Colorado Avalanche Players Show Suit Game Throughout Season

Colorado Avalanche players showed off their sartorial successes throughout the season with their choices in the suits they wore to games.

The Colorado Avalanche, as all NHL players do, must wear suits to games. This includes onto the plane as they travel for road games. (My understanding is that many of them change into sweat suits once they’re on the plane itself.)

Now, before I got into Colorado’s sartorial success, I’d like to address this custom of wearing suits. I don’t believe it’s in their contracts. I don’t think they could be fined or benched for not wearing a suit. If one of the veterans wanted to go all Dustin Byfugilen and throw the unsuitable clothing into the showers, that would be up to him.

However, I don’t think it’s a hard and fast rule. I believe it’s an expectation — a custom.

That said, the suggestion has been for the NHL to go with no dress code:

It’s even been said that the players spend so much of their time in workout gear, they should be allowed to show up for games that way. Well, that’s exactly what I think will happen. 99% of the players will not continue to wear suits. And very few of them will wear any kind of fashion apparel. I imagine they’ll either show up in workout gear or in the jeans and T-shirts they wear to practices. (The exception to that is the Europeans — they may favor their fashion.)

Here’s how the prosepcts arrived to an intra-squad scrimmage:

That’s fine for prospects in the middle of summer, but it’s not a greatly respectful look for veterans.

It’s a matter of respect for what you’re doing. There’s no reason a banker can’t negotiate a deal in sweat pants. However, the accepted dress code is a suit. When the players show up for games in suits, they’re showing a measure of respect for the building, the game and the fans.

Anyway, moving on to Avalanche players specifically. I realize I’m biased, but they show mad suit game. Indeed, I follow some other team accounts, and the Avs one of the best-dressed teams around.

Here’s an example of rookies and veterans showing up for games all kitted out in very handsome suits:

Defenseman Tyson Barrie has a very nice wool coal with some great variegation in color. And Erik Johnson apparently favors Hugo Boss:

I have it from a Nordstrom’s suit seller that Hugo Boss is, indeed, very popular among the suit-wearing set.

By the way, Erik Johnson should love the camera, because the camera certainly loves him:

Even though they’re North Americans, Quebecois always seem to have the panache of the French. Last season, goalie Jonathan Bernier was a great example:

Indeed, J. Bern’s suit game was almost model-like. Let’s just take a moment to celebrate his scarf game:

So sophisticated. For matters sartorial, Bernier even brought Sam Girard into the fold:

Tyson Jost also showed a level of sophistication with his blue suit. In fact, as the season wore on, I became very impressed with Jost’s suit game. Check out this light gray number:

Let’s face it, Alexander Kerfoot was also on point with that periwinkle blue tie.

Fellow rookie J.T. Compher wasn’t about to be left out in the suit game:

Sometimes it’s in the details — this is an upscale shirt for JT C ompher. (Props also to Matt Nieto on the very stylish checks.)

About midway through the season, I started getting worried for Anton Lindholm’s ankles:

Sven Andrighetto is also not a big fan of socks:

No, really, didn’t his ankles get cold?

My favorite part about the second set of photos is that all his suits seems to be shrunk too small. But that’s they way they’re cut! You can only pull off that full look when you’re European. Also, we have to take some time to fully appreciate those gray pedal-pushers with the grid pattern.

Now, if there were going to be an award for Colorado Avalanche player with the most unique suit game, it would go to Russian-born defenseman Nikita Zadorov:

No, really, he was a fashion plate:

Nikita Zadorov also liked to show off some ankle — as well as some fancy shoes:

I don’t know why you’d want to take that out of tradition. Also, how about that green suit from Colin Wilson, not to mention the black shirt with blue suit in Blake Comeau. Neither one should have worked. Both did.

Mikko Rantanen, on the other hand, favored socks:

Though not always:

Now, we don’t want to get too much farther without moving on to someone you expect to be especially well-dressed — the captain. This is especially true when your captain is basically a Swedish model. However, there was that one time he went super casual.

A little casual action from our cap and his buddies on Valanetines’ Day:

Cap cleans up well, though:

Those sunglasses really make the look.

Now, ties are not mandatory. As you can see in the video above, our captain wasn’t wearing a tie. However, he still looked very dapper.

Nathan MacKinnon did not wear a tie to walk the red carpet at the All Star Game. This was very disappointing. Most of the other players went all out, at least wearing the best of what they already had. Nate Dawg needed to channel his inner 50 Cent.

He did, however, wear a tie to the NHL Awards:

Speaking of ties, Rocco Grimaldi didn’t spend much time in an Avalanche uniform this year, but he did spend at least one night in this bold ensemble:

Props to the man for matching his tie to his red shirt!

Now, above I showed a tweet of the prospects arriving to a intra-squad game in their regular clothes. However, Sampo Ranta alone shows us we have nothing to worry about with the suit game moving forward for the Colorado Avalanche:

If the young man pays that much attention to detail in his shoes, imagine how his whole suit game will play out.

With the advent of social media, we see Colorado Avalanche — and all NHL players — in various forms of dress. While we love them in their uniform, wearing our team colors, there’s still something satisfying about seeing the players dressed up in suits. It all comes back down to tradition and respect.

And, as we saw above, players still have plenty of ways to show off their personalities.