Is This Considered "Vintage"?

I was chatting with a friend today about spring cleaning and donating clothes when we started discussing her collection of rather unique vintage clothing. In was in this discussion that she admitted that some of her vintage graphic tees were more recently bought, so she tried to determine what piece of clothing was her oldest garment. It got me thinking about what piece of clothing would be the oldest that I own, and I can positively say that the Pittsburgh Penguins jersey you see here would be the oldest piece of clothing I possess. While it's been some time since the Penguins wore the Robo-Pigeon design, the story of how I acquired it is still pretty vivid in my memory!

We'd have to go way back to the summer of 1996 shortly after getting my very first job at a golf course. I was working as much as I could as it wasn't lost on me that a few dollars can make a teenager's life much better, and it was at a local mall where I wandered by a Champs Sports store and saw the jersey hanging on a rack in the back.

If you know anything about me, I grew up a Pittsburgh Penguins fan as I took an immediate interest in this big French kid who seemed to score at will for the routinely not-so-good Penguins. With this being before YouTube and before the rise of out-of-market games aside from Saturday's Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, I would watch every local highlight show to catch a glimpse of #66 doing what he did best in lighting lamps.

From there, my hatred for the Oilers thanks to seeing them decimate the Jets every year saw my interest in the Penguins grow when they acquired defenceman Paul Coffey and players from the Oilers in early 1987 in exchange for Craig Simpson and a handful of players. I began to learn about players such as Dan Quinn, Rob Brown, and Doug Bodger until Bodger was packaged up and sent to Buffalo for some hotshot goalie named Tom Barrasso. Kevin Stevens, Mark Recchi, John Cullen, and Zarley Zalapski became the nucleus around Mario Lemieux, and I was firmly a Penguins fan by the time I hit double-digits in age.

Of course, seeing Jaromir Jagr develop and evolve as a Penguin, the trade that brought Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson to the Steel City, the two Stanley Cups, Rick Tocchet, Larry Murphy, Joe Mullen, and Bryan Trottier along with some inspired coaching by "Badger" Bob Johnson and Scotty Bowman kept me cemented in as a Penguins fan.

Fast forward to the summer of 1996 after watching a crushing loss to the Islanders off David Volek's overtime goal in 1993, a move to the Northeast Division in 1994 where they were upset by Washington in Round One, seeing the life and fun of hockey crushed out of the Penguins by the Devils in 1995, and a stunning upset in the Eastern Conference Final to the Florida Panthers in 1996, and I had experienced enough heartbreak as a teenager to probably shift my fandom elsewhere.

I had had replica jerseys prior to finding this Penguins jersey, and I immediately noticed the difference in how they were made. The CCM pro jerseys were heavier, the logos were larger, the fight strap, and they had the cool CCM logo on the back hip. It became very apparent to me that I was holding a similar jersey to the one that Lemieux, Jagr, and Francis were wearing on the ice, and my teenaged brain immediately said "gotta have it".

What made this purchase possible is that this CCM pro jersey only set me back $100 plus taxes. For whatever reason, Champs Sports had marked it down, and I had stumbled upon it. At the time, the size-48 jersey fit comfortably, was warm like a sweater, and I could brag that I had a pro jersey of my favorite team - something none of my friends could boast.

I would eventually outgrow the jersey, but it's followed me through multiple moves over the last 25 years. It wasn't until 1999 that I got it customized with Lemieux's name and number as he's always been my favorite player. You might be asking why I waited, and it was because the fee that the NHLPA for active players at the time would have set me back somewhere near $75. Once Lemieux retired, that fee came off and the customization was basically half as expensive which was far more palatable as a cash-poor university student. With my favorite player on the back and me repping my team on my chest, I was excited to see the Penguins turn their slide into the NHL cellar around as soon as possible!

Of course, history shows that reality was much different than I had hoped as the Penguins' roster was decimated over the next number of years until Lemieux bought the team and the Penguins drafted guys like Crosby, Malkin, Letang, and Fleury. A few Stanley Cups later, and the world as a Penguins fan isn't as bad as I imagined post-1993 after being crushed over and over again in the playoffs.

Looking back, though, I'm not sure I would have expected to have that jersey for the past 25 years. It hasn't been worn in many years, but it holds a special place in my jersey collection as my first pro jersey, the oldest jersey in my collection, the oldest piece of clothing I still own, and the jersey with my favorite player's name and number on the back.

What's your oldest jersey? Let me know in the comments, and we can have some fun with this one! I have other jerseys I'll be highlighting from my collection as the pandemic continues, so make sure you add your thoughts!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!