HBIC Music Festival: Day One

As we hit the Labour Day weekend in September, there's a sense that summer is officially over as the weekend passes. While that day officially doesn't happen until later in September, the long weekend at the start of September was always the signpost of the summer turning to autumn as school always started in or around Labour Day. In saying that, the summer concerts that cities and towns have been holding are winding down as events move indoors again, so let's have some fun with all the musicians who got a hockey jersey this summer from the teams who call those cities and town home!

The full list of musicians holding or wearing a hockey jersey can be found here, and this list just keeps getting more and more impressive with the additions being made. If you have photos of a musician wearing or holding a jersey, send them through to me and I'll get them posted with you getting credit! I'm always open to more submissions than less, so let's make this "Musicians in Jerseys" list as comprehensive as we can! Here are the new additions!

Irvine, California is just south of Anaheim, so how approriate that Irvine rock back Thrice got themselves a set of Anaheim Ducks jerseys? If they had been official Mighty Ducks jerseys, those would have been simply awesome, but these will do.

Boston welcomed Old Dominion to their city, and the country music band received their Bruins jerseys for their appearance. Boston also added Teona Zak to their ranks when she sang before an alumni game, and the contemporary pop artist donned the Reverse Retro jersey for the occasion!

Calgary has had a number artists pass through their city, and the Flames were handing out jerseys like they were maps to the city. Among the musicians that received a jersey were country pop singer Morgan Wallen in a Reverse Retro, folksy pop singer Noah Kahan, the incomparable Snoop Dogg in a Reverse Retro, and Calgary-born Tate McRae who showed up in her Heritage Classic jersey only to be gifted a Flames' home jersey! Are the using some of that new arena money to pay for these free jerseys?

Winnipeg-born Daniel Bjornson seems to have a handful of jerseys at his disposal as you'll see throughout this post. The first instance comes up here because Daniel pieced together a collage of photos of him wearing jerseys, and the Carolina Hurricanes were one of those jerseys. Not sure what the purpose of this photo collage was in the bigger picture, but he's wearing the jersey!

Country music star Zach Bryan was on tour this summer on "The Quittin Time Tour" - the lack of an apostrophe there drives me mad - and one of the stops he made was in Chicago where the Blackhawks gave him a tour-specific jersey!

Alvin Lamar Worthy is better known as American rapper Westside Gunn, and the Buffalo-born musician seems to be a fan of Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche! The weird part is that Westside Gunn is a dedicated fan of professional wrestling, not hockey, so this might be his only appearance on this list!

Speaking of rare appearances, the Columbus Blue Jackets did not follow the practice of giving away jerseys to musicians who stopped in their arena or city, but they seem to be softening that stance. Case in point? M. Ross Perkins received a scarf and a jersey for his appearance in Columbus while rapper Ro Ransom was out on the town wearing the colours of the Blue Jackets.

This artist didn't pass through Dallas this summer, but him wearing the Stars jersey is a pretty big piece of hockey-music jersey history. We've seen Tupac Shakur in jerseys before, but here is the late rapper sporting the colours of the Stars!

The Detroit Red Wings can boast a couple of new musical fans as American rapper Jeezy was sporting the winged wheel while Daniel Bjornson makes his second appearance with a Detroit Red Wings jersey that he wore in that collage.

Roland "Rollie" Pemberton grew up in Edmonton before getting his big break as rapper Cadence Weapon, and the Canadian musician shows his devotion to his hometown team by appearing in a hype video in Oilers' blue and on another video where he's wearing the Oilers' alternate! Jake Ryan of Boyz II Men stood out in his Oilers jersey. Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 wore the #182 Oilers jersey on stage. Shockingly, Alberta-founded band Nickelback hadn't appeared in the Oilers' section yet, but they finally got their jerseys. Noah Kahan stopped in Edmonton for a night and came away with an Oilers jersey. And, like Nickelback who appears often, Snoop Dogg had yet to appear in the Oilers' musical fan group, but that has now been corrected as well!

The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers will have new fans to boast after their win last season as musical acts came out of the woodwork to support the Cats. We already knew that Ariana Grande was a Panthers fan, but she showed up to last season's playoff run in a Panthers practice jersey. Rapper Future played a show in Sunrise, and he's now a bedazzled fan of the Panthers. Speaking of rappers, Lil Baby got himself a Panthers jersey when he stopped in Sunrise! Country music artist and Floridian Joey Braxton wrote a Panthers hype song and wore their colours as they marched to the Stanley Cup as well!

Los Angeles is a bit of a cheat code when it comes to finding musicians wearing jerseys, but it's still pretty awesome to see Billy Idol wearing the Kings' colours. You may not know her music well, but Jessica Meuse was on the 13th season of American Idol where she finished fourth, and it seems she took to the LA life by adopting the Kings as her team with additional clothing!

Matthew Raymond Hauri grew up in Rochester, Minnesota before he became the musician and rapper known as Yung Gravy, but it appears he hasn't forgtten his roots as he shows off his Minnesota Wild jersey (on the right)!

Like some of the other major cities in North America, Montreal gets a lot of musical acts through their city so this will be a larger paragraph about those artists. Lasso Montreal is an annual country music festival, and the Canadiens were on-hand to greet musicians like Dean Brody, Kane Brown, and Nate Smith! Among the other artists who are showing their devotion to the Habs are Rik Emmett from Canadian rock band Triumph, EDM-pop musician Jo Hysteria, Canadian rock band Monster Truck who we'll see again, American pop singer Billie Eilish, and Snoop Dogg is back for more as he gets jerseys from two of the toughest hombres to wear the bleu-blanc-et-rouge in Chris Nilan and Georges Laraque! Just for good measure, Daniel Bjornson's collage is back too!

For our last entry on Day One of this music festival, we go to Nashville where there was one artist showing his support for the Predators as country music artist Chase Wright got his gear. I'm sure there may be more artists that have appeared in Nashville over the last couple of years, but I haven't seen many images of musicians in jerseys. I'll have to keep looking.

Tomorrow, HBIC returns with Day Two of the HBIC Music Festival as I clear out the folder of images on my desktop. There are still lots of images to go through as the last sixteen NHL teams will see if they have any musical inspiration for the coming season, and there are some cool images of artists wearing non-NHL jerseys as well. Some of these are pretty awesome!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!