The same day, an editorial hit the news stands: This is a milestone week for the Blues. We come here for hockey. This process could have involved heavy input from the team, or it could have been as simple as telling a designer or design group to just come up with something. . The stories and the nuances that go into how something went from a design in someone’s head to actually going onto the ice fascinates me, and I do have a soft spot for jerseys that never reached that point. Reflecting back on the dizzying experience, Woodcock told me that, “Above all, the Blue Note was restored and it’s the same one the team wears and uses today; and if nothing else, I’m very proud of that.”, History of Hockey Podcast (Episode #23 – 1999 Expansion), History of Hockey Podcast (Episode #24 – 1998 Expansion). “KEENAN PLAYS CAPTAIN HOOK WITH HULL’S `C’ – COACH: `IT’S NOT PERSONAL’ – PLAYER: `THE HECK IT’S NOT’.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 24 Oct. 1995, Sports: 1C. . The jersey also features the retro trumpet logo on each shoulder. It was announced in late October that St. Louis would be rolling out an alternate jersey with a stylized version of the trumpet patch on the shoulders. (The Kings now sport a fourth jersey as well.) There’s no compelling need to make a huge splash or make a move just for the sake of doing one; 1994-95 showed that the Blues weren’t a bad team, and with a bit of luck and maybe a move or two, they were absolutely contenders. One could probably conjure up a dozen adjectives to describe Mike Keenan, who was the toast of New York in June 1994 after leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in 54 years. Anecdotally speaking, I remember hearing it as far back as 2004, but anything before that gets hazy. The Rangers will unveil their new jerseys Monday at home against the New York Islanders, Chicago on Jan. 24 while hosting Toronto, and Tampa Bay at home Feb. 8 against Boston. ), In Keenan’s case, his claim was that a bonus check due to him from the Rangers had not been provided within the specified 30 days from the end of the team’s season. But it was four trades that were made which sent massive shockwaves throughout the league and completely reshaped the franchise. Can the Golden Knights’ first-year success be explained by simple math? “Mike Keenan is a great hockey coach. New Office Artwork. A contradictory account would be pretty easy to find, and the fact that it hasn’t been done seems to bear out this story. Blues marketing executive Jim Woodcock has been looking forward to this day with such excitement that team president Mark Sauer joked, “It’s like Woodcock’s having a baby.”. “He’s blaming everyone else again,” Hull said as he walked away from reporters. There are too few conscious life forms in the the house for a true polling sample. Me: What would the name and number styles have looked like if the jerseys were produced? The Blues already had the red equity in their mark. His first move, dictated even before he came over from Fleishman-Hillard, was to douse the pregame laser show. “It had nothing to do with the new uniform,” said Brett Hull, who tied his career high with four assists. I’ve seen ones that closely resemble what goes on the ice, with Sharpie arrows and writing on them that indicates things like “this stripe is too thick” or “crest is too small” or “reverse these colors”. Berry would be sent down the bench as associate coach, Caron would be shuffled off into an undetermined role with the team, and the war between the Blues, the Rangers, and the NHL was just beginning. (1994), On July 24, forward Brian Noonan was signed as a free agent from the Rangers, On July 26, defenseman Bill Houlder left as a free agent, On August 8, forward Todd Elik left as a free agent, On September 8, Dale Hawerchuk was signed as a free agent from the Sabres. Stanley Cups won: 1 2019 Stanley Cup Final appearances: 4. If the guys feel pride in the sweater and feel great about the way they look in it, it rubs off on everyone else, and they sense the same pride. Lidster for Wells was something of a lateral move. Players can and do react differently to pressure, to mind games and manipulation, to criticism from the public, to adversity and to success. I didn’t mind the ones that the Blues had been wearing, but as someone who’s never been a Blues fan, I can certainly understand the consternation. But it’s not like we brought in four or five kids off the minor-league club.”. First season: 1967-68 Home arena: Enterprise Center. My wife is a remarkable woman in her own right, but even more so when you consider that she chose to be married to and live with someone who may stand up randomly on a Tuesday night and say, “I’m going to go research some arcane topic that no one cares about and analyze it into 25 single-spaced pages, then post it online.” We’re a pretty low-key couple, mostly because from the very beginning of our relationship we recognized that, although there are in fact struggles that go with the territory, it serves no positive purpose to create one simply for the sake of doing it. It is clear now that Keenan, who could not work with Rangers general manager Neil Smith for four more years, did ask for permission to shop his services around the league. Woodcock immediately leapt into action. Besides, it’s a fun story; what difference does it make? And there are plenty of other times where I question whether Keenan realized that the vast majority of his problems were self-inflicted. “If there is anything the Blues can do for you, please do not hesitate to call . When Edmonton declined to match it, St. Louis sent two 1st-round picks as compensation. “The old ones were terrible.”. That St. Louis was supposed to have one in 1996-97 (but did not actually use them) would not preclude them from wearing a different one in 1997-98. St. Louis will incorporate their trumpet shoulder patch as their main logo in their alternate jersey. In his postgame remarks, Keenan took exception to a reporter referring to the sub-.500 Blues’ as “his team.” Hull took exception to Keenan’s response. There is no evidence that anything close to this ever happened, and plenty of evidence that directly contradicts any Keenan involvement. But the determining factors in how this affects the coach or GM comes down to two very simple things: success and attitude. He kept his season tickets at Kiel, but he bristled at Mike Keenan’s trades and anti-fan approach. . Mike Keenan clearly believed the opposite when it came to constructing a roster. And to trade (in a roundabout way) Joseph for Corson, one of the best goalies in the NHL for one of the league’s most frustrating players, was even worse. save. “I’ve worked my tail off,” he said. Luecking, Dave. . Louis is going to have to do something about this,” Perron told the Winnipeg Sun. Of course, I should point out that Courtnall was signed on July 14 and Noonan on July 24, while Shanahan wasn’t traded until July 27. One of the major involved parties – whether Starter or the design firm – passed along the design to the NHL, who put it into a release with the assumption that it would simply be approved by St. Louis and begin production. This has all covered a timeline of barely 15 months, and somehow has not reached the main point: what happened to the trumpet alternates? Pittsburgh’s was popular, but the other four were widely panned. “I’ve had time to reflect on it, and the positive thing is, I had the ‘C’ taken away because I stood up for my teammates,” Hull said. $5.00 shipping. A trade for Gretzky would in fact take place at the end of February; the Blues were two games over .500 at the time. Price: $14.95 & FREE Shipping: Officially Licensed National Emblem Hockey Patch by NHL Perfect for framing, semi-rigid backing, sew on for a clean professional look . The New Jersey Devils perfected monotonous, anonymous teamwork to win the 1995 Stanley Cup. Posted by 5 days ago. 5.0 out of 5 stars 2. He’d been involved in several incidents both on and off the ice, and in the just-completed 1994-95 season he’d been stripped of the Oilers’ captaincy after an incident involving a teammate that allegedly began with a Corson eruption over him not being awarded a secondary assist in a game that the Oilers lost by five goals. This would also be done in conjunction with Starter, who would be the manufacturer handling the Blues’ jerseys beginning in the 1996-97 season. Rappoport, Ken. Detroit applied relentless pressure in the third, but Game 7 would be scoreless going to overtime. In a news conference today, Madison Square Garden general counsel Kenneth Munoz admitted the Rangers violated Keenan’s contract by issuing his bonus check one day later, “but we don’t believe that constitutes a material breach of the contract.”, “Normal business procedure would be to get your employer to comply with the contract,” Munoz said. to bring back the fans with more affordable tickets that will range between $15 and $75; 2.) But it involves a something-for-something arrangement between different parties. CC: No spec sheet was ever made, so it never got that far. Hull disagreed. The phrase “a net of” in the NHL’s release is a key factor in the ruling. The most up-to-date breaking news for the St. Louis Blues including highlights, roster, schedule, scores and archives. A month later, Keenan was in the fold, Caron and Berry were pushed aside, and a tumultuous era was about to begin. The downfall of the major players involved in marketing and promoting the Blues was swift: Keenan and Quinn in December 1996, Maurer in January 1997. Will fans cuddle up to it? There was a case around this same time period where a team (Detroit, in fact) wore a patch that had not been officially approved for wear by the league; these all had to be removed from the on-ice jerseys. The league claims that the Blues third jersey was never officially set, but NHL lore steadfastly insists that only coach Mike Keenan's refusal to take the ice kept them from seeing the light of day. Most rewarding was the response of the players, who loved it and asked the difficult question as to why they couldn’t just wear them all the time. There are too many moving pieces, too many people who need to get involved in the process before a final decision is made. When the chance arrived, a clean break had to be made to purge all remnants of this era. November 19 2018: St Louis Blues Shutout for the 3rd time in 4 games in a 2-0 Loss vs the LA Kings. 95. At the time, the Blues’ home and road jerseys were regarded as distinctive but drab, and at a time that new teams unconstrained by tradition were capturing huge marketing and sales dollars, it was a perfect time to do something bold. In fact, if I remember correctly, that’s what this entire monster of an essay began with. If he would think before he spoke and install the necessary filter, if he would recognize that the media was asking a question to get an answer and not to make veiled personal attacks, if he would realize that the fans might be more than a bit confused when a player is praised one day and traded the next or when a trade is made with financial concerns cited and the next day a high-dollar free agent is brought in, if he would drop the “no one is smart enough to question me or anything that I do” routine, he might be a bit more fondly remembered. Shop for St. Louis Blues Mens sweatshirts and hoodies at the St. Louis Blues JCP Shop. Presumably to either the bowels of the arena or to a dumpster. FREE Shipping. A Blues home game used to be fun. There’s no way that Keenan shelving the alternates wouldn’t be a major story, especially in such a bizarre manner as a locker room blowup. In the first round against Toronto, disaster struck. “In The Floe: Front Office Swamped After Ice Melts Under Blues.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 6 May 1997, Sports: 3C. So, Sauer, with the backing of Blues Chairman Jerry Ritter and the input of marketing director and longtime Blues fan Jim Woodcock, decided to make some changes. The Rangers could take this to court, but the NHL will be better off if the commissioner handles it. What is that? $14.95 $ 14. “BLUES FANS! I wanted a better team.”. But the Blues already have received National Hockey League approval for it to become their official home jersey next season. . The Blues send center Petr Nedved, 22, to New York for veteran forward Esa Tikkanen, 29, and veteran defenseman Doug Lidster, 33, in a trade Rangers President Bob Gutkowski said couldn’t have been made under any other circumstances. Now it’s dreary, even before a three-game winning streak veered into a four-game winless skid. . But over time, things changed and they started fighting more and more frequently whereas they hadn’t really so much as argued at all previously. “Please select a game you would like to attend from those listed on the enclosed reply card and drop it in the mail. That was a fun era,” Blues player Alexander Steen said. (1990), Signed Blackhawks forward Michel Goulet to an offer sheet, which was matched by Chicago. . He followed protocol and waited to be asked in. “NHL NOTES – FIVE MORE TEAMS TO WEAR THIRD JERSEYS.” Daily News of Los Angeles (CA) 27 Oct. 1996, Sports: SB15. First, on these pages in its Thanksgiving Day unveiling. The turnaround in such a short period of time was noted. After trading Brendan Shanahan and Curtis Joseph, Mike Keenan seems as bewildered by fan reaction as fans are at losing two pet players. Woodcock – a lifelong Blues fan who cherished the old Arena – plans to do something about Kiel’s antiseptic environment. For anything made of cotton, nylon, rayon, or polyester, I can and will refer to it as a “jersey”. . Signed Capitals defenseman Scott Stevens to an offer sheet; when the Capitals declined to match, the Blues’ 1st-round picks in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995 all transferred to Washington. If you are looking for less expensive gear, All-Star t-shirts are available. That brand of fan appreciation is exactly what turned Kiel into a mausoleum. Now he’s got to act. This in itself was a huge controversy; Mathieu was loved by the team and was also the first woman to reach such a level with any major league sports team, while Maurer came in and reportedly made more than double the salary Mathieu had while putting out a worse product. Sure, there was a feud between Keenan and star winger Brendan Shanahan, and Shanahan had suffered a broken ankle during that playoff loss against Vancouver that may well have been the deciding factor (Shanahan had 9 points in four-plus playoff games). Part One: 1991, 1992, and 1993. It could be to provide a service, to purchase or provide a physical good, or any of a number of different things. I reached out to figure out whether there was a set of Blues vertical trumpet alternates that are out there, lettered up and buried somewhere. Horizontal stripes have replaced the funky angle at the bottom of the jersey. In sports, the team is the one that draws it up, so the provisions are pretty ironclad. Even into the summer between 1996-97 and 1997-98, the work wasn’t done. Coming off a shortened season, the NHL hyped up their "Fashionable Authentic" line of sweaters and put them on sale before the 1995-96 season, even though the five teams in the pilot program would not actually don them on ice until the first game after the All-Star break. Yes, this represented a breach since a contractually-bound player was clearly violating the terms. Sometime in early 1996, St. Louis had an alternate jersey design commissioned for it. November 19 2018: St Louis Blues Shutout for the 3rd time in 4 games in a 2-0 Loss vs the LA Kings. The gross fine for doing what the Blues did is $500,000, half payable to the league and half to the injured team. In the preceding three seasons, Duchesne had scored 44 goals and 151 points in 165 games. The timeline: Reflecting back 20 years later, Woodcock told me that, “The jersey we debuted on January 31, 1998 wasn’t perfect and there were slight tweaks made as the season went on. On January 27, 1996, the Ducks, Bruins, Kings, Penguins and Canucks took the ice in their modern new digs. About a month later, Sauer fired Maurer, who came to the Blues from Coca-Cola with no hockey experience. If a player leaves his team in the middle of a season in order to play video games, or if a team decides to withhold payment of a player’s salary despite him having not violated the terms of his contract, then these would be examples of a breach. Wheatley, Tom. The trumpet logos “reinforce the equity of the music note,” said Thomas Duane, co-owner of the firm and O’Hara’s partner. However, I’m not so sure. They lost more than a captain. This was written after the end of the 1996-97 season, the one that (supposedly) had Keenan’s alternate jersey meltdown. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Quinn – although I would very much like to – so the following is speculative. Neither Pronger nor Corson were close to Joseph and Shanahan in trade value, and neither were close to Joseph and Shanahan in actual on-ice production. Rick Wamsley and Greg Millen split goaltending duties, even throughout the playoffs. The mustard yellow Dallas Stars alternate, the Minnesota North Stars with italicized green names, and my own Blue Jackets prototype with the chevrons on the sleeves…it’s all fun and interesting. Luecking, Dave. “Over the course of the year, there must have been easily 75 different combinations,” Blues president Jack Quinn said. Item Description . The Red Wings were fined $25,000 for negotiating with Keenan the day before he signed with the Blues, again for not clarifying Keenan’s status. The Blues’ throwback uniform, originally worn from 1995-1998, features five diagonal gold stripes across the body and sleeves of the royal blue jersey. They could outscore you with Bernie Federko and Joe Mullen, they could shut you down with Rick Meagher and Dave Barr, and they could beat you up with Mark Hunter, Rob Ramage, and Lee Norwood. “The old ones” that were referred to were the diagonally-striped blue-and-red jerseys, which are referred to as the brainchild of Jack Quinn. These all require official approval from all involved parties: the team, the designer, the manufacturer, and the league. And then, in truly stunning fashion, it happened: He came. The 1990-91 team represented what the Blues would come to be known for: a supremely skilled team that came up short. Asked if he wanted to see Hull in the Blues’ new uniform next season, Qu enneville emphatically said, “Sure,” walking away with a wide smile on his face.