A Wonderful Jersey Foul

Spotted in Hartford on Saturday - a guy with a Wolf Pack sweater with a homemade name and number pinned on. And, yes, as a 'bonus' I got a shot of his buddy wearing a Fishsticks Redden jersey.

Thanks, Dude ...

Because of my unhealthy jersey habit, I am a huge fan of the blog Third String Goalie. Jeff does a helluva job with hockey history and linking it to the massive sweater collection he owns (and dreams about owning). He puts up a new post every day and is the first blog I check every morning afternoon when I wake up.

He is a Minnesota man, something I would not have a problem with ... except that in today's case, he selected a special moment in Wild history to honour: the anniversary of Marian Gaborik's five-goal game.

Bastard.

Funny how my (now pic-less) take on it back then hasn't changed. But then again, how can I be mad? Gabby is ours now, so we've won in the end. Right??

Link Of The Day

For those who don't watch football soccer much, after big matches it is customary for players on each side to trade their jersey with an honoured opponent. I've always found the tradition quite impressive - a step farther from just a handshake. While there is too much money involved in the used jersey market for hockey to ever allow that to happen, a neat story did come out last week about fans trading sweaters. While they weren't opponents, it still is a really nice read. Check it out, over at Uni Watch.

This Is Cool ...

Graphic design folks and hockey fans, I found this in my email from last weekend:

After a very successful first year, the Wolf Pack Specialty Jersey Design Contest is back!

We had hundreds of great entries last year and had a blast choosing the winner. Be creative and have fun because we loved all the different ideas that fans had

The winner of this year’s contest will receive a personalized jersey of their design, along with tickets to see them worn by the team! During the specialty-jersey game, the jerseys will be auctioned right off the player’s backs!

This year’s auction raised over $10,000, which benefited the March of Dimes organization.

Entering this year’s contest is easy: Just download the form and follow the simple instructions to return your entry.

Make sure to submit your entry no later than May 1st to be considered for the contest.

By downloading the entry form and submitting your design you are giving the Hartford Wolf Pack your permission to use your design to create next year’s specialty jersey, and agreeing that there will not be any monetary compensation for your design.

What a great idea, I wish I was more artistic. Good luck to all those out there that give it a shot!

Weekend Wear

I am a regular reader of Uni Watch a blog about everything jerseys (I have 55 or so across all sports myself). Well, as the league mentioned, third jerseys will be back next season and NESN gave Bruins fans a peek at a finalist for their forthcoming design:

What do you think? I am impressed, especially considering their old third jersey.

What do you think for the Rangers? Should we go back to the same old alternate? Or what about a return to the fourth jersey they used, the white version of the alternate? Or something entirely different? Please weigh in in the comments. I am all for the white alternate myself ...

Also, please voice your opinion - are jerseys ok to wear somewhere other than to the arena or is it a fashion faux pas?

Old Skool Threads

I am a big fan of jerseys, at last count I have over 40 hockey jerseys, including the throwback Mitchell & Ness Duguay to the right.

I am also a regular reader of Uni Watch and yesterday a fill-in writer posted a bunch of YouTube links that included a behind-the-scenes look at the Mitchell & Ness company. It's a two part Internet shot by some company called Press Pass TV that I have never heard of. If you want to check the geek-tacular feature out, click here.

You can be sure if/when I go down to Philly to watch the Rangers beat the Flyers, I am going to check out their store and waste some more money!

What?!?!?

You know, the NHL has some gall. The league's new jerseys are far more expensive than the current designs. The Rangers just put up on their website that replica's of the new designs will cost $145 - (check it out here). That is almost twice what a replica costs now. That is insane. First the league takes a year off to ensure team cost certainty, then they increase ticket prices this offseason and redesign the jerseys, doubling their costs???



I could tolerate the third jerseys - no matter how ugly so many were - because the teams still had the same primary uniforms. Now you change it (thanks RBK) and force fans to buy an entire new kit? Its just more proof that Gary (Scrooge McDuck) and the rest of the owners just don't care about the fans, just their wallets.

I am an obsessive fan of the Rangers and own nine of their jerseys but you had better believe that I won't shell out $145 for a new one. My customized jerseys even cost far less than that. And as I have mentioned many times, I already work six, seven days to pay for the escalating cost of my season tickets ... there aren't enough days in the week for me to afford a new jersey. Sooner or later the league's merchandising will face maximum saturation among the diehard fans and what will they do then? It scares me to imagine what they will come up with then ...

Is the NHL that dumb?

The league is boasting "Another year, another increase in the online sale of NHL merchandise. The National Hockey League announced Monday that sales on its website (shop.NHL.com) increased for the 10th straight season and that this year was its biggest ever. Online sales of NHL-licensed products were up 47 per cent compared to last year, according to the league."

Hmm, could that possibly be because its harder and harder to find NHL merch in brick-and-mortar stores in people's own neighborhoods? I know that Sports Authority cut down on the amount of merch they sell and a number of rink pro shops that I know have either closed or cut down their inventory. Big department stores don't carry that kind of stuff anymore and the big chain variety stores like Target don't carry jerseys. To the best of my memory, over the last two years or so, no stores in the large Smithhaven Mall on Long Island carried jerseys (they just opened a Dicks Sporting Goods, which may or may not - the one in Binghamton didn't have NHL merch when I was there 10 years ago). So where else are people going to turn? The non-internet savvy person isn't going to hunt down deals on ebay, sportsk.com, rivercitysports.com, etc. -- they are going to go to NHL.com. So sales obviously go up ... and the league feels the need to trumpet that?

The league is opening a flagship store in midtown this fall and I have a hunch that the sales there will be less-than-stellar unless they cut prices to below what New Yorkers already get at Cosbys and Modells and somehow I don't think they will with estimated price tags on the new jersey designs looking to be in the $400 range ... definitely looks to be quite unfan-friendly to me ... maybe they should just stick to sending out press releases about on-ice happenstance - that way its cut and dry and you don't have to read between the lines and see the bullshit ...