Before Milt Schmidt became the first general manager of the Capitals, he played and coached with the Bruins.The Boston uniform, of course, includes black pants. Schmidt remembered his goalies saying that those dark pants worn by Bruin defenders made it harder to see the black puck.
Milt put that tidbit to use in designing his new team's uniform. The Capitals skated into Madison Square Garden for their first-ever game sporting white pants.
That's Milt at left in this 1974 team photo-op, gesturing to his tailor for some last-minute alterations.Unfortunately, white pants proved an off-color choice.
Why? Because (a) white shows stains, duh, and (b) they were laughably silly, hardly the competitive advantage they were designed for.
Oh, about that competition: The first-year Capitals won just one of 40 road games, and this January, 1975 cover of the NHL's "Goal" magazine reveals a clue as to why. The players apparently skated hunched over during road contests, in a desperate attempt to hide the white shorts.
As goalie Ron Low told Even Weiner of nhl.com, "It was a joke. The pads get rubbed against the boards and it gets really filthy. After 10 games you couldn't tell if it was white or not anyway.”
So new blue duds were hastily ordered. The kicker: the team swiched pants color again in 1995, to... wait for it... Black!
We're guessing Milt was not consulted.