Hockey Jersey #'s

A buddy just wrote an article about hockey jersey #'s. I never thought about the history of jersey #'s so loved reading about how #'s were put in place to sell programs. Also loved the story about the "cheap" Maple Leaf owner who didn't want to lose program revenue when name bars were made mandatory so he used name bars you couldn't read.

Very insightful article. Like you, I never gave much thought to it apart from randomly knowing the reason a few players chose their number. I never even heard about Gretzky wanting to be '9' or Lemieux's agent convincing him to wear 66 because of Gretz. That's really interesting. I have always loved watching that Borque moment with Esposito which has to be the coolest in sports.

I, personally, try to always wear 9 (on defense). I was born with all 8's in my birthday (date, time, weight, etc) so people assume 8 is my lucky number, but I wanted to be different as a kid so went with 9 in any sport I played growing up. I'll choose 8 if 9 isn't available and have two other double digit backup numbers for a fail-safe.