The Meaning Behind The Navy Lighthouse Jersey Design

Lighthouses are part of the cultural fabric of Long Island.

They’re meeting points in Montauk and Fire Island. They’re posted on parkway signs and postcards. The illustrations are part of the Island’s iconography.

When the New York Islanders opened a contest to design the team’s Third Jersey for the 2027-28 season, more than 37,000 of the 80,000 entries featured a Lighthouse.

“I feel like a lot of fans have been like begging for the Lighthouse jersey,” James Doyle said. “It’s really Long Island.”

Last week, the fans got what they wanted – as Doyle’s Navy Lighthouse design concept emerged victorious on Thursday, winning three rounds of head-to-head voting during the team’s Third Jersey Fan Vote.

“Nothing feels real right now,” Doyle said. “Seeing the players repost the jersey winning and stuff like that. It's wild. I don't even know how to describe it.”

The feeling may be hard to describe, but Doyle outlined the thought process on his jersey design. He was drawn to the Lighthouse logo because he wanted the Islanders 2027-28 Third Jersey to be different from its predecessors. The NY logo, which debuted at the 2014 Stadium Series, stayed with the team in some form from 2014 until 2024. The Islanders wore a wordmark on the team’s third jersey from 2011-14 and again at the 2024 Stadium Series. Between the orange Third Jerseys of the early aughts and the Reverse Retro look in 2021, the team had tinkered with the primary logo on a different jersey. Even the Fisherman rolled in with the Reverse Retro tide in 2022-23.

Enter the Lighthouse, which was previously worn as a shoulder patch on the team’s Fisherman jerseys in the mid-1990s, as well as the next iteration of that jersey, which included Fisherman trappings but the Isles primary logo. Doyle was a fan of the orange and teal colors on those jerseys and wanted to fuse the shoulder patch with a more current Islanders look-and-feel.

“I think the colors just really go well,” Doyle said. “Obviously I love like the original Islanders jersey, but I feel like if I were to switch it up a little bit, that's exactly what I would envision.”

The 22-year-old Elmont native lives near UBS Arena, but his Islanders roots date back to games at Nassau Coliseum with his dad. He remembers his first game back in 2011, a win over the Buffalo Sabres, and rooting for the likes of Kyle Okposo and Matt Moulson, among others. Today his favorite player is Matthew Schaefer and the playoff runs in 2020 and 2021 stand out as some of his best on-ice memories.

The love of the game stemmed from playing roller hockey and watching hockey fights, but the love of the team was inherited from his father, an Islanders fan dating back to the dynasty.

That’s a familiar fan lineage, but a bittersweet one, as Doyle’s father passed away earlier this year. It’s been a hard time, but winning the jersey contest has been a small beacon for Doyle and the family. Somehow, the lighthouse logo feels a little more fitting.

“We've just been like talking about like how nuts my dad would be going right now,” Doyle said.

For a household of Islanders fans – and an extended family of mixed allegiances – it’s been an exciting time.

“I think my family's like even more excited than me to be honest,” Doyle added. “They were going nuts over it, reached out to me, congratulated me. All my friends were going nuts too, so it's just - it's kind of crazy.”

Doyle was still digesting the experience after seeing his jersey win a closely contested final. Just making it to the final eight – a roughly 0.01% chance – felt like a feat, but as the contest wore on and his jersey design kept advancing, the more surreal the experience became.

“I don't even know how to describe it to be honest,” Doyle said. “It's just been an unreal experience.”

The jersey design is still a year away from hitting the ice and in the interim, the corresponding pants, gloves and helmet kit will be fleshed out alongside the final jersey design. So there will be a little delayed gratification for Doyle, as the Lighthouse goes from cultural fabric to the real thing on the Islanders jersey.

“It’s really cool that the team just let fans decide to mess around and have their own ideas,” Doyle said. “Other teams in NHL should definitely do this because it gets more fans involved.”