Colorado Avalanche getting backlash from fans in Quebec over new “reverse retro” jersey.

There are a lot of fans in Quebec City right now that are making a lot of noise, and honestly on at least some level I can certainly understand where the frustration is coming from. 

In case you've somehow missed it up until this point, teams from around the National Hockey League have begun releasing sneak peeks at their "reverse retro" jerseys, a new initiative from the NHL to bring back a little bit of an old school feel during the 2020 - 2021 season.  Now most teams have been releasing the sneak peeks with 3 images, each showing a small part of the new jerseys, but in the case of the Colorado Avalanche they only released 2 images and I have a little bit of a conspiracy theory as to why that might have been.

First here's a look at the images released today by the Avalanche.

So here's where I get into the conspiracy theory. Earlier in the day on Saturday there was another image of the Colorado Avalanche's new jersey that was published online, only this time it wasn't the Avalanche doing the publishing. Instead that image was published on an instagram account run by NBC Sports, the NHL's broadcast partner in the United States, and in this image we see a rather distinct symbol. 

That symbol you are seeing is of course the Fleur de Lys, a symbol that although traditionally associated with France is in the modern day very closely associated to the province of Quebec. The loss of a hockey team for Quebec City continues to be a sore subject for fans in the province and that has only been amplified in recent years due to the NHL's refusal to grant Quebec City an expansion team. To have the Colorado Avalanche, the team that the Quebec Nordiques would become once they were moved out of Quebec, using that symbol has rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. 

I suspect the Avalanche may have been aware of this and opted not to include it in their official release.

Now I will defend the Avalanche here a little in saying that they are technically the same franchise to this day, and I can certainly see why as a franchise they would want to be tribute to their roots. I think if anything fans in Quebec should take this as a sign of respect to the Nordiques rather than as an insult.