NIKE HOCKEY–OLYMPICS.
I was part of the team that designed the hockey uniforms for the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games and some of the the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics.
The 1998 Olympics was going to feature two significant firsts: the use of NHL players and the introduction of women’s hockey. Nike saw this as an opportunity to push for innovation in sport that was long on tradition and often slow in adoption.
The apparel designer developed a unique ventilation feature into the jerseys, at the time it was pretty radical. He, however, could care less about color blocking, trim, some fabric decisions, and graphics. Those decisions were left to me and my co-designer. Here are my contributions. The Italian uniform above is my personal fave.
Slovakia 1998 Nagano. We wanted every team to have its own identity. So nothing was cookie cutter. Some teams wanted to go all out as demonstrated on this Slovakian uniform.
Kazakhstan 1998 Nagano. They wanted to use their federation logo on their uniforms, we didn't have a good copy of it. I asked their federation to send me one. After weeks of snail mail from Kazakhstan my package arrived, a business card with a teeny weeny version of the logo on it. So I redrew it with a lot of educated guessing. Must have worked, the Federation President excitedly told me “You have captured the spirit of Kazakhstan!”
Austria 1998 Nagano and 2002 Salt Lake City
France 1998 Nagano and 2002 Salt Lake City
China 1998 Nagano and 2002 Salt Lake City. Among the first women's teams in Olympic hockey!
Russia 2002 Salt Lake City. Many of the other teams in 2002 just used carryover uniforms from 1998. But Russia wore our refined version of the vent jersey.
Switzerland 2002 Salt Lake City
My Swiss uniform on a Norwegian Stamp! This was used in conjunction with 1999 World Championships.
Another stamp. Of note because Norway is wearing a very rare uniform I designed.
Norway wanted to become a major player on the international hockey circuit and wanted a new look to rally behind. So I was tasked to design a new logo for them to be unveiled at the 1998 Olympics, here is an actual appliqué of that logo for their uniforms. But, in a very big surprise, they failed to qualify for Nagano. So, humbled and embarrassed, Norway decided to scrap the new logo, revert to their old crest on the new uniform, and slink away. End of story…well, until I saw the stamps.
A little internet sleuthing and I found these uniforms with the numbers and names on them. That means they were used in at least some games. Neither I nor anybody within the Nike hockey department had any explanation as to how they got these uniforms with my ill-fated polar bear logo. Probably a factory snafu.