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Buffalo’s Worst Jersey

The clear-cut winner goes by one name - The Turd Burger.

Throughout the history of any sports franchise, both good and bad decisions have been made. From on-the-field signings to off-the-field changes, not every move can be the right one.

In the history of the Buffalo Sabres, we focus on their jersey decisions. Buffalo has had some white-hot items as well as downright duds.

This look back begins with one tweet.

With that, we begin our trip down memory lane.

The Buffalo Sabres social media team poorly planned a release of this jersey, sending photos of a jersey swatch out on multiple occasions.

By the time the jersey was released, fans appeared incredibly exhausted with the entire process.

When forward Steve Ott “stole” the jersey and released it himself through Twitter, the response was tepid.

It is not too difficult to roll down the responses to the jersey release to find a handful of incredible responses.

Despite holding the prestigious role of Team President, Ted Black would talk himself into a corner. When it came to speaking to Howard Simon of WGR about the jersey, it would be no different.

“If it’s a turd burger I’ll have to put it on a bun and eat it. It’s the way it is.”

With that, the turd burger was born.

The response to the jersey was so poor that when first reached for comment about the decision to create and release this jersey, then-Team President Ted Black handed back a very heavy-handed “no comment” to the Buffalo News.

The Buffalo Sabres kept these jerseys around from 2013-15, which coincidentally happened to pair up with the two of the three worst seasons in franchise history.

Sabres forward Cody Hodgson scored the first-ever goal while wearing the much-maligned third jerseys.

It does not get much more memorable than that.

Following the retirement of the “turdburgers” in 2015, Black finally admitted ultimate defeat when speaking to The Buffalo News, as told by Yahoo’s Puck Daddy.

“(Team President) Ted Black admitted the team did a poor job running the design past focus groups and also said, “we didn’t anticipate the amount of ‘third-jersey fatigue’ “ in the market in the wake of the team’s 40th anniversary throwbacks.”

The jerseys have remained close to the hearts of Sabres fans, for better or for worse. As time goes on, one has to think maybe we will see these jerseys but then again, they likely remain better off retired.

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