The Capitals 2011 Winter Classic jersey

The Capitals' jerseys (Picture from On Frozen Blog)

In the interest of fairness (because Lord knows that I don't need crazy Penguins fangirls and fanboys accusing me of a Capitals bias, of all things), I'm reviewing the Washington Capitals' 2011 Winter Classic jersey.

Talk about something that never really had a chance.

Let's be perfectly honest, here -- the Capitals were screwed as soon as someone decided that they should focus on an old-school look for the Winter Classic jerseys. Up until about three years ago, their designs varied from cliché and boring...

Oh, say, can you see...

(Picture from The Hockey Uniform Database)

To cliche and eye-searing...

And teal! Oh, 1990s sports design, how I will never miss you.

(Picture from The Hockey Uniform Database)

To... oh dear God, what the hell is this?

Why can I not stop crying?

(Picture from Third String Goalie)

However, it could have been possible to make a nice-looking retro design that would still be somewhat exciting, but they've made a few missteps along the way:

1. The logo is way too small. The typeface for the logo is on the thin side, and I'm afraid it's getting lost on the white. I don't know how it's going to read at home on TV, but I'm sure it's not going to be pretty.

2. The stars along the top are way too big. The logo is the most important thing on the jersey, not those.

3. I'm curious to see how the Winter Classic patch is going to fit on the shoulder of this jersey. You can see that the "C" just barely gets squished in there between the stars and the red stripe along the sleeve.

4. The weirdness that is the tapered blue "stripe" along the bottom. Seriously, you couldn't work that in a little better, Reebok?

All in all, however, it's just really mundane. You're promoting your team in the sport's biggest non-championship game, and this is what you're going to put your players in?

I am disappointed, Capitals.