The Avs Hockey Podcast

Two Fan's Perspectives on Colorado Avalanche Hockey...and jerseys too.

Poppin’ My Collar (Part Two)

by

I’m featuring another collared jersey in this post, but like I said in part one of this two-part series, this one has a little more of a story to it.  Let’s get to the pictures first.

The first thing that many Avalanche fans will notice is Milan Hejduk’s number that he wore in the 2000 NHL All-Star game held in Toronto.  His normal jersey number is 23 when he plays with the Avs and when he played in the 2001 NHL All-Star game in Denver, but in this game he wore jersey number 22.  Most of the time in All-Star games the player with the most career goals gets his jersey number when two players wear the same number during the regular season.  The player with less career goals then chooses a new jersey number for the game.  That wasn’t the case here.  Hejduk’s fellow countryman Peter Svoboda wore number 23 for the 2000 All-Star game.  Svoboda was the first Czech player to ever play 1,000 games in the NHL and only had 58 career goals as he was a defenseman, but he obviously had the respect of a particular young Avalanche forward and was allowed to wear his customary 23 for the game.  A classy move by Hejduk, but that’s what we’ve come to expect as Avalanche fans through the years.

There are also a few differences between the 2000 and 2001 All-Star jerseys.  The basic design is obviously the same at first glance, but there are a couple of details that make them different.  One is the back right tail of the jerseys.  The 2001 only has the black and silver NHL shield there, the 2000 jersey looks like this:

CCM moved their logo to the back of the neck of NHL jerseys before the start of the 2000-2001 season.  I’m not exactly sure why CCM chose the move from one year to the next, but I’m sure marketing and emblem visibility had something to do with it.

Another difference is the All-Star patches.  The 2001 patch is very familiar to all of us Avalanche fans.  The 2000 jersey patches looked like this:

The patch on the top was worn by the Toronto Maple Leafs on their jerseys all season long and the NHL 2000 patch was worn by every team in the league during the 1999-2000 season.  For example, here’s a Chris Dingman white game worn jersey from that season:

And here’s a burgundy authentic that I had made into a Chris Drury.

The last thing I’d want is for Avs fans to forget what the Avalanche jerseys looked like that season as we all have short memories.  Plus, as I’m sure you guys have noticed, I’ll take any chance I get to post a jersey that’s in my collection on the blog.  That’s kind of the point, right?

So that’s the end of the collared jerseys in my collection.  They don’t come around too often, and I know many of you are thanking me for that.  Either way, these jerseys are definitely unique in their own way and are attention-getters at games due to their color and style.  Ask any collector about people asking you about your jerseys while you’re wearing them; that’s never a bad thing.

The Avs Hockey Podcast, Episode #55

by

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

In this show, recorded July 7, 2010, James “Tapeleg” Gralian, from “The Rink Podcast“, and I talk about new Avalanche faces and some faces you’ll not see back with the team, we promote one of our favorite bloggers and Twitter friends (Jori’s blog is found here and her Twitter feed is here), and we discuss our old buddy Rob Blake’s retirement.  Those topics and much, much more Avalanche related stuff in episode #55 of The Avs Hockey Podcast.  Thanks for a great season Avalanche fans and we’ll see you, and talk to you, again soon.

Poppin’ My Collar (Part One)

by

(***Quick side note for the readers that don’t follow hip-hop at all, the title of this post comes from this song by Three 6 Mafia.  Not the best song ever, but fun to listen to anyways.  You’ll understand the connection as you read and see the pictures.  Trust me!)

A collar on a hockey jersey?  Never thought I’d see that, until the 2000 World Team NHL All-Star jerseys debuted.

A little different, right?  I’ll cover the 2000 Milan Hejduk (the collared jersey above) that’s in my collection in a future post as it has a little more to its story, but I wanted to share the pair of 2001 NHL All-Star jerseys now.  The 2001 All-Star jerseys are basically the same jerseys as the 2000s except for some small patch, tagging, and logo details.  I picked two of them up blank from a seller on eBay a few years ago for what I’d call “eBay prices.”  I like eBay pricing.  It’s a good thing.  Have I mentioned how much I love eBay lately?  I actually received the jerseys still wrapped in plastic, which is pretty rare for jerseys that have existed for as long as they had.  Here are the photos of the blank originals:

And what Avs fans don’t love the memories involved with this patch?

After dropping them off at my favorite jersey place, who also lettered the jerseys for the 2001 All-Star game here in Denver, here is what they look like now.

I love the captain’s “C” on the Forsberg.  All-Star captains from your favorite team don’t happen that often.  It’s important to take advantage when the chance is there.

Please don’t tell me that you’re at all surprised to see that jersey.  You guys know how I roll by now!  I’ll talk about this one in a later post.

The collars?  Not too bad if you ask me.  They’ve grown on me throughout the years.  I’ve met a lot of collectors that don’t like these jerseys at all.  Me?  I like them.  I don’t know if it’s the good memories attached to them or what, but I think they’re just fine, collars and all.  They’re perfect for poppin’ when I’m at Pepsi Center and that’s all that really matters anyways.

Some International Flavor

by

First off, I have to come clean, I was never that big of a Wojtek Wolski fan when he played here in Denver, but I did have his back when he needed me.  With that said, let’s get to the jersey.

A few years ago a seller on eBay listed a handful of jerseys that were to be worn during the 2006 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships which were hosted that year in Canada.  It’s pretty tough to find who didn’t make the Team Canada roster after tryouts, but the fact that this jersey exists makes me assume that Wolski was one of the final roster cuts.

The story may be unclear, but the jersey does exist, and here it is.

There are all kinds of great details to share about this jersey.  First, there are the patches.  One is the tournament patch found on the upper left hand part of the chest.

This patch is only found on the jerseys that were worn in, or made for, the tournament itself.  Many eBay sellers reproduce patches like this and sell them, but the “real deal” is obviously always better in terms of quality and detail.

Another patch that I love on this jersey is the IIHF patch found on the back of the jersey on the lower right tail.

The International Ice Hockey Federation is the governing body over all international hockey competition.  Again, this patch is imitated by many people, but never duplicated like people can find on jerseys made for or worn in IIHF tournaments.

The other thing collectors find on Nike authentic jerseys is this.

Nike heat seals a barcode like this on all of their authentic jerseys.  It’s found underneath the lower left hand side of the back hem of the jersey.  There has been a lot of discussion regarding these tags and even the experts don’t know if this tag means that this jersey was made to wear in games or it was something that Nike did with all of their authentic jerseys.  Either way, it’s definitely something worth paying attention to if you’re a collector.

Nike also changed the cut to the jerseys they made for international teams just after this tournament.  The more form fitting cut they labeled “Swift” has not been very popular for hockey fans, but it has been something the company has stuck with so the players must not mind it too much.  This jersey having more of the traditional cut was something that drew me to it.  I prefer the larger cut of this jersey and jerseys of its time.  The design looks very much like a Nike Swift, but the cut is definitely not Swift-like.

Another Nike international jersey trademark is the names on the back of the jersey are heat pressed rather than actually sewn onto the nameplate.  I guess Nike didn’t want all that thread weighing the players down when they wore this jersey.

There’s more too.  Canada decided not too long before this tournament to start outlining the emblem on the chest and shoulders in gold rather than the red and black they had used in the past.  The larger image of the front of the jersey (shown above) doesn’t show this very well, the close up of the crest on the chest and the shoulder patch shows the gold accents way better.

This jersey, like all of the game worn or game issued jerseys in my collection, tells a story.  The story isn’t as long as it would have been if Wolski had actually played in the tournament, but that’s alright, some international flavor is always welcome in my collection anyways.