Adventures of A Red Wings Packrat: Jersey Foul Edition...

I just so happen to be the proud-ish owner of a Red Wings jersey foul. I say “proud-ish” because after all these years, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. I’ve had it for at least eight years (it was an integral part of my ’02 Cup celebration), but I’m not exactly sure when it came into my possession. I have no idea where my mom found it. It’s a baseball-style jersey that says “Red Wings” on the front and has Shanny’s name on the back. It’s officially licensed stuff, so I’m not 100% sure it qualifies as a foul. Either way, it’s awesomely bad.

Back in ’02, I was but a high school sophomore. The Wings were kind enough to win the Cup the night before the last day of school/final exams. The next day, I wore the jersey foul since wearing a real hockey jersey to school in June would’ve been a poor life decision. One of my best friends happened to show up in an Yzerman semi-jersey that day, too. Somehow, in our excitement, we ended up nicknaming each other after the players on our backs. I became Shanny and she became Stevie. This was ironic because my favorite player was Stevie and hers was Shanny.

That day was also the end of the year pool party for a school club. At the party, we assigned Wings player names to all of our friends. An extremely studious friend became Igor Larionov. A talkative one became Brett Hull. Someone else became Sergei Fedorov because we felt like he had to be represented at the party and nobody else fit. I think there was also a Luc Robitaille. Nobody else there had the slightest idea what we were talking about. I’m fairly certain that most of them wouldn’t have known the Wings had won the Cup if we hadn’t shouted it at them multiple times. That didn’t stop us from finding a silver-ish bucket and making them pose for celebration shots like the team did on the ice. We also discovered that the people who were hosting the party owned an autographed Gordie Howe stick which they let us take pictures with, but that’s not really the point. In more on-topic news, a red and white jersey foul paired with a turquoise beach wrap with killer whales on it makes a fantastic outfit.

Those same jerseys were worn down to the city a few days afterward when my dad took us to the celebration parade. It was the first we’d been able to attend. It was sweltering. Once again, the Shanny jersey foul saved me with its short sleeves and breathable fabric. I’m fairly certain it was almost seven years before the jersey foul made it out of my closet again to see the light of day.

Last spring, when the Wings were in the Finals, that same friend from high school and I decided to watch one of the road games down at Hockeytown Café. I’d worn most of my Wings shirts already, so I decided to throw on the Shanny foul for nostalgia’s sake. Imagine my surprise when my friend showed up at my front door wearing the very same Steve Yzerman semi-jersey she’d worn for our fake celebration all those years earlier. It was an awesome moment in our friendship. Of course, the Wings went on to lose the game, further cementing my refusal to watch another Finals game at Hockeytown ever again. (I was also there for the 3OT disaster in ’08.)

When I decided to stop being lazy and write something, I chose this jersey foul because I’ll be wearing it when Liz and I go to the Wings Alumni Softball Game tomorrow. She’ll also be rocking a jersey foul. I figure mine won’t be terribly out of place there since it’s a Wings softball game.

Hockeytown Garage Sale...

Last weekend, I met up with Amanda and Courtney at Hockeytown Authentics for the used equipment garage sale. We had a blast even though I’m pretty sure everyone else in attendance thought we were raving lunatics. That’s actually pretty par for the course for me as I often wonder why society lets me venture out in public.

We had a great time geeking out over the game-used jerseys, sticks, skates, and gloves. Amanda and I fist-bumped with Zetterberg’s used gloves. We totally felt the Eurotwin power in that moment. We were also amused by the fact that I was able to walk up to a pile of skates on a table and immediately pick out Z’s. Malik was not impressed with my equipment identification skills though. He says it was too easy. Whatever.

Another highlight was the Brett Lebda jersey and autographed stick. You’d better believe there was some RAAAAGGGGHHHHing going on when we posed for pictures with those.

One of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen was hidden away on a shelf at the store. This is a sleeping bag meant to look like a hockey player. The head is a detachable pillow so when you’re not using your sleeping bag (that feels like it’s lined with plastic grocery bags) you can cuddle with the disembodied head. It was selling for $50. For $5, I would’ve bought it just to use as a conversation piece.


The best moment, though, had to be when Courtney found a little goal light on a stick. She turned it on and commented that it would be a lot more fun if it made the goal horn noise too. Naturally, I whipped out my cell phone and played the goal horn ringtone on repeat. Then we took a video and pretended to celebrate the imaginary goal. It was pretty clear that everyone around us thought we were insane. This was the result:



Other things that amused us:

• Homer’s stick with absolutely no curve.
• The many repairs done to Homer’s game-worn sweater.
• Realizing that Ericsson's stick is taller than I am.
• Datsyuk’s pants that had giant holes cut into them and hemmed that way.
• Getting into Draper’s pants.
• The wide variety of Pasha sticks.
• Discovering a horrific puck bunny t-shirt. None of use even understood what correlation “It’s raining men” had with the Wings or hockey.
• Used equipment bags were selling for $500-700. As far as I could tell, all of the players’ numbers were accounted for so I don’t know that anyone actually purchased one.
• Amazing kids’ helmet-style hats and inexplicably green Cat in the Hat-esque ones.

I didn’t buy any of the equipment, but I did raid the autographed book clearance table. I snagged a copy of 48 Hours with the Detroit Red Wings that was autographed by Brett Hull and On Tour with the Red Wings & Stanley 2008 signed by Homer. The 48 Hours book has a busted dust jacket, but both of them were way below list price. I also picked up birthday presents for my three siblings and a coloring book for myself for a grand total of $68. The coloring book has a jersey math section. I love it. I’d consider our visit a success. I really had no intention of buying anything because I didn’t figure I’d find anything in my price range.

After our adventures at the store, we walked next door and hung out at Joe Kool’s talking hockey for a couple of hours. We reminisced about the good old days of the Wings-Avs rivalry (Courtney’s a die hard Colorado fan) and how much we missed hating each other’s teams. We talked about the Tomas Holmstrom-Dustin Byfuglien debate and why we think Homer’s in a class of his own. We told the story of H2H. I got a ridiculously small yet overpriced pizza. The whole day was fabulous. Check out the rest of the pictures on Photobucket.