will be 261 games that feature a Hometown Remix uniform, including 19 in which both teams will wear them.Florida is one of three teams wearing their Hometown Remix jerseys on Monday night, the day the campaign was revealed by all 32 teams.As Fanatics described the Panthers' sweaters:"Tropical sunrise colors. Picture-perfect postcard energy. '90s graphic vibes. It's all coming together in a uniform that has peak South Florida aura. This jersey is about the place we call home, the colors that reflect off the water every morning, and the progress that follows for anyone awake to see it. Taking cues from your favorite graphic beach tee, the front crest is a remixed version of the throwback Panthers' shoulder patch logo. The sleeves continue the '90s sunrise pattern, topped off with the Panthers logo, styled in fresh colors. Wear it to games, cruises, and sandbar hangs. This jersey is designed for the kind of life most people only dream about. South Florida life."What has Fillion excited about these jerseys is their potential to be something that transcends NHL fandom."These jerseys are conversation pieces. They go beyond the hard-core hockey fan and translate into lifestyle. They're going to translate into sport culture," he said. "People are going to want to touch and feel and wear them. This will go beyond the hockey fan."FANATICS WAITED A couple of seasons before embarking on an "all 32" jersey program, something their market research indicated fans were excited to see again.The last one from an NHL jersey partner was the Reverse Retro series created by Adidas in 2020 and 2022, a widely popular campaign that married franchise fashion history with bold color schemes.So the first challenge for Fanatics was not repeating looks that Reverse Retro already utilized. "We knew we didn't want to do a Reverse Retro 3.0. We wanted to create our own narrative, our own point of view," Fillion said.The Panthers' pink jerseys probably don't happen without the success of the Reverse Retro campaign.Florida's first Reverse Retro jersey celebrated their 1995-96 run to the Stanley Cup Final with their "leaping Panther" logo. But the Version 2.0 jersey was much bolder: Turning their secondary logo, featuring a hockey stick crossed with a palm tree, into their primary one, on the front of a vibrant powder-blue sweater. It finished atop ESPN's Reverse Retro rankings in 2022.Jennings remembers getting to know Teresa Viola, whose family owns the Panthers, during the Reverse Retro era, and specifically around the time of their blue jerseys being released."Teresa ended up saying, 'I love it. I want it to be more bold,'" Jennings recalled. "She's always had this vision for Florida's going to celebrate hockey. South Florida's going to celebrate hockey the way they want to do it. Her and her son John really leaned into this notion that, let's be more vibrant, let's take more chance, let's do it."Fillion said the Viola family was "heavily engaged" in creating the Hometown Remix jersey."They got out of the comfort zone on the Reverse Retro one and they're like, 'Well, it worked,'" he said. "They really kind of pushed us on color and wanted to make sure the color was exactly where they wanted to be."The trick for Fanatics was creating the right color."You're developing colors from scratch and it's a little bit of a sensitive topic. And with that is the idea of the sunrise, the idea of the color that comes with it and how they get," Fillion said.The NHL and Fanatics moved the Panthers to a pink (or coral) base color gradually."There's a little bit of an approach to teams and how to test the water and see the reaction," Fillion said. "So we tease out an accent within a jersey and then suddenly you're calling it out louder as you're going through the presentation."Fillion said Fanatics had some more "conservative concepts" as a backup plan in case the Panthers felt the pink jerseys were too bold."But I was ecstatic to know that this was something that they felt like they could pull off. They just saw the opportunity with it," he said. "If it wasn't this pink, then it wasn't going to happen."The Panthers aren't the first South Florida team to adopt pink as a jersey motif. Inter Miami adopted an all-pink kit in 2022 that became ubiquitous in 2023 when global superstar Lionel Messi joined the squad. It was a look pushed by co-owner David Beckham."The good news is when you turn on the TV and see us in pink, you'll know it's us. If you're going to own it, own it. I think all-pink is going to be very striking and you're not going to miss us, that's for sure," senior VP Mike Ridley told Sports Illustrated at the time.Jennings remembers expressing concerns about whether this particular shade could be successfully "lab dipped" and the overall cost of using these unprecedented colors on an NHL jersey."I give the Panthers a lot of credit, right up to the top, because they were dogged. They were like, 'This is what we want to do,'" he said.JENNINGS REMEMBERS SEEING Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov at the NHL Player Media Tour in Las Vegas. He was skating in the Hometown Remix jersey. It was the first time Jennings had seen them on the ice and in action."I think it'll be really vibrant against the white ice surface," he said.It's also important to note specifically who will be wearing these vibrant sweaters: the Panthers, who bludgeoned and antagonized opponents en route to two Stanley Cup victories, winning by any means necessary. The team of Brad Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk. The word "juxtaposition" comes to mind for Jennings."I like that. You got the Tkachuk brothers, you got Sam Bennett, you've got Radko Gudas. It's a team not for the meek and mild," he said.White downplayed the contrast between the new sweaters and the truculent reputation of the team."We have some of the best players in the NHL, and we're really proud of that. But we play hockey in South Florida, so there's just a lot of things that probably in the traditional hockey lexicon are just not natural," he said.In fact, White doesn't see any contrast between these jerseys and the brutality of hockey, either."I wouldn't see it like that. I think for us, we play hockey in the most southern location you can play hockey. So kind of naturally we wanted it to fit into the hometown, which ironically is called Sunrise," he said.Buzz surrounding the Panthers' bold new sweaters has been building for months. Florida's Hometown Remix jerseys were one of the first to leak on the Internet way back in May, thanks to a prototype ending up on eBay.Local publications like Florida Hockey Now covered the jerseys before their official release, writing that: "The new pink-dominated threads [have] a hue that reminds of pink lemonade or Starburst candies instead of a Vice-themed hot pink."White said he wasn't concerned about opinions forming through those leaks."I've spent my whole career in entertainment media, and with that there's always leaks or sneaks and things like that that come out," he said. "What I've seen in my 30 years of doing this is that the fans want the real thing. The fans want the authenticity of the story and the product itself."It took 18 months for the Panthers, Fanatics and the NHL to create their Hometown Remix jerseys. The colors and other iconography will be used on a variety of other products. Despite the fact that the jerseys will be worn for only one season, Fanatics projects that this will be the highest-grossing merchandise program the league has ever had.Many of the looks are bold. None are bolder than what the Panthers have done here."Coral, salmon, pink, whatever you want to call it. The Panthers wanted to have a color that was new and never done before," Jennings said. "I'm excited about having Florida come out of the gate first."
