The New Jersey Devils wore special warm-up jerseys for their gender equality night on Tuesday, which is also International Women’s Day.
The jerseys were designed by Amrisa Niranjan, a local artist from northern New Jersey. The new jerseys feature a host of colors, rings and special dates that are iconic in women’s history. Niranjan used a marbled effect with the colors blue, pink, white and purple to represent the fluidity of the genre.
Around Devils Crest, there are three rings.
“Each ring is meant to show the depth and layers of the gender equality discussion,” Niranjan told the Devils. “It takes time and the work builds on the work done before. Each ring could be seen as a ripple to advance progress towards gender equality.”
The outer ring of the design features five Roman numerals, representing the years in which significant events occurred. The years include MDCCCLO (1851, when Sojourner Truth gave his famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech); MCMXX (1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified); MCMLXIII (1963, when the Equal Pay Act was signed); MCMLXXII (1972, when Title IX was signed); MCMXCVIII (1998, when the first women’s hockey was played at the Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan).
“Working on this project has been challenging and generally fun,” Naranjan tell the devils. Overall, it was just cool to see a hockey team caring about gender equality.”
This is the first time in team history that the Devils have worn gender equality jerseys.
