Blue Bloods

Two lengthy sports seasons wrapped up over the last few days and some mention of it is probably due from one who follows sports as I do.

So, there it was.

Now, to the really cool part, the uniform colors.

Friday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins, wearing black and gold, won the seventh and deciding game in the Stanley Cup series, defeating the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in Motown.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Lakers, in their famous purple and gold captured the NBA championship by defeating Orlando's Magic in Florida.

Now, what do these two teams have in common? They both used to wear blue - and not just any blue, mind you, but what some might call baby blue or what I like to call Carolina blue. In fact they both had a combination of Carolina blue and a darker blue as a trim color. This, in my view, is one of the best combinations of colors going. Other teams using it would be the University of North Carolina (of course), the Royals (occasionally), Toronto Blue Jays (occasionally) and Tennessee Titans, off the top of my head.

The Lakers, who began in Minneapolis, began with the blue scheme, probably to coincide with their nickname which was suggestive of all the lakes in Minnesota. "Ten Thousand Lakes" the license plate used to say. They moved to LA about 1960 and switched to the gold and purple look in the middle of the decade.

The Penguins formed as part of NHL expansion in 1967 and also had the blue uniforms. They switched to black and gold in the early 70's which matched the other two pro teams in the Steel City, baseball's Pirates and football's Steelers. They do break out a blue sweater for 'throw back' days and it looks cool.