Cities and their Colors

True enough. When I hear “bleu, blanc, rouge,” I immediately think of Montreal. In English, as “blue, white, red,” I don’t think of Montreal at all; and in fact, am more likely to think of countries with those colours on their flag: the USA, the UK, and France.

If I hear “Blue, White and Red” I’d be immediately turned away from thinking of the USA. The “Red, White and Blue” is such a standard phrasing that anything else is jarring.

Right, but the question in the OP wasn’t “which cities have a particular colour scheme?” it was “which cities have two or more clubs with the same colour scheme?”. My answer is London.

In Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Regina Rams (football team with the University of Regina) have the same colour scheme: green and white. The University of Saskatchewan Huskies in Saskatoon have a slightly different colour schme: white and green. :wink:

The Regina Pats, inexplicably, are red, white and blue. Why they didn’t choose green I do not understand.

I like cities having common colors among their teams; gives a sense of civic unity and continuity. All Regina-based teams should be green.

Chicago is a little weird for this one.

The biggest fan base and most popular sport by far is football and the Bears are Orange and Navy. This color palette was chosen based off the University of Illinois color scheme. However there is no deeper symbolism here, the University chose the colors in a committee 150 years ago. The Bears simply bought used Illini uniforms to save a buck. I’d say that Orange and Navy are the Illinois state colors but they haven’t really been used outside of sports since the flag is mostly white. Also, because of the strong University of Illinois affiliation the rest of the universities have gone far afield from that palette. (Northern - Red and Black; Southern - Crimson and Cream; Illinois State - Red and White; Western - Purple and White; Eastern - Blue and White)

In other sports, the Bulls and Blackhawks share a color palette as well as a stadium and season. Red, White and Black. I think it’s likely that the Bulls chose their color to match the Hawks since they were moving into the same building and hoping to share fan bases somewhat. Red and Black carry little greater significance. The MLS Fire and UIC Flames use Red and Black in their colors as an homage to the Great Chicago Fire with oblique references to the Fire Department.

The University of Chicago, Loyola and the old Chicago Cardinal football teams used Crimson and Cream. DePaul uses classic Red, White and Blue.

Northwestern and Notre Dame, neither officially “Chicago” schools, but are considered so by the media and public are somewhat off the reservation with their colors.

The Cubs have always been classic Blue and White with Red accents. The White Sox have been all over the damn map with Red and Navy, Black and White and even a Baby Blue stretch in there for good measure. Neither really ties into the city as a whole or any other teams, probably because the feud is too hot and no one wants to alienate half the city.

Complicating matters slightly is the fact that Chicago actually has a very recognizable City flag with distinctive colors. If you were to ask a non-sports fan what the colors of Chicago are they’d almost certainly tell you light blue and red. The city is making a slight effort to make the bridges and railing of overpasses this red color, but the brown utilitarian draw bridges on the Chicago River are far more iconic. Frankly I find it a bit surprising that no team has adopted these colors.

Long story short, move along nothing to see here.

I don’t know for sure, but at a guess, I’d say because those were the colours of the Union Flag. They’re named for Princess Patricia and started operations in 1917 during WWI. At that time, red white and blue were the patriotic colours for Canada. Princess Patricia was the daughter of the Governor General at the beginning of the war and very popular.

Plus, the Riders were red and black until the mid-40s.

As I recall my days at the University of Alberta, the Golden Bears’ colours were green and gold–much the same as the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos wore.

Newcastle, Australia, is probably red and blue: the colours of the local Rugby League team, and of Newcastle High School (which used to be split into a boys and a girls high school, and which during the split was the most prestigious two high schools in the city). However, those colours are not used by the city, so they aren’t official.

But that’s a completely different animal. In Spain, even the tiniest village has an official flag and coat of arms, but their colors often don’t match each other and the colors of local teams may or may not match either. Pamplona’s flag is green, its CoA is white-or-yellow lion over blue, edge of yellow chains over red: Pamplona’s best-known sports team is Osasuna, whose colors are red shirt and blue shorts, which matches the field and edge in the CoA.