Goal Line Gaffs

  The Jersey Foul.  There are plenty of them out there, and it is a common thread on Puck Daddy as he and his viewers point out the many ways that fans desecrate the sweaters in the various pro leagues around the United States.  The hockey sweater is almost a religious icon.  While the name on the front use to mean a hell of a lot more than the name on the back, and they literally actually used to be sweaters – the modern bastardized versions of what a player wears when he represents a team is something that fans should not be able to customize in some of the worst ways. 

Up until yesterday I had only every seen one jersey foul, ok, two jersey fouls in my entire life.  The first one was a guy that lived somewhere in my neighborhood where I grew up.  So far that I saw, the man only had two options for clothing – Zubaz and various hockey sweaters.  The sweaters and Zubaz always varied, there was never a partiality towards what teams colors he sported – and the Zubaz never matched.  He rocked Bruins, Whalers, Canadiens, in fact, I don’t ever think I saw him sporting home town blue and gold.    I don’t know that you would actually consider this a jersey foul or not – maybe a fashion faux pas at best.  I mean honestly, was there anything that really went with Zubaz in the first place?

The jersey foul that I saw yesterday was wrong on several levels.  Pulling into my parking spot at work I noticed someone standing in front of an adjacent suite smoking a cigarette wearing an Ottawa Senators jersey.  Major foul in Buffalo for several reasons.  To start, it was 70 degrees out, and he was wearing the black sweater – moisture wicking fabrics or not it has to get hot wearing that over his normal work attire; which looked like a hoody sweatshirt.  He had to smell pretty ripe in the first place wearing a hoody on a 70 degree day.  Secondly, an Ottawa Sweater?

I mean it wasn’t even a classic profile image, it was the gaudy 3-D attempt pictured to the left here.  I could maybe understand wearing it if you were a Sens fan.  I mean, I am not one to say that you absolutely have to be a hometown fan, or maybe he was originally from Ottawa – but what did the Senators do for you this year to make you want to wear your gear in public in May, when the team stopped wearing it in early April?

I have also come to the conclusion that I am no longer going to refer to certain teams by their location and names.  Pheonix, I have forsaken you and you will be henceforth known as the Winnipeg Jets II.  Carolina, you will from this day forward always be referred to as the Hartford Whalers.  It just is what it is.

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