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NHL In Prague, Wafflebored, And More

Heory
NHL In Prague, Wafflebored, And More

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to hockey season…already? That’s right, three and a half months after the Stanley Cup Final ended, the National Hockey League is back at it again. The Buffalo Sabres and the New Jersey Devils got a head start on the rest of the league yesterday, playing the first of two games in Prague, the capital of Czechia. So, who better to drop the ceremonial puck than the pride of Czechia, the ageless Jaromir Jagr? He’s shown in the featured photo, posing with Buffalo’s captain Rasmus Dahlin, and Devils forward and fellow Czech Ondrej Palat.

Both teams wore a Global Series patch on their sweaters.

Here’s a closeup of the patch on a Devils jersey:

Each team also wore the memorial decal for Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau which Phil wrote about on Monday, and there were 13 seconds of silence in honor of Johnny’s number 13.

Other than that, it was a pretty standard looking game, and a really nice uniform matchup…

…with an even nicer stick save!

While I liked the old red and green unis, the red and black is a more appropriate look for a team called the Devils. And that Sabres blue and gold is *very* easy on the eyes. Buffalo was the “home” team, and today New Jersey is, so we’ll see if they switch unis for this game.

The rest of the league is in preseason mode until Tuesday, when there will be three games to open the season on North American ice. The Sabres and Devils will play again on Thursday in their actual home openers. Next month the defending champion Florida Panthers will play the Dallas Stars in another Global Series in Finland, and you can read more about that and other info on the NHL schedule here.

 

 

DIY Project: Felt Pennants From Wafflebored

Our good friend Wafflebored is back, and so is his sewing machine!

Nice UW sticker there! Today he has some great homemade pennants to share with us.

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I recently had an idea of a DIY project that would involve making some felt pennants. I haven’t made a pennant before so I thought I would make some test samples. I needed a subject matter, so I decided to make them based on long-gone historic Vancouver sports venues.

1. Denman Arena

This is probably the most well-known of the three venues. The arena housed the Vancouver Millionaires, and existed from 1911 to 1936. Denman Arena was not the formal name of the building, it’s only been referred to as that in more recent years. I still opted to use that as opposed to “Vancouver Arena” or just “The Arena” since it’s more interesting. I used the Millionaires colours of maroon and off white.

2. Athletic Park

This was a stadium located just outside of the downtown. It was mainly used for baseball but was used for other sports as well. It opened in 1913. The site is now a strip mall and bridge on-ramp. I used a navy blue and sort of gothic style font, reminiscent of the Vancouver Beavers baseball team.

3. Powell Street Grounds

Now called Oppenheimer Park, this baseball field was home to the famed Vancouver Asahi baseball team. The park still exists and there is a baseball diamond still in the original location. I made the pennant in the Asahi red and white colours, and used a font similar to the the script font they used on their most well-known uniform design.

I decided to make the pennants doubled-layered to hide the stitching that would show on the back.

Normally on a pennant you would use felt lettering as well as a felt base, but in this case I used a nice satin fabric for the lettering. Because satin fabric tends to fray I had to use a pretty tight stitch.

 

 

I also used an unbleached cotton twill tape for the trim to give them more of a vintage look.

As it turns out, I have abandoned the project I was intending to do, so this is probably the extent of my pennant making. I don’t use my sewing machine as much as I used to but I stilll enjoy it a lot and hope to do other projects in the future.

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Thanks for sharing this with us! Whatever your next project will be, I’m looking forward to seeing it.

 

 

An Awesome Illinois/Ivy League Helmet Connection

Reader Wuj Bradski reached out to me on Tuesday, with some background info on my favorite Illinois football helmet. It turns out there’s a common thread between that and two Ivy League helmets which I also really like.

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Just an interesting FYI, the throwback helmets that Illinois wore against CMU a few weeks ago were actually a design that came via head coach Bob Blackman and not Mike White, although the design was from the Mike White era.

During Blackman’s tenure at Dartmouth (1955-1970), the Big Green adopted their signature dual arching stripes in 1965. Below is a photo from the 1970 season where the block D was added to the forehead.

Blackman then took that design concept to Champaign when he became the head coach at Illinois (1971-1976) where the name ILLINI followed below the arched stripe.

After Blackman left Illinois, Gary Moeller’s Illini ditched the arching stripes for center stripes in 1977, but kept the arched ILLINI.

(Side note, love that dungard!).

When Mike White took over the Illini football program in 1980 following Moeller’s dismissal, Illinois kept the center striping and arched ILLINI but went from blue facemasks to grey (still lovin’ that dungard!). This was the helmet design Illinois wore against CMU.

When Blackman returned to the Ivy league in 1977 to head up the Cornell program, he brought his design to the Big Red, who wore it until he retired in 1982. He was inducted into the CFHOF as a coach in 1987.

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Thanks, Wuj! I never realized that the same man was responsible for three of my all-time favorite helmets. I made a bunch of paper footballs with helmets on them to commemorate certain bowl games, and I made some for several regular season matchups as well. One of them features Cornell on one side and Dartmouth on the other.

Another features Blackman’s Illini helmet vs. Purdue.

And not only do I like those Cornell helmets, the whole uniform is in my Top Five for Best College Uni Ever.

Now those are some properly sized numbers! Bob Blackman should be inducted into the College Hall of Fame twice…this time as a uniform designer.

 

 

Look What I Found While Cleaning

Still trying to make room for the stuff I got from Dad’s house, while rearranging my other stuff at the same time. As I was moving a box of old cards, I came across this drawing of mine from grade school.

Even then, I had a thing for shoulder yokes on a jersey. Not sure why I chose the number 42…maybe because the runner is on the 42-yard line? And usually I wasn’t this detailed when I drew. Yet I have two guys practicing field goals, one at a tackling dummy, and a coach with a clipboard. Wonder if I could do any better now?

 

 

That’s About All For Today

Plenty of sports on tap today, including lots of college football. Louisville is debuting a new look with gold features on a red uni, supposedly as a tribute to Muhammad Ali.

I guess because he won a gold medal? Otherwise, it seems a bit of a stretch to me. Anyway, we’ll have all sorts of CFB uni news tomorrow in the next installment of Sunday Morning Uni Watch. Until then, take care, everyone.