The NHL spent months building up Hometown Remix, a special jersey program for all 32 teams, designed by Fanatics, with the stated goal of celebrating each team's fans, city and local culture. Detroit's remix is a red jersey with HOCKEYTOWN written across the chest. Why?
It looks like a $15 hoodie off a Walmart rack.
It also looks like somebody typed "Detroit Red Wings jersey" into ChatGPT and accepted the first answer.
The design is so bland
The base is the red we already have. The sleeves carry 2 thick white stripes on the lower arm, the collar and hem are plain white and the lace-up neck is the standard layout. The Hockeytown wordmark arches over the modern Winged Wheel in the middle of the chest. Then you have the DQS patch on one side, and the diamond alternate captain patch (not the leather centennial one) on the other. The shoulders carry the number, and all of the fonts are left unchanged.
Original Six. Eleven banners. One Hockeytown. The Red Wings Hometown Remix jersey puts Hockeytown across the chest above the winged wheel. It's the fabric of Detroit! There's even a purple octopus tucked inside the hem https://t.co/MM4ruvnqqm
November 2, 2026Take away the new wordmark, the white collar and add an extra arm stripe, and you basically have a Red Wings home jersey.
Where is the remix?
A remix changes something. A DJ takes a song you know and gives you a version you haven't heard. Detroit took the song, left it exactly as it was and wrote the song's nickname on the front.
Hockeytown is a fine nickname, and I love it. It exemplifies the fans of the team and everything they have gone through, from the Dead Wings to the dynasty and back to the basement again. Fans have used it for decades, and it's already everywhere in this franchise.
A word in a standard arched font does not count as a design concept.
The execution looks cheap too. A flat white hem band and generic sleeve stripes, with nothing else going on reads like a template. The octopus on the inside of the bottom hem is the best part, and it stays hidden when worn.
What makes it hurt even more is that the rest of the league understood the assignment. There are some amazing new designs. From Minnesota's black and green jersey with the constellations on the arms to the return of the Islanders fisherman and the pop art Penguins logo, there are some truly unique concepts. The Wings are clearly the kid who rushed to do his homework 5 minutes before it was due.
What Detroit could have done
I fancy myself a bit of a designer, so I have strong opinions here. This is a city with Motown, techno, the auto industry and a brand-new bridge named after Gordie Howe. It has plenty of local culture, and none of it is on this jersey. Any one of those could have been the hook. I would have even taken a jersey based around the Joe Louis fist as homage to the previous arena.
A program whose whole pitch is "celebrate the city" handed Detroit a blank canvas and got the designer equivalent of Comic Sans back. The new Fanatics jerseys carry premium price tags. Fans will pay for a jersey that looks like something. Asking fans to pay for this is going to be tough, especially since it follows one of the best jerseys they have put out in last season's Centennial design, which they continue to wear.
Where it ranks with other jerseys
I'd put this second on the list of the worst Red Wings jerseys, behind the original reverse retro. Both jerseys suffer from different versions of bland, boring, uninspired design.
When the design screams "Graphic design is my passion," my wallet will stay closed. Come back to me when you find a bit of inspiration or need help with the next design; my email is always open.
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