The Atlanta Gladiators are turning to a colour scheme from their past to inspire their future.
The ECHL affiliate of the NHL‘s Nashville Predators and the AHL‘s Milwaukee Admirals unveiled the new colour palette, along with three new jerseys, on Thursday, August 20. At the forefront is maroon, which was the Gladiators’ primary colour from 2003, when they first moved to Georgia, until 2019.
The palette also includes black and white. It’s almost identical to the Gladiators’ 2003-2019 scheme, minus gold.
“As we looked to the future and crafted the vision for what the next chapter of Gladiators hockey will look like, we also took a moment to reflect on the past and what has made this organization special since it first arrived in Gwinnett County in 2003.
“The decision was then made to blend the past and the present, to embrace what’s next without straying away from our identity and what has made us who we are. To honor our past and build our future. I am proud to announce that while our logo set will remain the same, maroon, black, and white will replace navy, blue, and gold as the team’s official colors moving forward.
— Jared Youngman, president, Atlanta Gladiators
The Gladiators’ primary logo is a sword- and shield-wielding warrior with no wordmark underneath. THe secondary logo is a bevelled G with a sword through the middle. The team also released new tertiary and wordmark logos.
Courtesy Atlanta Gladiators
The new jerseys also unveiled Thursday include maroon, white and black variants. (The team didn’t specify which colours were specified as home, away or alternate.) The maroon jersey puts their own spin on their NHL parent club’s sweaters from the 2020 Winter Classic, with a black stripe with white outlines across the chest of the maroon base containing a script wordmark. The same stripe runs around each sleeves, while narrower black and white stripes run around the hem.
The black jersey features the secondary G-sword logo on the front, with a broad maroon stripe and narrower white stripe around the waist and sleeves. The white jersey has a tertiary gladiator head logo on the front, with maroon, white and black striping on the sleeves and wider maroon and black stripes around the waist.
Courtesy Atlanta Gladiators
The franchise started in the ECHL as the Mobile Mysticks — an identity recently revived for an expansion team in the SPHL — in 1995 before moving to Gwinnett, Georgia, in 2003 and becoming the Gwinnett Gladiators. They changed their name to the Atlanta Gladiators in 2015 to include the entire metropolitan area while still playing out of the Gas South Arena in Gwinnett.
Since moving to Georgia, the Gladiators have won three ECHL South Division titles (2005-06, 2011-12 and 2012-13) and one Eastern Conference title (2005-06). In their only trip to the Kelly Cup Finals in 2006, they lost to the Alaska Aces in five games.
The new jerseys will debut at the Gladiators’ home opener on Saturday, October 17, against the Norfolk Admirals.