The National Lacrosse League’s newest team is ready to roar in new jerseys unveiled this week.
The Ottawa Black Bears launched the jerseys for their inaugural NLL season on Thursday, July 25, during an open house at the Canadian Tire Centre, where they’ll play their home games.
The home jersey is black, while the away jersey is white. Both feature the Black Bears’ primary logo on the chest, which the team says “reflects the attributes of the region but also the values of both the community and franchise including pride, passion and grit.”
Both jerseys have red shoulder yokes, with a secondary logo on the shoulders of a bear paw print with a maple leaf inside. “The design demonstrates the connection between lacrosse and its Indigenous heritage,” the Black Bears said on their website.
Both jerseys also have gold-trimmed striping around the sleeves and waist; the stripe is red on the black home jersey and black on the white road jersey. Inside these stripes is an Indigenous design shared by Black Bears forward Larson Sundown that depicts “figures standing together hand in hand, a motif that represents peace, friendship and unison in Indigenous culture.”
“As an Indigenous lacrosse player, I have always wanted to see more symbolism from the Indigenous culture present in today’s game,” Sundown said on the team’s website. “I am so thankful to be a part of the jersey design process, it really hits home knowing I am a part of an organization wanting to represent and support Indigenous communities.”
Only the back of the black home jersey was shown in Thursday’s announcement. Photos showed red numbers with a thick white outline and names in one-color white.
In February 2024, the New York Riptide announced they would relocate to Ottawa for the 2025 NLL season and become the Black Bears. The Riptide had played their home games at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, since joining the NLL as an expansion team in 2018. According to USA Lacrosse Magazine, the team suffered from poor attendance and was being evicted from its home arena.
When the relocation was announced, the Black Bears unveiled their primary logo depicting a black bear with red eyes and a gold muzzle holding a white lacrosse stick and emerging out of a red O with gold and black outlines.
The franchise didn’t change ownership in the relocation. It remains owned by GF Sports and Entertainment, “a live events and sports media entertainment company created in July 2015 by New York-based private equity firm GF Capital.”
The Canadian capital previously had an NLL team, the Ottawa Rebel, from 2001 to 2003. The franchise was inactive until 2005, when it was bought, moved to Edmonton and renamed the Rush. It stayed there until 2015, when it moved to Saskatoon and became the Saskatchewan Rush.
NLL seasons typically kick off in late November or early December and run until mid-May. A detailed schedule for the 2025 season has not yet been released.