Or how I learned to stop sending off jerseys and stitch them myself.

There aren’t a ton of Jewish people out there, so it’s always neat to find out who is Jewish like myself. Over the years, I’ve often thought how many Jewish players are out there? How many made it to the NHL? Are there any prominent players who are Jewish?

It turns out that there are in fact, quite a few Jewish players, especially in the current NHL! Everyone has a theme of some sort to their collection, and maybe a non-team based collection would be cool to assemble especially something so personal.

The List

Zach Hyman
Luke Kunin
Nate Thompson
Jason Zucker

Jakob Chychrun
Adam Fox
Jack Hughes
Quinn Hughes

Zach Hyman

Zach Hyman was the inspiration for this. I knew he was Jewish while he was still in Toronto, and I had planned on grabbing a Reverse Retro as he was having a great season. However with the prospect of him entering Free Agency, I delayed - and it turns out for the best! Hyman signed with Edmonton over the summer. While I’m not an Edmonton fan, their customizer and a local shop have a history of doing up players jerseys in their desired language - notably Ethan Bear’s Cree jersey and Kailer Yamamoto’s Kanji jersey. They premiered a Hebrew version of Hyman’s jersey and I figured that was a great start. I picked up a blank jersey, sent it to my friend Neilster Jerseys in Edmonton and he was able to coordinate with Elite Sportswear to have it customized. One down!

Jason Zucker

Zucker was another one that I knew was Jewish, and actually owned a Wild jersey of his at one point. However, in the cycle of things it left my possession. Looking through my list, I knew I didn’t want two jerseys of the same team, and I had another jersey already committed to the Wild. I knew what I had to do.

I had to buy a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey.

Originally, I found a retail jersey done up as Zucker, but then an opportunity presented itself to get a real Made In Canada one that I couldn’t refuse. I couldn’t justify having anyone other than the original team customizer doing it, as they do a lot of very weird and persnickety things when they customize it. Way too much money later, and Jason Zucker was crossed off the list.

Intermission: This is going to get expensive.

After these two, and spending over $100/each for customization, I knew that the rest would be just as expensive, or they would take a very long time through someone like Exclusive Pro Sports. I didn’t want to wait, and I didn’t want to pay out the nose for customization. So, what is a person to do?

I had to learn to stitch. I had been thinking about doing this for a while, and I finally sat down and watched PensJerseys’ Tutorial Playlist on YouTube. After practicing on a ton of scrap twill, I mustered up the courage and bought a whole bunch of kits to stitch and learn with.

I assembled the kits, stitched them together, and even bought a nice Cricut heat press. I’ll probably make a different blog about all the trials and tribulations of learning how to sew.

Once I was comfortable, the first jersey I ever fully assembled was…

Adam Fox

I’m not sure why I chose Adam Fox first. Maybe it was the order in which they were stacked. Maybe it was that the kit is generally straight lines. Maybe I wanted to do it first to show off to my best friend, as he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Rangers fan…who grew up in New Hampshire.

Regardless - I laid out the numbers and got to work. I went slow and steady. And while it isn’t perfect, I learned a very useful new skill! I learned a lot of things - like put the rear numbers on last - while doing this one. I’m still happy with how it came out though.

Jack Hughes

Next was a jersey that my friend Chozo sold me, a gorgeous Devils Heritage jersey. Nice, easy block font on a gorgeous jersey that was criminally underworn. For shame. This one went better for sure, and I was starting to get a smidge more comfortable. Turns out, straight nameplates are significantly easier to stitch!

Luke Kunin

I spent some time thinking on this one. Did I want to pick up a Predators or Wild jersey for Luke Kunin? In the end, I decided to go Wild - I just can’t stand either of Nashville’s normal jerseys, and I didn’t want to mess with felt for their Winter Classic. After talking to State of Hockey Jerseys, he told me anecdotally that Kunin was a fantastic dude. That totally sealed the deal for me. I found a Wild away jersey from the first year run of Adidas, and went to town.

Jakob Chychrun

I was starting to get more comfortable with my sewing machine, and decided that I should next attempt to customize a Coyotes jersey. The Coyotes don’t use nameplates; their names are directly stitched to the jersey. I knew this was going to be a challenge in addition to how many curves are on their kit. I probably stitched and restitched the 6 on the back four times before I was happy with it. I’m still not 100% pleased but I’m happy enough with it.

Quinn Hughes, Part 1

Originally, I was going to just pick up one jersey for this. I picked up a 2020 All Star jersey from u/jzp28 on reddit. Originally, that was it. Then Fanatics put their weird Devils “retail” Made in Canada jersey up on clearance, so I grabbed one of those.

I switched the crests out, and got to work. This kit was brutal to work on! Super tight stitch width combined with metallic thread was a very bad time. The shoulder numbers weren’t easy either, but it got done in the end! I just have to source a fight strap for it now.

Quinn Hughes, Part 2

While I was assembling all of this, Phelpsjerseys decided that he wanted to part ways with a TI Canucks jersey. Well, I guess I’ll just have two Quinn Hughes jerseys then. I stripped the kit, got Roussel off the nameplate, cut it down, and put it all back together. I didn’t clean up the old kit outlines too much so I could see exactly where it would be positioned normally and cheat a little bit.

This was originally supposed to be the final jersey of the project, until…

Nate Thompson

The final jersey in my progression was one that I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to do. Thompson is one of those guys that bounces around a lot, so it’s hard to definitively pick which team and which jersey to use. I have a ton of Flyers jerseys already so I didn’t want that. Habs jerseys don’t go for cheap. Kings are a huge pain to customize, as their names are multi-layer direct stitch, and basically all curves. Not fun.

A Jets RR jersey popped up on one of the Facebook marketplace posts. I have another kit order coming up, so you’ll just have to go along with my creative rendition for now.

Conclusion

And that’s it! One jersey for every Jewish NHL player, until Luke Hughes makes it to the show, and then I’ll get one for him too. I learned so much through this process, and between PensJerseys’ video guides and the Stahl’s Stitching Guide, and a generous amount of mentoring from El Grande I feel like I have a great base going forward.

Thank again to everyone else who helped with this project. It was not only rewarding, but exciting to see all of my hard work come together. I also now have a much greater appreciation for all the people customizing their own stuff on top of it all.

More to come, stay tuned for my blog about learning how to stitch, and all the trials and tribulations involved. Same bat time, same bat channel.

The Jewish Project