1991-92 Detroit Red Wings Steve Yzerman jersey

Since today, May 9th, is Steve Yzerman's birthday, it only seems appropriate to kick things off with a tribute to Stevie Y.

This is a 1991-92 Detroit Red Wings Steve Yzerman jersey, authentic size 48. The classic Red Wings sweater, essentially unchanged since the dawn of time, or more accurately 1932, when we believe the color red was invented, consistently rates very highly in "favorite jersey" polls and is a true icon of hockey sweaters.

Yzerman had 45 goals and 58 assists that year for 103 points. He would go onto win the Stanley Cup 3 times, a Canada Cup in 1984 and an Olympic Gold Medal in 2002, play in 10 All-Star Games, win the Pearson, Selke, Masterton and Patrick trophies and was the youngest and longest serving captain in Red Wings history.

In addition, his number 19 was not only retired by the Red Wings, but the Canadian National Team as well.

It's nice to start off the blog with an authentic jersey, complete with the fightstrap. This jersey also features the NHL 75th Anniversary patch, worn by all the teams during the 1991-92 season, our favorite year for hockey jerseys for several reasons.

The patch itself is our favorite style of all the numerous patches. We think it's a very dynamic design with its "speed stripes". In 1991-92, NHL jerseys overall were still very classic designs. The Sabres hadn't changed to the "Goat Head" logo yet, the Whalers were still in Hartford, the Devils still wore their original red and green, the Islanders had yet to introduce the "Fishsticks" logo, the Penguins had not changed to the "Robo Penguin" logo yet, the Nordiques were still in Quebec, the Jets were still in Winnipeg and the age of the bizarro Third Jersey had not yet begun.

That was also the year that the Original Six teams, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, New York Rangers and Toronto; all wore their highly attractive throwback jerseys. In addition, the NHL All-Star Game in Philadelphia also featured throwback jerseys based on the ones used in the first recurring annual NHL All-Star Game in 1947.

The only thing that could have made the 1991-92 set of jerseys better would have been the North Stars still wearing their traditional green jerseys at home rather than the new black set introduced in 1991-92.

As this blog grows, you will no doubt become familiar with the set of NHL jerseys used in 1991-92, as we consider it a focus of the NHL portion of our jersey collection.

To read more about Yzerman, please visit his profile at GreatestHockeyLegends.com

Dasherboard: Did you happen to read Michael Farber's "Fab Foes" NHL column in the April 27th issue of Sports Illustrated? He proposes the return of the first two rounds of the NHL playoffs being within your own division, quoting Cam Neely as saying "Divisional playoffs build rivalries". We could not agree more. There's nothing like having the chance to end another team's season to turn up the intensity. Keeping the first two rounds of playoffs within your division ensures that in short order, a team will match up against a given club multiple times, and the better the clubs are, the more often they will meet, creating a great and intense playoff history. Much more so than multiple regular season matchups and scattered conference pairings as is the case now.