FLPensFan wrote:I know there used to be a jersey discussion thread for years that I can't seem to find.
My son wants to buy a Penguins jersey, the gold alternate jersey, however, I find the shop.nhl.com site to be very lacking in information. Specifically, trying to determine which jerseys have printed on letters/numbers/logos/patches, versus ones that actually have them stitched on. Really baffled that they don't include that information in the jersey description.
Anyone here good with jerseys from the NHL store in determining stitching versus iron/painted on?
Sorry, FLPensFan, I was away from the PC for a couple of days on some much-needed relaxation!
The jerseys sold on NHL.com are the same as those sold in PensGear stores in the arena and around town. They come in a couple of different "classes."
First, you'll see Fanatics-branded Breakaway jerseys. I've seen these up-close. They're really cheap and strikes me as the type that would fall apart after you wash them a few times. They're the NHL's way of competing with the Chinese knockoff demand, and though the knockoffs are still cheaper, these jerseys are on shop.nhl.com right now at a discount when you use the 25% off "NHL25" discount code that's available through midnight on Monday night (Feb 24). The lettering on these jersey are smaller than what you see on the ice and they'll be a single-layer type of material (not sure what it is, but it's thinner than any tackle twill I've ever seen) that is printed to resemble multi-layer (like black on a white outline) lettering. These are sized in small, medium, large, etc.
Second, you'll see what the call an "authentic" Adidas jersey. I put "authentic" in quotation marks because they're not even close to what's worn on the ice. They're thinner than the on-ice jerseys (though much higher quality than the Fanatics replicas), and they use lettering that resembles team specs in terms of size, but it's still the single-layer, thin material that is printed to resemble the lettering used on a real hockey jersey. These jerseys are made in Indonesia and are commonly referred to as Indo-Adidas jerseys. Even though they're nothing close to the real, on-ice jerseys, they'll still run you about $300, which to me, is insane. However, you can find them a lot cheaper on eBay. Depending on the size and player, you can find them in the $90-170 range here:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... y&_sacat=0. The authentics are sized 46, 48, 50, etc. But there's still that lettering issue, and since your original post says that he wants what I'm interpreting as lettering to team specs, this won't work either.
Option #3 is to buy a real, made-in-Canada authentic jersey. Unfortunately, these are available at retail. You can buy the actual game-worn or game-issued jerseys from
http://www.jjdistributing.biz/, but these are going to be really expensive ($650 or more) and they'l have limited player availability and no size choice. But these are the only on-ice jerseys available. J & J Distributing gets more after the team uses them, and there are some 2018-19 jerseys available on their website. The 2019-20's aren't going to be available until after the season's over.
Here's what I recommend to people who are looking to get a good (not on-ice) quality but looks good and has "real" two-later tackle twill lettering done to team specifications: get a blank jersey and have it customized separately. My go-to guy for Pens jerseys if Ron at the House o' Hockey. He operates out of Pittsburgh Ice Arena in New Kensington. When he had a couple of retail stores, I bought numerous authentic, customized jerseys from him and was always happy. Now that he's moved to an in-rink shop, I'm not sure if he still sells jerseys,,but you can contact him here:
http://houseohockey.com/contact-us/. Most recently, I had him letter an older-style Pens jersey that I stripped and it turned out fantastic, as usual. He'll customize your jerseys no matter where you buy them and the cusotmization will cost under $100. Another option is to go the folks who letter the Pens on-ice jerseys, Pro Knitwear in Brookline (
https://proknitwear.com/contact-us/). They're a bit pricier, but they do great work as well! I've had them do a couple of jerseys for me as well.
I saw the PM you sent me, but I responded here so others could see my response as well. If you want pics of any of the jerseys customized by either of the two companies listed above, check out my website at
https://jeffshly.weebly.com/. And feel free to fire away with any other questions. I'll copy/paste this response into the "Official Pittsburgh Penguins Jersey & Gear Discussion Thread" so this, along with all sorts of other jersey-related information, is more easily available to the group.
