Colorado Avalanche: Throwback to Media Day Suit Pictures

Last year, Colorado Avalanche players brought some impressive suit game to their media day, resulting in glorious pictures.

The Colorado Avalanche’s media day is fast approaching. The players will show up for training camp on Thursday, September 12 for their physicals. Sometime over the next few days, they’ll conduct interviews and take photos for the upcoming season.

Oh, and you know, practice.

Last season the Avalanche’s media team had the players pose in suits for their media shots. All the players put on their finest digs to show off for the photo shoot. For some players, that meant a conservative affair. For others, they allowed their personalities to show through.

So, as we get nearer and nearer the end of hockey’s true offseason, let’s do a little throwback to last year’s media day.

Now, this first set of pictures is an example of conservative suits. They’re both black with sedate ties — Nathan MacKinnon appears to be wearing a black tie, too.

Now, unfortunately, Tyson Barrie is no longer with us — he’s in Toronto. However, he and MacKinnon are still best buddies, and it looks here like the pair are  practicing for when they’re going to be in each other’s weddings:

Moving on to another sedate suit, complete with black tie. Here we have JT Compher:

J.T. Compher may utilize his dead-eyed stare on the ice, but he’s got a great smile.

Now the next player, Alexander Kerfoot, is also dearly departed, to Toronto. However, Kerfoot shows us an example of how you can take the basic black suit and add a pop of color:

In Harvard they match the tie exactly to the shirt — and props to Alexander Kerfoot for wearing pink to begin with. Of course, but the end of the season he was wearing a weird three-piece suit that the team swore was burgundy but looked 70s brown to me:

Hopefully a burgundy suit is as lucky in blue-and-white Toronto as it was here.

Now, Tyson Jost’s customization of his suit for media day wasn’t quite as extreme as Kerfoot’s. (But then, he also never ventured into 70s suit land.) However, I like how he updates the plain black suit with a patterned tie:

Remember, Jost is color blind — he probably shies away from trying to do too much with color anyway. Also, I didn’t think his haircut was too bad. I do wish he’d leave his curls more natural instead of plastering them down, but hair looks is a topic for another day.

Also, is it just me, or does the above photo look a little like a prom picture?

Anyway, our star winger (who’s definitely going to sign his contract in the next two weeks, just in time for training camp) had his own take on customizing a black suit. Mikko Rantanen went the Kerfoot route with a matching colored shirt and tie:

So, Mikko Rantanen learned how to tie his own tie… and it’s purple.

Our captain of the blueline, Erik Johnson, looks shy in the following picture. However, don’t let him fool you — he’s got suit game in spades:

The hair. The jawline. The casually bougie suit… J. Crew called, and they want their model back.

Ok, the media day picture:

Don’t try and fool us Condor. We already saw the above picture. Also, props to Sam Girard for getting his new beefcake shoulders into a suit. And, I love the white-on-white action of his tie and shirt.

Ok, before we get to the real professionals in suit game, let’s look at a… creative entry. Ian Cole… is wearing a mismatched suit. That’s not necessarily a tragedy. However… the choices almost make him look like someone Photoshopped Cole’s top onto someone else’s bottom:

Hey, look at his face — he’s got the attitude to pull of any look.

Ok, and now onto the professional models who only masquerade as our hockey stars.

First up is Nikita Zadorov. That man has got suit game for days. He even has some Gucci shoes that… well, you just have to see them:

Hey, when you’re 6-foot-5, 240 pounds and have the attitude to carry off the nickname Big Z the Destroyer… well, you wear however many stars on your shoes you want. And you don’t GAF about socks.

In fact, his suit game was so great, the team gave him his own video:

All right, let’s get to the model, er, player you’ve all been waiting for, our captain, Gabriel Landeskog:

I mean, it’s almost not fair. The man was once scouted as a model. No, really, there is no more dapper captain in the NHL than ours.

Indeed, he looks fabulous no matter what he’s wearing… or not wearing.

😳 I guess a birthday suit is a kind of suit.

So, the Colorado Avalanche players have had an entire year to improve their suit game, not that all of them needed improving. Plus, we’ve got some new players on the team, and no telling what their sartorial preferences are going to be.