“It’s a darker, more intimidating look. It’s about speed and power”

Following weeks of speculation by fans spurred on by teaser videos and rave reviews from opposition players at a recent TSN shoot, the BC Lions launched their new adidas jerseys on television stations across the city in dramatic fashion this morning.

Staying with their bold and traditional orange home jersey, the club has added distinctive black shoulder panels and changed to single-coloured numbers (black) along with a move to black pants

with orange accenting in 2016.

The new home ensemble also gets a refreshed look up top as the Leos will wear a glossy black helmet featuring a futuristic-looking, smoked-chrome facemask.

“We are the CFL’s only orange team,” said team president and CEO, Dennis Skulsky. “Orange is what we are and orange is what we will be wearing in this new chapter of our proud history.”

Saving more radical changes for its helmets, the club has removed their primary “BC” mark and replaced it with an updated, five-stripped lion’s head design.

“The five stripes plus the ‘Lions’ head represents six historic decades of professional football in BC as well as our six Grey Cup wins,” said the club’s senior leader of creative services, Rich Koh, who designed the jersey and helmet logo. “Stripes are easy to add and I anticipate we’ll be adding many more in years to come.”

Removing the ‘BC’ mark also enables the ‘Lion’ to face forward on both sides of the helmet, which was critical to the overall theme of the new look. The club’s primary mark moves to a crest located below the rear numbers on both home and road versions of the jersey.

The jersey numbers too will also reflect the six-decade and championship theme with subtle striping located at the base.

“Everything about this design is built on the concept of looking forward,” added Koh. “It’s a darker, intimidating look at home and whether it’s the jersey, the pants or the helmet, the look is about power, speed and moving boldly into the future.”

Updates were also made to the club’s road look which features white jerseys with orange shoulder panels along with similar single-coloured numbers (orange), highlighted by orange pants and orange helmets with white decaling complete with pearl-white facemasks.

“When we’re away from home it’s all about taking care of business on the road,” notes Koh. “The road jersey is about clean, sleek lines that pop in the sun or under the lights and a design that is distinct and modern.”

As for the players suiting up in the new look, you can count Adam Bighill in the category of those extremely jacked up.“Of all the uniforms across the league, ours are the most innovative and the newest design,” said Bighill. “They’re definitely sharp looking and are that next generation that people are looking for. It has been fun to have a sneak peak and see how they feel and now we are looking forward to it translating onto the field.”

The Lions defensive standout became even more excited after representing the club at the TSN shoot last month. “All the players from other teams thought unanimously that we have the sweetest uniforms.”

Bighill hopes the Lions can draw on past experience when donning a new look, namely August 19^th, 2013 when they defeated Calgary 26-22 after debuting the gun metal third jersey. “There was a huge consensus of how awesome those were and these are going to surpass that peak. We were jacked after seeing those for the first time as well.”

The club will debut its road jerseys during the preseason before donning their home threads for the first time in 2016 on June 25^th against the Calgary Stampeders.

Fans can purchase both the new home and away jerseys by visiting store.bclions.com – season membership holders receive a 20% discount on all BC Lions merchandise.