Flyers Jersey History Gallery

Before going through the history of the Flyers' jersey, it's important to go through the creation of the teams' colours, name and logo as well. Most of the introduction is culled from Jay Greenberg's wonderful book "Full Spectrum".

Febuary 7th, 1966, the group heading an expansion bid for the city of Philadelphia, was awarded a franchise by the NHL. One of the first orders of business was made on April 4, 1966. That day, Bill Putnam, a member of the ownership group, announced that a Chicago firm was hired to design the arena that would become the Spectrum. Also that day, he announced that there would be a contest to name the team and that the team colours would be orange, black and white. He said he wanted "hot" colours. Red was taken by Chicago and Montréal and orange was the closest thing to red. Putnam's almamater was the University of Texas, whose colours were orange and white, which influenced the decision. It also didn't hurt that Philadelphia's previous NHL team, the Quakers, also used orange and black. Putnam later realized that the NHL logo at the time was also orange and black. They offered to change the colours but NHL president Clarence Campbell didn't object to the team using those colours.

It was July 12th of 1966 that the details of the name the team contest was released. Ballots were available from Acme grocery stores. Top prize was a 21" colour TV, second and third prizes were a pair of season tickets and there were also 100 prizes of a pair of tickets. Behind the scenes, the team was also thinking of team name ideas. Quakers and Ramblers were considered, but they had connotations if one of the worst teams in NHL history and of the minor leagues. "Liberty Bells" were deeply considered, but there was a race track with that name. Other names considered were Lancers, Raiders, Knights, Sabres, Huskies, Blizzards, Bashers, Bruisers and Keystones.

It was on a trip back from a Broadway play that Ed Snider's sister, Phyllis, had the "eureka" moment of naming the team the "Flyers". It captured the speed of the game, had nice alliteration and would be short and nice to fit into headlines. Her brother knew instantly that would be the winning name, but she couldn't win the contest of course. On August 3rd, amidst the noise of construction, the team name was announced. There were 11,000+ ballots entered in total. All of those with the winning name were placed in a drawing where Alec Stockard, a 9 year old boy from Narberth, was declared as the winner (incidentally, he spelled the name as "Fliers").

Next, it was time to design the logo and jersey. Mel Richman Inc., a Philadelphia advertising firm was hired for that job where Tom Paul was the head of the project. It was artist Sam Ciccone that drew the logo. Four stylized wings attached to a slanted P with an orange dot to represent a puck. There were other designs, including a winged skate, but the winged P was by far the obvious choice. It was also Ciccone that designed the jersey to go with the logo. A stripe down each shoulder and down the arms also represented wings. The concept of the logo and jersey was the representation for speed.

The logo would become one of the most recognizable in all of sports. And the basic concepts of the jersey design were also maintained through their history. But there were many tweaks and modifications made to the jersey throughout the years - most of these you would barely notice. You can click on the images below to get details of the jersey changes. The first images of each section/season will give the most details about changes made to the jersey during that season.

Click on The Photos to View a Large Version

Origins
1967-68
1970-71
1972-73
1973-74
1974-75
1977-78
1978-79
1979-80
1981-82
1982-83
1983-84
1984-85
1985-86
1988-89
1991-92
1992-93
1996-97
1997-98
1999-2000
2000-01
2001-02
2002-03
2003-04
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
Logo Marks

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