Coffee with the Caps, Friday February 17

Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a wonderful week and are able to get some rest this weekend.

The season is officially one week away, which means it is everyone’s favorite time of year: kit release time!

This is unironically one of the hottest topics of conversation every year and it has a new wrinkle for Vancouver this year, as it means a new sponsor.

Telus will now grace the front of the Caps’ kit as the team moves from one telecommunications sponsor to another. I was rooting for Air Canada just for something a little different but when you consider the pyramid schemes, defense contractors and fly-by-night companies that have been on MLS kits over the years, it is tough to complain about Telus.

Now, onto the actual new kits.

I’m a firm believer that nearly every kit will look better/acceptable when it is being worn by a player. That is certainly the case here.

I think the kit is ... aggressively fine. I was partial to the old home hoop kit but it was nice to see the team stick with the same basic concept this time around. It has become somewhat iconic for the club and has become part of the brand. The Telus logo fits the concept well, so why not stick with the hoop for another year?

The addition of the red horizontal stripes is probably the thing that, visually, I find most objectionable, as it clashes with what is going on in the rest of the kit. It would have been better if they would have stuck with the light blue, particularly given that they also have the fainter horizontal stripes running around the rest of the jersey — something I actually otherwise like and consider a nice nod to some of the OG Caps MLS kits.

That being said, the red is meant to highlight the need for blood donors, so it is difficult to quibble with it too much. As a regular blood donor, I’ll use this as a brief interlude to encourage you to donate, if you can.

This is not a kit, new sponsor aside, that will go down in the history books one way or another. The Sea-to-Sky kits will also be my favorite and I think most people will always nurse a soft spot for Arbutus brown but this is one that we will probably forget about two minutes after it is phased out and that’s OK.

It is actually quite encouraging that the kits league-wide have been, by and large, much more adventurous and unique than in years past. A sign perhaps that Adidas is more invested in the league or that Apple put its foot down and insisted on more design savvy. In any event, while the quality of play on the pitch may not have be leaping forward, at least the players will look better.

Shameless Self Promotion

More on the “Bloodlines” kit and where things stand ahead of the season opener. And here are the other kits from across MLS, as they get rolled out

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