Jerseys 101

There came a time, a few years ago, where I felt that I had saved enough money to start thinking about “upping the ante” when it came to my jersey collection.  I had a lot of cool Avs jerseys, but something was missing.  It was time to go after some game worn jerseys.

I ended up on Captain’s Jerseys site.  I’d hyperlink it for you, but he doesn’t do near as much as he used to when it comes to jerseys on his site.  Anyways, I ran across an Andrew Brunette game used alternate jersey from the 2005-2006 season.  I’m a real sucker for any jersey with a patch on it.  (Have I mentioned that 100 times already yet?)  I sent him what I thought was a fair offer on the jersey, he countered with an offer that wasn’t so fair, and I decided to turn it down.  Guess what showed up on eBay a few weeks later?  After I got over feeling cheated about him not giving me a heads up about the jersey being listed I followed the auction and won it.  If I remember right, the auction ended at about $75 cheaper than my original offer to him.  Funny how things work out sometimes.  I finally had my first game worn jersey for my collection.

I don’t meet many Avalanche fans, or jersey fans, that don’t like the style of this jersey for a lot of reasons.  I’ve missed them since the Avalanche stopped wearing them.  They just have that classic look that everyone has a hard time disliking.

The first thing I noticed on the jersey was the game wear.  Seeing the “battle scars” that litter the jersey is always part of the excitement when a gamer arrives.  This jersey had a fair amount of wear.  Here are some examples.

And I don’t really want to even guess what this is above the 15 on the right sleeve.  Glue?  A burn from the boards?  Snot?  Who knows?

I noticed a few more things about this jersey right away too.  One thing is the new NHL shield sewn directly over the old NHL shield on the back tail.  This is consistent with many of the jerseys from this era.  When Reebok took over the branding from CCM/Koho, this is what they did to recycle the jerseys in a sense.  Here’s the new shield:

And here’s the old NHL shield with the tail of the jersey flipped up.

The tag you see above is the Meigray tag.  Every team that has signed a deal with Meigray has their game worn and game issued jerseys tagged this way.  Each jersey has its own number and the “C” in front of the “02824″ indicates that this jersey came from the third year of the game worn jersey program.  Here’s the weird part though, this jersey has two Meigray tags.  The one above is actually on the bottom of the front right of the jersey, where no Meigray tags ever are.  Here’s the real Meigray tag, where it’s supposed to be, on the back left side of the bottom of the jersey.

The small patch to the left of the Meigray tag helped Meigray “recycle” the jerseys they had tagged for the 2004-2005 NHL season, which was a total wash as a result of the players being locked out by the owners of the league.  I contacted Meigray about the double tag and they said it was a mistake on their part.  It was also noted in their records that this jersey was double-tagged.  I hadn’t seen a jersey with two Meigray tags on it before this one and I haven’t seen one since.  Strange quirks are fun, especially when the jersey is yours.

Since this jersey I have added many more game issued and game worn jerseys which you’ll hear all about in the future, I just wanted to share with you how the fever began.

My favorite Avalanche player of all time is Joe Sakic.  His game worn jerseys go for almost $4,000.  Another favorite, Patrick Roy.  List price for his gamers, almost $5,000.  Forsberg, somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000.  Man, this jersey game is pricey.  When it comes to value, and collecting an underrated player who plays a “quiet” game, I couldn’t go wrong with this.

This jersey was worn during the 2006-2007 season by Milan Hejduk.  He has always been an Avs favorite of mine for many reasons.  One, I love his style of play.  Quiet, not quite superstar status, but well known to Avalanche fans and Northwest Division opponents.  Leave this guy alone and he’ll hurt you every time.  Second, I’ve always had a thing for right-handed shots because I am one myself.  I see left-handed shooters do certain things and it just looks plain…backwards.  I see Hejduk do certain things and I can relate.  I like that.  Third, the man is magic with his feet.  I can’t count the number of times I have seen a bad outlet pass or tipped pass get to him in the neutral zone be quickly corrected by Hejduk by either playing the puck of his foot then onto his stick or just plain have him turn around in mid-stride, receive the pass, then get back to skating forward all while barely slowing down.  I fall down on my skates just watching him to that stuff.  There have been many times where I’m left shaking my head at what this guy can do.  Fourth, he’s an Avs lifer.  He’s signed through next season and maybe longer.  We will see how his body holds up.  I do know that he’s welcome for as long as he’d like to stay.  We, as Avs fans, can’t say that about just anyone who wears the burgundy and blue.  Fifth, his bio.  Enough said there.  And last, I think his number 23 will hang in the rafters in Pepsi Center someday.  In my opinion, he’s earned that honor.

Let’s get back to the jersey, shall we?  This jersey was used a lot.  Here’s the right sleeve.

The holes are the result of the boards and the glass.  These are seen on jerseys pretty frequently.  They get there by the player rubbing the jersey along the boards or glass hard enough to cause a hole or burn to develop.  This jersey has also been washed a lot.  This weakens the fabric, as it does with any fabric, and makes it easier for damage to occur.

Here’s something, behind the back left armpit of the jersey, that I can’t explain though.

I have no idea what caused this tear.  A stick?  The boards?  Who knows?  What I do know is that damage like this gets game worn jersey collectors excited.

This jersey is one of the highlights of my collection.  I had always wanted a Milan Hejduk game worn jersey and now I have one.  My next mission, get a burgundy jersey from the same era.  To be continued.

My Dad has a buddy who is a huge Los Angeles Kings fan.  When the Colorado Avalanche signed Ian Laperriere on July 2, 2004, my Dad’s friend told us that we would love Lappy.  I had become familiar with Ian Laperriere’s name from my years of following hockey.  I knew he was a hard (and crooked…zing!) nosed player who specialized in playing gritty hockey, but I obviously didn’t have any extended experience watching him play night after night.  In the end, it didn’t take me and the majority of Avalanche fans long to prove my Dad’s friend right, everyone loved Lappy for all of the right reasons.

As a result, during the next Avs game worn jersey sale, I had no choice but to jump on this….

This jersey was worn by Ian Laperriere during the last part of the 2007-2008 season.  Lappy also wore it during the six game series win against the Minnesota Wild as well as the four game whoopin’ the Avs received against the Red Wings in the second round of the 2007-2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs series I won’t mention.

This jersey has two quirks that I love about it.  The first is a neck modification that I think NHL equipment managers learned about the hard way.  When the new Reebok Edge jerseys were implemented at the beginning of the 2007-2008 season I imagine that many of the guys that got into fights ripped the front of the necks of their jerseys.  One would think that Reebok would have addressed this issue as they designed these jerseys, but Reebok didn’t think about a lot of things when they created this “new and improved” jersey system.  I’ll cover those details in future posts.  Anyways, here is the front of the neck.

Just above the NHL shield is some blue stitching, this is what it’s there for.

That is a piece of elastic that’s there to keep the jersey from ripping down the middle to the crest whenever it’s stretched far enough.  And during fights, these jerseys, and a few of the players, take a beating.  The elastic is a preventative measure to help the jersey last a little longer.

The other quirk, which wasn’t Reebok’s fault at all, is the huge repair between the “1″ and the “4″ on the left sleeve.

How that rip happened is not something I’m exactly sure of.  Could have been a skate cut, a rip from a fight, or something else.  What I do know is that repair makes things easy when it comes to photomatching the jersey.  Photomatching is when a collector or a seller finds photos of that player, wearing that jersey, during a game.  Any unique marking on the jersey makes it that much simpler to make that match.  Here is my photomatch for this jersey.  Take a good look at that left sleeve between the numbers.  How cool is that?  Game worn jerseys are cool, photomatched games worn jerseys are even cooler.

Lappy wore this jersey during this fight with Jim Vandermeer of the Calgary Flames.

He’s also wore it during this fight with Steve Staios of the Edmonton Oilers.

I liked this jersey, and Lappy, so much that I decided to get its partner.  It’s the dark version of the same jersey worn during the same part of the same season.  I will feature that jersey in a future post.

I still miss Lappy.  I know many other Avalanche fans do as well.  He was a pleasure to watch night in and night out.  He’s one of those rare players that “brings it” every single game.  I’m convinced that if every NHL team had a Lappy on it that hockey would be more popular to many people.  He plays the game the way it’s meant to be played.  I know Lappy’s opponents don’t prefer playing against him, and that’s not because he’s dirty or full of himself, it’s a little thing called respect.