This season, hockey fans are snapping up team jerseys with a whole new look: “The uglier, the better” pretty much sums it up.
Emblazoned with candy canes, snowflakes and dancing reindeer, the sweaters are reminiscent of what grandmas knitted in the 1970s and lovingly wrapped to go under the tree. Except today’s acrylic atrocities are machine-made, and start at $64.95 (U.S.) apiece.
The hideous sweaters are selling like hotcakes in time for the holidays, Sportsnet reports.
They’re also proving to be a lifeline for Vancouver merchants. While sales of Vancouver Canucks jerseys are down 70 per cent, a blue-and-green horror that combines fir trees, orcas, snowflakes and argyle patterns on the front is due to sell out within weeks, CTV News reports.
The ugly sweater trend is primarily the work of one company, Forever Collectibles, and it’s suddenly invading the sports world like a streaker on the field.
Both the NFL and NHL have signed up for tacky yarn treatment. Not to be outdone, the NBA has released team sweaters that look like the works of a designer who dropped acid and then hit a video-game arcade. In bizarre juxtaposition, the Los Angeles Clippers edition has snowflakes floating over palm trees, with team player Chris Paul’s name and No. 3 sewn right in.
Promos for the sweaters, like this Seattle Seahawks nightmare, describe it like it is: “Arrive to all your holiday gatherings in style when you rock this ugly sweater.” Proud owners of these eyesores are clearly in on the joke.
It’s all in good fun, but the race to the sartorial bottom leaves some of us pining for the days when sweaters weren’t ironic, or a disposable fad. Team jerseys used to mean the world to young fans like the children in Roch Carrier’s classic short story, The Hockey Sweater.
They wore their prized woollens until they were threadbare.