Sharks, Adidas tease ‘reverse retro’ jersey

Rumors have been swirling and a few designs may have been leaked, but earlier today, Adidas Hockey rolled out a new teaser for each team’s “fourth jersey” for the upcoming season. The concept, dubbed “Reverse Retro,” has been described as “retro, with a twist” — though the teaser hints at what that twist is.

The San Jose Sharks released the teaser clip for their Reverse Retro jersey on Twitter:

#ReverseRetro @adidashockey pic.twitter.com/cHjVlZJXwP

— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) November 10, 2020

The short video shows a silhouette of a person walking, wearing a jersey and a backward hat, and offers two clues to the design. First, is the number on the back of the jersey, which is different for every team:

Every #NHL team just tweeted their #ReverseRetro teaser videos (except PIT so far). Confirmations across the board. Fun game to play this morning. Full jerseys coming soon! pic.twitter.com/UStIaYZtVH

— icethetics (@icethetics) November 10, 2020

The Sharks’ teaser includes the number 98 on the back of the sweater. When looking at every team’s teaser, there appears to be a pattern: these number reference a season in which the team was wearing a jersey with a similar color palette (clue number 2) to the jersey in the video.

In fact, you might even say that color scheme is the same, but in reverse:

The Sharks first wore this jersey as an alternate during the 1997-98 season. It became their primary away jersey in 1998 through the 2000-01 season.

It seems as though the Reverse Retro option will go with a largely light gray palette, with teal accents. Hopefully there’s a bigger “twist” to this look, because the team’s home jersey during that same time period was essentially an inverse color scheme, with white instead of gray. The decision to use gray as a primary color alone is a bit weird — it washes out basically everyone.

I’m just not in love with it yet. What do y’all think?