About six months ago, whispers began of a new league-wide jersey program coming for the NHL’s 2026-27 season. Tabbed as a Hometown Remix (HTR) collection, this is expected to be a cousin to the previously popular Reverse Retro sweaters that were designed during the Adidas era. Some rumors even suggested this has been on the table since Fanatics took over making hockey jerseys in 2024.
Regardless of the exact origins, the initial reports of LA’s jersey coming on a purple shell have all but been confirmed. Now comes the fun part, what will it look like? Rather than wait until its expected September debut, we asked our longtime artist at AloImages to play junior detective, hoping to piece some clues together for a possible preview. A series of mockups were created, which we’ll walk through and explain below.
Design Methodology
To begin the conversation, it’s first important to delineate the five distinct eras of Kings jerseys. While each of these segments lasted roughly 10 years, there were also some sidebar jerseys along the way — i.e. specialty jerseys for outdoor games or even third jerseys worn for a year or two. All of this is important to sort through, as we begin to analyze which era might get the ‘remix’ treatment, and why.
The 1967 Jersey – First used when the franchise launched into action as part of the NHL’s Second Six (joining the Original Six franchises), this also is said to be the foundation for which the team is heading back toward in the coming years. For example, we had reported for more than a year that they’d first launch the new crown jersey as a third jersey, and then there would be a white version of the new crown jersey eventually added to serve as the road jersey. Essentially, they’d flip the current set-up with the ’67 looking crown becoming the home/road in black/white and the current Gretzky-era home/road will move to becoming the thirds.
Because of this, we don’t believe the ’67 jersey or the crown are likely to play heavily into the HTR program. Remember, this new jersey will have a purple base. The original ’67 already had a purple version. That had gold accents. Could they now do a purple and silver version of the ’67 jersey? They could, yet that feels more like a possible third jersey down the road.
Remember, HTR — like Reverse Retro — will most likely be a one to two-year specialty jersey program, similar to baseball’s City Connect collection. These jerseys aren’t designed to be permanent. Thus, teams typically want to design something that’s a one-off fun idea, and steer clear of ideas that may be useful for a more permanent third jersey down the road. This is a point worth noting since many fans loved both editions of LA’s gorgeous Reverse Retros.
We also understand that for longtime fans, it’s Forum Blue and Gold, not purple. However, since they haven’t played at the Forum for nearly 30 years, we’ll call it purple.
The 1980 Jersey – Produced in both a purple and gold versions, this jersey was already given the remix treatment during Reverse Retro 2.0 when a white version was released. To use this shell again, it would need a different crest, as we’ve already seen every version with a crown. Either way, we don’t think this shell is a strong contender to be used for HTR. We’ll try to put a fresh spin on it though when we get to our mockups.
The 1988 Jersey – This sweater is referred to by several different names, including the Chevron and the Gretzky. Regardless of what you call it, there’s good reasons to believe this won’t be included in the HTR program. For starters, an updated version of this jersey was launched a few years ago and serves as the team’s current home/road kit. Could they put a different crest on it as a remix? Sure, but why? We’ve also already seen the purple version as part of the original Reverse Retro launch. Thus, this jersey is almost surely off the table for further discussion.
The 1998 Jersey – Like the sweater above, this also has a few different nicknames and is commonly referred to as the 2000’s jersey or the shield. In reality, this came out in 1998, as the team was going through a heavy rebrand of a new ownership and in preparation for the Kings to make their move to downtown LA and Staples Center. A new day was coming and nearly everything was getting a makeover. The classic ’67 crown was also redone during this era, first in a third jersey and then eventually as the team’s main home/road crest. Ever since the new ‘home plate’ design launched — which we’ll talk about next — the team has largely tried to distance themselves from this entire design era. It’s really never been marketed again; which makes it rather fertile ground for the upcoming HTR collection. More on that below.
The 2011 Jersey – This jersey’s whole existence is somewhat fascinating. For starters, it really wasn’t new. The design is actually a play on the Kings earliest design marks, going all the way back to 1967. Take a look here — we still strongly believe there was a real missed opportunity to bring this look back a few years ago. We digress, though.
When a black version launched in 2008, it was never intended to become the team’s full-time jersey. It was a third jersey. The players loved it; and they asked to wear it in the playoffs as their home jersey. This was so popular that a white version launched in 2011 and this look became the full-time home/road jersey. Then, the Kings won their first Stanley Cup in it, and the rest is history. Here’s a crazy thing to think about. Most people wouldn’t consider this look to be one of the Kings iconic jerseys — reserving that comment for more of the classic purple and gold or the Gretzky era stylings. However, the Kings actually wore this jersey on the ice longer than any other design. All pretty much by accident.
Even so, it’s likely too soon to bring this back under any retro type program. They just moved away from it a few years ago. Do they really need to remix it into a purple version so soon? Probably not.
The 2024 Jersey – The team’s current jersey is a return to their roots in many ways. We’ve also seen the purple version of this during Reverse Retro. We only list it here to complete the full list of LA’s five major jersey eras.
Round One Mocks – June 2026
Some people may have skipped all of those words up above. We know, TLDR (aka Too Long Didn’t Read, for those not versed in current internet sarcasm). That preamble is important though, as it sets the stage for why certain jerseys and crests were selected in our mockups below. The idea wasn’t to present every possible remix combination, but rather to hone in on likely contenders.
The 1967 Jersey — This sweater originally featured a crown, so that’s out as a possible crest in the HTR. Thus, this shell would most likely need to feature the ’98 crest. We’ve mocked it up with two different hem options.
The 1980 Jersey – When you get to the Kings second jersey era, things start to open up a little bit. We’ll begin with something pretty simple and straightforward; this uses the basic purple and gold styling from that era, but remixes the overall look to now feature the 1988 chevron styled logo.
While this basically works, also note that it’s likely too similar to the original Reverse Retro jersey. We changed the crest here to go with a yellow chevron used in one of the earlier RR comps, just to give it a bit of change. Again, though, it’s just too close to the first RR jersey.
So, then we started getting into some purple and silver versions of the 1980 shell.
After taking a look at how things might come together with the 1988 chevron, including the two different hem lines above, we then started playing around with the 1998 shield. In this version, we even included the ‘Los Angeles’ across the bottom, staying true to the original look of what accompanied that crest.
One word of caution, though. This was the jersey template used for the last Reverse Retro line, so we’re not sure they’d want to go back to it again so soon… even if it’s using a purple base this time instead of white.
The 1998 Jersey – This jersey originally featured the shield, so what other crests would be possible? We started out with the updated crown (left side below), but that jersey was basically already done as a third jersey in 1999. However, once we added a black version of the 1988 chevron, all the elements almost came together too perfectly. In the end, this was our personal favorite from this round of comps. And even if the Los Angeles is removed from the hem line, it’s still a great way to begin incorporating purple into the team’s current primary home/away look — which also features the chevron crest. Maybe this jersey (or something pretty similar) should even be held back for a permanent third jersey, rather than just a short-lived HTR offering.
From the possible edge of beauty just presented to whatever the other side of the coin would be, we also tried an out of the box remix of the 2000s era shield in purple and gold:
Now, to add a little more context to this image, we started down the path of that jersey with what sounded potentially interesting in a verbal discussion, and it just didn’t come together nicely enough in execution. Yes, we could try removing the shoulder patches and smoothing things out in a few places to give it a stronger purple and gold feel, yet it just didn’t feel like a path worth further exploring.
The Wild Card
Who likes elephants in the room?
There’s one other skeleton in the Kings jersey closet that needs to be brought up.
Yes, we’re talking about the infamous Burger King jersey.
We usually avoid all reference to the 1996 monstrosity that stretches the bounds of ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ saying. Yet, it may just be applicable here.
From the early leaks and other whispers around the league, one of the general themes around HTR jerseys may be a retro vibe of the ’90s. If that’s the case, the BK jersey (as it’s affectionately known by most) may just be in play. And if you add in the fact that Anaheim did a remake of their similarly timed Wild Wing jersey during the last Reverse Retro cycle — and it was overwhelmingly well received — there may never be a better moment than now to bring back the BK jersey.
Where would one even start (other than redesigning it from the ground up, of course)?
We’ll begin with two remixed versions of the original BK look, one in purple and gold, while the other version gets black and silver accents.
If a larger, more traditional sized crest is preferred, there are a few different options:
Then, if you really want to remix the original concept, maybe take the sash away altogether:
Finally, oh what the heck… if BK really is back on the table, how about remixing the crest with a jersey from a different Kings era altogether?
That’s a lot of remixing, with plenty to chew on for now. We’ll start to whittle things down in future rounds of comps, but wanted to first give readers a behind-the-scenes peek at how the entire iteration process goes from start to finish.
If you have a favorite, let’s hear about it. We’re expecting the social media debates to begin immediately, and continue on until the actual HTR jersey is released in September.
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