Pond Hockey Tournament Jerseys: The Light-and-Dark Rule

By the Puck Drop Prints team. Updated November 2026.

Most pond hockey tournaments require every team to show up with both a light and a dark jersey. The cheapest way to cover that is one reversible jersey at $99 per player, which beats two roller jerseys at $110 and two sublimated at $130. For a January tournament, order by early December.

Nobody tells you this at registration. You pay your entry fee, you name the team something you will regret, and then somewhere in the rulebook, usually about forty lines down, past the part about how many players can be on the ice, you find the sentence that says your team needs two colors.

Then you discover your six guys own four matching practice jerseys between them and one of them is a Sudbury Bulldogs replica.

So here is the whole thing laid out: what the rule actually says, the cheapest legal way to satisfy it, what fabric weight does when you are playing on a lake, and the date you have to order by so the jerseys beat the puck drop.

Why do pond hockey tournaments require light and dark jerseys?

Because there are no home and away sheets on a frozen lake. The official rules of the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships state it plainly in Rule 4: "All teams must have light and dark jerseys or uniforms." With two dozen sheets of ice running at once and no arrangement of who wears what, the tournament pushes the problem onto you.

Pond hockey is a simplified form of ice hockey played on a natural frozen body of water, usually four players per side with no goaltender and no raised shots. The format is why the rule exists. Four-on-four on a small sheet with two teams in similar navy is unplayable, and there is no video review to sort it out afterward.

The same tournament caps your roster at four to eight players, with games running two 15-minute halves. Eight is the ceiling, four is the floor, and whatever roster you declare on the first morning is the roster you finish with.

Those two rules together, two colors, four to eight bodies, are what decide your order. Everything below follows from them.

One reversible jersey covers the light-and-dark rule for $99, $11 less than two roller jerseys, and in heavier fabric.

What is the cheapest way to get light and dark jerseys?

One reversible jersey at $99, and it is not close. Two roller jerseys cost $110 for the same two colors in thinner fabric, which makes the reversible both cheaper and heavier. Two sublimated run $130 and two tackle twill $198. Every figure below is per player on a team order of six or more.

A reversible hockey jersey is a single garment with a complete, separate design on each side, so one jersey gives a team two full uniforms. Names and numbers are included, same as every other jersey type.

Read the first two rows again, because that is the one genuinely strange thing in the table. Two roller jerseys cost $11 more than one reversible and give you 110 GSM instead of 160. You pay extra for less fabric and an extra jersey to lose. There is no pond hockey scenario where that is the right call.

The reversible does give up two things. It cannot be ordered with a laced collar, and it cannot be ordered with mesh ventilated armpits, both are options on the roller, sublimated and twill lines. Outdoors in January, losing the armpit vents is not the sacrifice it sounds like.

Does fabric weight actually matter outdoors?

Yes, more than it does indoors. GSM is grams per square metre, the standard measure of how heavy a fabric is. A rink sits around 60°F in the stands and the ice does not have wind. A lake in late January has both, and the jersey is your outermost layer.

Puck Drop Prints publishes the number for all four jersey types, which almost no custom shop does. Roller is 110 GSM, reversible 160 GSM, tackle twill 210 GSM and sublimated 220 GSM.

That ordering produces the useful fact: the heaviest jersey on the list is also the second-cheapest. Sublimated at $65 is 220 GSM, double the roller's 110 GSM for a $10 difference. If your tournament is somewhere genuinely cold and you have decided to buy two separate jerseys anyway, sublimated is the obvious pick over roller, you are paying $20 more per player for twice the fabric.

Sublimated, reversible and twill jerseys also carry double-layered shoulders and elbows. Roller does not. On a lake, where the snowbank is the boards and you will be going into it, that matters. There is a fuller breakdown in the sublimated vs tackle twill vs roller comparison.

How many jerseys does a pond hockey team have to order?

Six, which is a happy accident. The team order minimum at Puck Drop Prints is six jerseys, and a pond hockey roster is four to eight players. A six, seven or eight-man roster clears the minimum on its own. A four-man roster has to buy six anyway, two spares at $99 is cheaper than not playing.

Good news for small rosters: every team order comes with a free swag store branded with your logo, even a six-jersey one. So the real choice is cost per player versus spare jerseys.

Six reversibles are $594. Twelve roller jerseys, six light and six dark, are $660, which is $66 more and gives you two separate sets you can lend to a sub. For an eight-man roster the two-set version is sixteen jerseys at $880.

So the decision is cheapest-per-player versus flexibility, and $66 is one round of beers.

Pant shells are $35 each with a team order, and they are the only part of an outdoor kit most teams forget to budget for.

What does a full outdoor kit cost per player?

A Sublimated kit is $100 per player (jersey, pant shell and socks, regularly $120 bought separately), so a six-player pond team pays $600. A Reversible kit, which puts both colors on your chest, is $134 per player, or $804 for six. Names, numbers and worldwide shipping are included.

A pant shell is a fabric cover worn over your hockey pants, printed in your team's colors. Puck Drop Prints makes them in Oxford fabric across 27 sizes, including a separate chart for roller and Cooperall-style pants. Outdoors they do the obvious thing: cut the wind off your legs and put your colors somewhere other than your chest.

Note what the reversible row does to the math. It is the cheapest way to get two colors on your chest and the most expensive full kit, because the shell and socks cost the same whatever jersey they sit under.

When do you need to order for a January tournament?

Six weeks before the first game for roller, sublimated or reversible jerseys, and seven for tackle twill. Production runs 4 to 5 weeks once your proof is approved, 5 to 6 for twill, and design and sign-off take about another week on top. For a tournament in the third week of January, that means ordering by mid-December.

Tournament date	Order by (roller / sublimated / reversible)	Order by (tackle twill)
Saturday, January 9, 2027	November 28, 2026	November 21, 2026
Saturday, January 16, 2027	December 5, 2026	November 28, 2026
Saturday, January 23, 2027	December 12, 2026	December 5, 2026
Saturday, January 30, 2027	December 19, 2026	December 12, 2026

Those dates assume you start the conversation, not finish it. The first design draft comes back in 3 to 5 business days, and the production clock does not start until you approve the proof, so a team that spends two weeks arguing about the shoulder yoke has moved its own deadline. The full turnaround breakdown has the step-by-step, and how it works covers what happens at each stage.

One more thing in your favor if your tournament is across a border: shipping is free worldwide on every team order, which matters when the event you registered for is in New Brunswick.

Pond tournaments have no dressing room, you change at the car, which is why two 15-minute halves is the whole game.

What else does a pond team need that a rink team doesn't?

Layers you can play in, and a plan for having nowhere to change. There is no dressing room at a lake. You tape your stick in a parking lot, you put your gear on next to the trunk, and the jersey goes on over more clothing than you would ever wear indoors.

That has one practical consequence for your order: size up if players are wearing a base layer and a mid layer under the jersey. All 26 jersey sizes are published as flat measurements in inches, torso width, sleeve length, top to bottom, so you can measure a jacket your players already own rather than guessing from a letter.

Beyond that, the list is the usual one with the temperature turned down: toque for between games, spare socks, a chair, and more hand warmers than feels reasonable. The beer league bag checklist covers the rest, and most of it travels.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do pond hockey tournaments require light and dark jerseys?

Most do. The official rules of the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships state that all teams must have light and dark jerseys or uniforms, because outdoor tournaments run many sheets at once with no home-and-away arrangement. Check the specific rulebook for the event you registered for, since smaller tournaments sometimes supply pinnies instead.

What is the cheapest way to get two jersey colors for a pond hockey team?

A reversible jersey at $99 per player on a team order of six or more. One reversible carries a complete separate design on each side, so it satisfies a light-and-dark requirement with one garment. Two roller jerseys cost $110 for the same two colors, making the reversible both cheaper and heavier at 160 GSM versus 110 GSM.

How many jerseys does a pond hockey team need to order?

Six minimum. Puck Drop Prints requires six jerseys on a team order, and pond hockey rosters run four to eight players, so most rosters clear the minimum on their own. A four-player roster still orders six and carries two spares. Twelve jerseys or more also unlocks a free team store.

Which hockey jersey is warmest for outdoor hockey?

Sublimated, at 220 GSM, and it costs $65 per jersey on a team order of six or more. Tackle twill is close behind at 210 GSM for $99, reversible is 160 GSM at $99, and roller is the lightest at 110 GSM for $55. Sublimated, reversible and tackle twill all include double-layered shoulders and elbows.

When should a team order jerseys for a January pond hockey tournament?

Six weeks before the first game for roller, sublimated or reversible jerseys, and seven weeks for tackle twill. Production takes 4 to 5 weeks after proof approval, 5 to 6 weeks for tackle twill, plus about a week for design and sign-off. A tournament on January 23, 2027 means ordering by December 12, 2026.

Do pond hockey jerseys come with names and numbers?

Yes. Custom names and numbers are included in the jersey price on every Puck Drop Prints jersey type, as is worldwide shipping, on any team order of six or more. Matching custom socks are $20 a pair and custom pant shells are $35 each with a team order.

Get your team's two colors sorted

Pond hockey is the best weekend of the beer league year and the one most likely to be played in a jersey somebody borrowed. Pick your two colors, create your logo in ChatGPT, and send the artwork with your order request.

Start Your Order, six jerseys minimum, names and numbers included, and we will tell you the honest date you need to decide by.