1996-97 Bauer Cleveland Road Team Issued
#9 Serge Aubin with All Sport Sponsor Patch
Manufacturer: Bauer
Size: 54
Purchased From: eBay
Lettered by: The Cleveland Lumberjacks
The Story: I had been searching for a "new logo" Cleveland Lumberjacks jersey for quite some time. Back in the mid-1990's, I wasas able to see a couple Lumberjacks games on TV and recognized some of the players as the Jacks were the Penguins farm team for five years, ending with the 1996-97 season. After originally bringing their colors and logo from their days in Muskegon, the Jacks re-branded themselves beginning in the 1995-96 season. Their colors changed from their parent club's traditional black and gold to blue, gold, and black, and their primary logo now featured "Buzz," a sinister-looking beaver surrounded by a saw blade. The rebranding was in-line, from a timing perspective, to what many pro sports teams were doing in an effort to garner attention and generate merchandise sales, and the cartoonish logo was relatively common in the era as well. These efforts to gain public interest were futile, however, as financial difficulties across the International Hockey League left NHL teams abandoning their affiliations with IHL franchises, with the Penguins replacing the Jacks with the Syracuse Crunch for two years before he Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins were born in 1999. As this style of jersey was only worn for two years, and considering the frequent recycling of jerseys in minor league hockey, these jerseys have become increasingly difficult to find, and nearly impossible to locate in decent condition.
I bought this one on eBay as a 1995-96 game worn jersey, with the minimal wear being attributed to Serge Aubin's only playing two games for the Jacks that season. I had to move quickly on it and didn't have the chance to do my usual amount of research, and what I received continues to puzzle me to this day. The Lumberjacks' 1995-96 road sweaters featured light gray shoulder yokes, which were changed to black for the 96-97 campaign. In addition, at some point in the 96-97 season, the Jacks wore a small commemorative patch on the left shoulder that reads "ADA" (visible on the game photo in the upper-right of this page). After considerable research, I can't find a clue to what this patch represented. There's really no noticeable wear on this jersey, but player-specific customizations are clearly evident. The sleeves have been shortened considerably, and the fight strap was cut out - a common practice for some in minor league hockey before the turn of the millennium. Video research that I've done does show that Serge Aubin tended to wear some shorter-than-normal jersey sleeves during his career. As I can't honestly say with any confidence that this jersey saw game action, I'm going to call this a game-issued jersey. The lettering to exact team specifications, the customization of the sleeves and the fight strap, and the sponsor patch promoting All Sport Body Quencher all point to a jersey made for game use. But the lack of game wear and the "ADA" patch tell me this jersey likely never saw the ice, even though Aubin played in 57 games for the Lumberjacks that year. Maybe this jersey was customized for Aubin, and he balked at how much they took off the sleeves? Maybe this was a backup jersey, as Aubin was known to drop the gloves, though not frequently? If you know something about this jersey that I don't, please drop me a note. I'd love to learn more about its history!
So who is Serge Aubin, anyway? A native of Val-d'Or, QC, Serge was a seventh-round draft choice of the Penguins in 1994. He toiled in the Penguins farm system with both Cleveland and Syracuse for a few years until being moving onto the Hershey Bears late in the 1997-98 season. Those few games in 97-98 and early-98-99 earned him a free agent contract with the Colorado Avalanche, where he remained for a couple of years before catching on full-time in the NHL with Columbus in 2000-01. He played for two years with the Blue Jackets before heading back to Colorado, then being claimed by the Atlanta Thrashers in the 2003 Waiver Draft. He stayed there for two years, wrapping up his NHL career after 374 games, before taking his game over to Europe, where he played through the 2012-13 season with the Hamburg Freezers of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (translation: German Hockey League). Upon his retirement from playing, he began the most successful portion of his hockey career, going behind the bench as an assistant coach for the Freezers. He was promoted to head coach the following season and also coached both the Canadian and German National Teams at various times. When the Freezers franchise folded in 2016, he moved on to coach team in Austria and Switzerland before returning to the DEL as the head coach of the Eisbaren Berlin (translation: Berlin Polar Bears), where they won the DEL Championship and Aubin was named Coach of the Year in 2021-22.
All in all, I'm happy to have added this one to the collection. I'm sure it'll raise a lot of eyebrows when I wear it to a Pens game some day!
PHOTOS COMING SOON
Size: 54
Purchased From: eBay
Lettered by: The Cleveland Lumberjacks
The Story: I had been searching for a "new logo" Cleveland Lumberjacks jersey for quite some time. Back in the mid-1990's, I wasas able to see a couple Lumberjacks games on TV and recognized some of the players as the Jacks were the Penguins farm team for five years, ending with the 1996-97 season. After originally bringing their colors and logo from their days in Muskegon, the Jacks re-branded themselves beginning in the 1995-96 season. Their colors changed from their parent club's traditional black and gold to blue, gold, and black, and their primary logo now featured "Buzz," a sinister-looking beaver surrounded by a saw blade. The rebranding was in-line, from a timing perspective, to what many pro sports teams were doing in an effort to garner attention and generate merchandise sales, and the cartoonish logo was relatively common in the era as well. These efforts to gain public interest were futile, however, as financial difficulties across the International Hockey League left NHL teams abandoning their affiliations with IHL franchises, with the Penguins replacing the Jacks with the Syracuse Crunch for two years before he Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins were born in 1999. As this style of jersey was only worn for two years, and considering the frequent recycling of jerseys in minor league hockey, these jerseys have become increasingly difficult to find, and nearly impossible to locate in decent condition.
I bought this one on eBay as a 1995-96 game worn jersey, with the minimal wear being attributed to Serge Aubin's only playing two games for the Jacks that season. I had to move quickly on it and didn't have the chance to do my usual amount of research, and what I received continues to puzzle me to this day. The Lumberjacks' 1995-96 road sweaters featured light gray shoulder yokes, which were changed to black for the 96-97 campaign. In addition, at some point in the 96-97 season, the Jacks wore a small commemorative patch on the left shoulder that reads "ADA" (visible on the game photo in the upper-right of this page). After considerable research, I can't find a clue to what this patch represented. There's really no noticeable wear on this jersey, but player-specific customizations are clearly evident. The sleeves have been shortened considerably, and the fight strap was cut out - a common practice for some in minor league hockey before the turn of the millennium. Video research that I've done does show that Serge Aubin tended to wear some shorter-than-normal jersey sleeves during his career. As I can't honestly say with any confidence that this jersey saw game action, I'm going to call this a game-issued jersey. The lettering to exact team specifications, the customization of the sleeves and the fight strap, and the sponsor patch promoting All Sport Body Quencher all point to a jersey made for game use. But the lack of game wear and the "ADA" patch tell me this jersey likely never saw the ice, even though Aubin played in 57 games for the Lumberjacks that year. Maybe this jersey was customized for Aubin, and he balked at how much they took off the sleeves? Maybe this was a backup jersey, as Aubin was known to drop the gloves, though not frequently? If you know something about this jersey that I don't, please drop me a note. I'd love to learn more about its history!
So who is Serge Aubin, anyway? A native of Val-d'Or, QC, Serge was a seventh-round draft choice of the Penguins in 1994. He toiled in the Penguins farm system with both Cleveland and Syracuse for a few years until being moving onto the Hershey Bears late in the 1997-98 season. Those few games in 97-98 and early-98-99 earned him a free agent contract with the Colorado Avalanche, where he remained for a couple of years before catching on full-time in the NHL with Columbus in 2000-01. He played for two years with the Blue Jackets before heading back to Colorado, then being claimed by the Atlanta Thrashers in the 2003 Waiver Draft. He stayed there for two years, wrapping up his NHL career after 374 games, before taking his game over to Europe, where he played through the 2012-13 season with the Hamburg Freezers of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (translation: German Hockey League). Upon his retirement from playing, he began the most successful portion of his hockey career, going behind the bench as an assistant coach for the Freezers. He was promoted to head coach the following season and also coached both the Canadian and German National Teams at various times. When the Freezers franchise folded in 2016, he moved on to coach team in Austria and Switzerland before returning to the DEL as the head coach of the Eisbaren Berlin (translation: Berlin Polar Bears), where they won the DEL Championship and Aubin was named Coach of the Year in 2021-22.
All in all, I'm happy to have added this one to the collection. I'm sure it'll raise a lot of eyebrows when I wear it to a Pens game some day!
PHOTOS COMING SOON