A brand new look: BC Lions unveil new uniforms (PHOTOS)

After weeks of teasing fans, the BC Lions have unveiled new uniforms that will debut this season.

Full credit to their teaser videos, because they had everyone thinking that they were moving to an all-black look. Instead, the Lions have kept orange as their primary colour, and I think that’s a smart move.

“We are the CFL’s only orange team,” said Lions President and CEO, Dennis Skulsky. “Orange is what we are and orange is what we will be wearing in this new chapter of our proud history.”

The Lions have added added a lot more contrast to their uniforms, which was something that was lacking with their old, classic look. I think it’s an improvement.

They’ve added black shoulder panels to their orange home jerseys and changed to single-coloured black numbers, along with a move to black pants with orange accenting.

BC will wear a glossy black helmets at home, featuring a futuristic-looking, “smoked-chrome” face mask.

The most drastic change was removing “BC” from their helmet, replacing it with an updated, five-stripped lion’s head design. An advantage of the new lion design is it allows the lion to face forward on both sides of the helmet.

Though the Lion on their helmet is getting a new look, their logo is not changing, and it will be visible on the back of the jersey, below the numbers.

“The five stripes along with ‘Lions’ head represents six historic decades of professional football in BC as well as our six Grey Cup wins,” said Senior Leader of Creative Services, Rich Koh, who designed the jersey and helmet logo. “Stripes are easy to add and I anticipate we’ll be adding many more in years to come.”

The jersey numbers also have subtle striping located at the base.

“Everything about this design is built on the concept of looking forward,” said Koh. “It’s a darker, intimidating look at home and whether it’s the jersey, the pants or the helmet, the look is about power, speed, and moving boldly into the future.”

The team’s white road jerseys also got an updated look, with orange shoulder panels along with orange numbers, to go along with orange pants and helmets and “pearl-white” face masks.

“The road jersey is about clean, sleek lines that pop in the sun or under the lights and a design that is distinct and modern,” explained Koh.

The team will debut their white road jerseys during their two preseason games, before wearing their new orange home uniforms for the first time for their regular season opener on June 25th at home against the Calgary Stampeders.