Although Sudbury Wolves kicked off the 2025-26 season with a disappointing overtime loss to the rival North Bay Battalion, they notably did so while donning jerseys which were both new yet familiar to much of the fanbase at the Sudbury Community Arena.
On Friday, Sept. 19, the Wolves lost their first game of the season by a score of 4-3, with North Bay forward Ryder Cali scoring his second goal of the night in the extra frame. Sudbury got goals from rookie Brayden Bennett (his first in the OHL), Chase Coughlan and Hudson Chitaroni in the loss, while goaltender Owen Leonard made 28 saves in his OHL debut with the Wolves.
Rather than wearing their typical blue and grey uniforms, however, the Wolves showed off their new retro green and gold alternate uniforms for the first time. These throwback jerseys likely bring back memories for many Wolves fans who remember watching the team wearing green from the franchise’s inception in 1972 until the late-1980s.
Yet, many younger fans are probably not fully aware of the history behind this colour scheme, which technically dates back more than 100 years.
The tradition of Sudbury hockey teams wearing green jerseys can be traced to the early 20th century.
In 1915, an all-star hockey team from Sudbury wore green and white uniforms on route to winning the Gordon Cup, the championship title for the District of Nipissing. The group apparently chose the colour scheme because several of its players (including the likes of Alex McKinnon and Wilfred “Shorty” Green, both of whom went on to play in the NHL in the 1920s) already happened to play together on another team in a local league that wore green and white sweaters.
Several hockey teams in Sudbury subsequently began donning green, including various clubs that adopted the nicknames “Wolves of the North,” “Wolves,” or “Cub Wolves” in the years after the First World War (1914-18). By the mid-1930s, after the junior Sudbury Cub Wolves had won the 1932 Memorial Cup and advanced to the championship finals again in 1935, local media was regularly using the nickname “Greenshirts” to refer to the team.
When the modern-day Sudbury Wolves came into existence in 1972, it was only natural that the team would continue the city’s long-standing tradition of wearing green.
After the late Mervin “Bud” Burke, a local businessman, purchased the Niagara Falls Flyers and moved the franchise to the Nickel City, the club was dressed in green and white jerseys with a gold trim and an early variation of the now iconic bloody-toothed wolf logo. These jerseys were a staple at the Sudbury Community Area throughout the ups-and-downs of the 1970s and 1980s, including when the team made it all the way to the 1976 OHL finals but fell short against the Hamilton Fincups.
Notable players who pulled a green Wolves jersey over their heads during these early years included Mike Foligno, Randy Carlyle and Ron Duguay.
In the late 1980s, however, a new ownership group decided that the Wolves needed to undergo a significant rebrand. Sudbury businessman Ken Burgess bought the struggling franchise in 1986 and about two years later announced that it would be adopting a blue, white and grey colour scheme.
Famously quipping “Who ever heard of a green wolf?”, Burgess reasoned that the team’s logo ― which otherwise remained relatively unchanged ― would be more authentic if the wolf itself was grey. Blue and white were chosen because they matched well with grey and also happened to be the corporate colours of Burgess’ company, Burgess Power Train and Manufacturing.
Some fans criticized the change for breaking with a history that dated back more than 60 years, but Burgess, who passed away in 1998, remained confident the Wolves would win their first OHL title in this new uniform. Though the team has yet to secure the J. Ross Roberson Cup, in 2007 the Wolves, led by the likes of Marc Staal and Nick Foligno, wore their blue, white and grey jerseys during a thrilling playoff run which came to a disappointing end in Game 6 of the OHL finals versus the Plymouth Whalers.
And so, with the introduction of these new retro green and gold jerseys, the Sudbury Wolves are paying homage to the franchise’s rich history.
Whether the team wears blue or green, however, is probably of less significance to the Wolves’ fanbase than the ultimate goal of finally capturing the elusive J. Ross Robertson Cup, not to mention the city’s first Memorial Cup in nearly a century.
Scott Miller is the author of “Leading the Pack: 50 Years of Sudbury Wolves History.”