The ECHL’s Maine Mariners kicked off their new season with a new look that pays homage to both their state’s hockey history and their NHL parent club.
The Mariners — who are affiliated with the AHL’s Providence Bruins and the NHL’s Boston Bruins — broke out a new gold jersey for the opening weekend of the 2025-26 ECHL season, which for them included a road game against the Worcester Railers and their home opener against the Reading Royals.
The jersey has a gold base, white sleeve cuffs and black, white and gold striping around the waist and sleeves. It’s essentially the same template as the Bruins’ 2021 Reverse Retro jerseys, which themselves were a reinterpretation of their late 1980s/early 1990s uniforms.
The front of the Mariners’ jersey features their secondary retro logo with a ship’s steering wheel inside a block M. This logo was used by the first two incarnations of the Mariners, both of which played in the American Hockey League. The first played from 1977 to 1987, before they were relocated to Utica, New York. But Portland was awarded an expansion team that began play in the 1987-88 season and took over the name and logo.
That version of the Mariners lasted until 1992. In 1993, the AHL returned when the Baltimore Skipjacks relocated to Maine and became the Portland Pirates, who played in the league until 2016. The ECHL Mariners came to town in 2018 when the Philadelphia Flyers bought the dormant Alaska Aces franchise and moved them to Portland. They entered an affiliation agreement with the Bruins in June 2021.
Names and numbers on the back and sleeves of the new Mariners jersey are black with white outlines. A recoloured version of the team’s primary logo sits on the right shoulder, while an alternate logo that incorporates an outline of Maine along with elements of the state flag appears on the left. Jersey sponsors on the chest include Maine-based supermarket chain Hannaford and the Maine Office of Tourism.
This isn’t the first time the Mariners have put a throwback logo front and centre on a jersey. Their 2024-25 alternate jersey featured a crest with the retro block M inside a larger ship’s wheel on a black base with broad yellow and white stripes.
The Mariners’ regular jerseys feature their primary logo on either a white or a green base with blue shoulders and blue striping on the waist and sleeves. They also include the retro logo in blue and green on the right shoulder.
The new jersey brought mixed results for the Mariners, as they beat the Railers 5-0 before getting shut out themselves in a 4-0 loss to the Royals.
The Mariners will wear the gold alternate jerseys for every Sunday home game during the 2025-26 season. The next of those happens on Sunday, October 26, against the Wheeling Nailers.
