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Best and worst sweaters of all-time: Boston Bruins

Raymond Bourque, Cam Neely

That’s right, our fun summer project takes over this week and I’m giving you my thoughts on the best and worst sweaters of all time on a team by team basis. I’ll thank Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk for giving me the idea on how to help kill time as he did the same thing there, but with the rich history of great and awful sweaters out there we’ve got a lot of fun to have.

There’s no rhyme nor reason to how the teams come out, so be patient if you’re waiting to see one particular team. To get things started, the latest Stanley Cup champions get the honors.

Best: You’re going to find that a lot of my favorites lean heavily on the 1980s and 1990s and that’s the case with the Bruins. Their jerseys from the mid-1970s until 1995 are a simple thing of beauty. The home white and road black with the spoked “B” as well as a menacing bruin head on the shoulders capped off by a neatly numbered and lettered jersey gave the Bruins an easy-on-the-eyes iconic look. No need for flash and dash with the Bruins of that age, just classic elegance.

Worst: Every great era in uniform history is usually followed up by some God-awful mistake and the Bruins pulled that off in horrible, legendary fashion from 1995-2004. A bright gold third jersey with a bruins head as the centerpiece that wasn’t so much ferocious or intimidating as it was emo and cuddly. Vomit, vomit, vomit. The jagged edges on the bottom of the jersey and on the sleeves and collar with the “Bruins” block wordmark on the shoulders offered nothing but indifference in its awfulness.

It was all over when people referred to that Bruins third as the “Winnie The Pooh jersey.” To make matters worse, the Bruins played like Pooh with his head stuck in a honey jar and even had the gall to make Cam Neely and Ray Bourque wear that in their time in Boston.

Old-timey favorite: Let’s throw it back to 1934. The Bruins change from brown and gold to black and gold saw them with same colored stripes on the sleeves and a big, block letter “B” on the front. It’s a look that worked so well for the Bruins that they would wear these throwbacks back during the NHL’s 75th anniversary season in 1991-1992. The Bruins always did better doing things simply and this one is a true beauty.

Assessment: Their modern jerseys are nice. They’re a nod to the past with enough going on to make them current. Their third jersey leaves a lot to be desired and look more like a pajama set with the lack of striping, but the use of a logo that resembles the franchise’s original one is a great touch. It’d be fun to see them do something more with gold though and perhaps swapping out their current thirds for what they used in the 2010 Winter Classic would be a more fun move. Getting gold right is tough for a jersey, but that Winter Classic throwback-like jersey did it great.