What I learned about NHL authentic jerseys at the Oilers locker room sale

[Thunderstruk]

So I went to the Oilers locker room sale today - basically when they blow out everything from the team stores on the floor of Rexall Place, as well as game used equipment, jerseys, etc. Pretty cool place just to roam around and browse some of the equipment, seeing what the players use, being extremely tempted to buy certain things. It was tough to turn down an autographed, game worn Jason Smith helmet, but I'll save something like that for a display in my future mansion.

Anyways, back to the point of this post. There was about 15 game-issue jerseys available - 7 or 8 were put out at 11 am, when the sale was opened to season ticket holders (I am not, but had a card for it from someone who is), and then another 7 or 8 at 1 pm when it was opened for the general public. At 11 I just browsed, but in the time until 1 I decided I was going to try and snag one of the game issue jerseys, at the very least to get a good look at it.

So I'm standing in a short queue waiting for the new, nicer game used autographed sticks, and the jerseys, and finally they're put on the rack. There's 4 or 5 guys in front of me, so Hemsky, Gagner, and Horcoff are gone. It's down to Souray, Garon, Gilbert, and Cogliano, and in a quick decision I decided to go with Gilbert. In hindsight, not the best plan when I'm considering re-selling the jersey, and the other 3 guys are much more popular than Tom Gilbert, but that's beside the point.

For $275, not a bad deal at all to be getting an authentic jersey, with a player name - and actually game issued at that, vs. just a retail jersey. Think about it... around here $300 for an authentic + $110 for the player name = $410. I do work in a store with a very good employee discount, but I still figured this would be a nice addition, at the very least for awhile until I re-sell it.

As for the actual juicy details on the jersey...

We all know about how many players were not happy with the performance of the new RBK authentic jerseys - the wicking technology managed to backfire, not allowing sweat to escape the body and in turn made its way down to the players' skates. Many, many players switched back to the old 6100 style authentic jerseys, and some had modifications at that. Still, quite a few players, especially younger players/callups/rookies looked as if they were wearing the new 7187 jerseys, judging by the eye on how tight they appear.

From what I learned today though, the entire Oilers team was wearing the 6100 material with the 7187 cut. Side panels on the torso were stretchy material, but most of the material was the old air knit.

To clarify as well, even though it's the old material, the Oilers individual cut of the new jerseys was still incorporated into this one, with the weird rocket ship shape at the back neck.

Photo evidence...

This season at times it looked as if some teams had the true cut of the 6100, but were forced to cut the egg-shape hemline out of it themselves, and sometimes it looked as if it was done sloppily with scissors. This, and all the other jerseys had perfect hemlines - like they're supposed to. So were those just early versions - or lazy manufacturing?

The elbows are much wider than the 7187s, which brings us to...

Hmm, isn't that a funny looking doublestitched elbow? I had just assumed they were all the same elbows as the old jerseys - basically just an oval shaped spot that has the double layered stitching as opposed to the rest of the jersey's single layer.

See (faintly) the elbow stiching on Jagr's jersey, or the stitching on my authentic Jason Smith jersey.

Now, the jersey is properly stitched, it's just a bit funny in how it's done - never seen it before.

Very nice stitching on the letters and numbers - I half expected them to be done a bit more shoddily just because this jersey was meant for game use, and it's going to get beat up anyways, but it's a quality job.

What kind of boggled me was the SIZE of jerseys these guys were wearing, in the old style, looser jerseys at that.

Sure, Gilbert at 6'3" and 200lbs might need a big jersey. Maybe even with his big pads he'd need the extended length (I assume that's what the + means), but 58+? That's enormous. I am 6'2" and 230lbs (not the muscle of an NHL player but not the fat of the beer guy up in the 300's either), and a size 52 is very big on me with even a t-shirt and a hoodie under it. I'd wear a 48 but the sleeves aren't long enough. (keep in mind these are the old style sizes, new ones I'm 52-54 comfortably)

Granted I'm not wearing big shoulder and elbow pads, but still, I played hockey until a year ago and my jersey was never bigger than a size 52, and it was never tight. Every one of the game issue jerseys was at least a size 58 - including 5'10", 185 lb Andrew Cogliano and 5'11", 190 lb Sam Gagner. The Mathieu Garon of course was a goalie cut - didn't even bother checking that out. Souray, Gilbert, Hemsky, and an earlier Stortini were all 58+, which looked to be varying in how much added length there was. Perhaps some of them were just sleeve length and that's it - I wasn't going to spend a grand to take them all home for measurements.

Anyways, with the smallest players wearing 58s, it makes me wonder if 58 is just the standard size for NHL player jerseys, with modifications made from there as necessary. That way all you need to take on the road for possible trades/callups/jersey damage are blanks of all the same size and all they need to do is the necessary stitching for the name and number. It's not like baseball where they're supposed to fit your body as opposed to hockey jerseys where you can fit 3 of your body in it.

Finally, I've got the last jersey photo I took that makes it look a weird egg shape the way it's folded, so I figured I'd post it anyways.

I'll post more pictures when they're uploaded - I didn't have my own camera with me at the rink. I've got some randoms of semi-interesting things of the day, as well as a doozie for the counterfeit thread.

So take this post for what it is, feel free to make comments, and stay tuned for a few more photos later on.

What happened to picture?

[officeglenn]

And you really needed to quote that whole post just to ask what happened to the pictures?

[oakland ehs]

I'll edit the post. The photos just changed folders in my photobucket account.

Click the e-bay link to see them for now.

[Thunderstruk]

And you really needed to quote that whole post just to ask what happened to the pictures?

Probably not but I did. Thanks Oakland!!!

[spyboy1]

I h ave a question on the new Edge replicas.

Has anybody tried for example on a Colorado jersey getting the foot print patches on ebay and sewing them over the screened patches? Would this work? Has anybody done it? This could also be done for teams like Chicago, Boston etc...

-Dan

I bought a replica 2007 All-Star with the screened patch from the game in Dallas. I then bought an embroidered version of the same logo with the intent to have it sewn over the screened junk only to find out the proportions of the two patches were rather different and the embroidered one was not large enough to cover the screened one. It's not like it was the same patch, only smaller. It was about as tall, but not nearly as wide. Odd and disappointing, so don't assume it will easily work to do it.

[charger77]

Damn!