This week in uniforms and logos: The NBA and NHL go BIG or go chrome

When all eyes in the sporting world are on one of your games, what do you do?

In the case of the NBA and NHL it appears the answer is "wear some funky uniforms!"

This week the National Basketball Association, along with Adidas, unveiled their series of sleeved team uniforms featuring a large chrome version of that team's logo. These "BIG LOGO" uniforms, as the league is calling them, are to be worn by every team playing on Christmas Day, December 25th.

Every design for every team participating is exactly the same, one solid color from collar to waist and down each sleeve; around the neck there's a single stripe and again at the end of each sleeve. Right on the front, like a hockey jersey, is a giant team logo in a shiny material giving a chrome-like appearance.

Last season on Christmas it was something similar, the "BIG COLOR" promotion had teams wear their regular uniform designs except done in only one colour, head-to-toe, with only contrasting outlines around player names and numbers.

So, if you've got a blank t-shirt template and are proficient in MS Paint then you are apparently qualified to design the Christmas Day NBA uniforms for Adidas.

In the National Hockey League they've been getting a fair share of the North American audience for their series of outdoor games over the past 10 seasons and, like the NBA, for each of these high-visibility games they've had teams wearing special one-game-only uniforms. Unlike the NBA there's no mass copy-and-paste from team-to-team design going on, typically a team will wear an old uniform design from earlier in their franchise history, or a modern take on a classic design.

This year the NHL is having several more outdoor games in what they're referring to as the "Stadium Series" (this is in addition to the already scheduled "Winter Classic" and "Heritage Classic"). This past week the league unveiled their special "stadium series" logos for the seven teams taking part in the games, each team had their primary logo (or a partial-version of their primary logo) converted to a bevelled or "chromified". Uniforms have not yet been released, although we're expecting them to be in the next two weeks. You gotta figure we'll see each uniform with this "chromified" look applied to them, hopefully they'll be a little more creative than the NBA has been in recent seasons.

This seasons other two outdoor games in the NHL, the Winter Classic, and Heritage Classic, will also see teams wearing special uniforms. We've already gotten a look at the Winter Classic jerseys - the Toronto Maple Leafs will be wearing their 1930s blue uniforms and the Detroit Red Wings will wear a "fauxback", a classic looking red uniform which they've never actually worn in the past, in what will be the first dark v. dark uniform matchup in an NHL regular season game since the 1950s. We're still waiting on the Heritage Classic uniforms, the Ottawa Senators announced they will unveil their look at the end of the month and that both they and the Vancouver Canucks will be paying tribute to the 1915 Stanley Cup Finals which was between the (original) Sens and the Vancouver Millionaires.

In other news...

The New York Knicks and Atlanta Hawks played in uniforms that left viewers and players alike confused as to who was who. New York wore their "light-designated" orange alternate uniforms while Atlanta wore their "dark-designated" red alternates. The NBA has stated steps will be put into place to ensure this never happens again. Steps which I suppose are no more than "hey, don't wear the same coloured uniform you guys"

Seven soccer teams unveiled their new 2014 World Cup national team uniforms, all designed by Adidas. You can check out the new 2014 looks for Argentina, Columbia, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and Spain right here.

The Chicago Cubs are getting a new road alternate jersey, the new grey uniform will be worn periodically throughout the 2014 season. It will have "CUBS" straight across the front instead of the usual arched "Chicago" wordmark worn on their standard road jersey.

Last week the Pittsburgh Steelers wore their 1934 Pittsburgh Football Pirates uniforms, the unforgettable black-and-yellow bumblebee striped uniforms were introduced as a one-game-only uniform before the 2012 season but proved so popular they were brought back for Sunday's game.

Chris Creamer is the creator and editor of SportsLogos.net. You can follow him on twitter at @sportslogosnet.