2010 Minnesota Hockey Collectors Expo Report

Last week we attended the 2010 Minnesota Hockey Collectors Expo and saw some amazing jerseys and had some great conversations with fellow hockey jersey fans. Aside from the collector's who came to share their collections, former Minnesota North Stars Brad Maxwell, Tom Younghans and Gordie Roberts were in attendance this year, as was Minnesota Wild team historian Roger Godin.

Here are some photos from this year's event, which was the 9th annual one at Tom Reid's Hockey City Pub.

Above is the impressive Ben Clymer collection on the left and Kyle Oen's Minnesota themed collection on the right. Collecting one player, such as Clymer can be a challenge when they make multiple stops in the NHL and AHL, but that challenge increases exponentially when a player extends his career by playing in Europe, so this collection was all the more impressive with the addition of game worn jerseys from the German DEL.

Kyle brought a sampling of his game worn Minnesota high school jersey collection that rivals the one on display at the Xcel Energy Center, as well as other Minnesota based teams.

John Lindberg's take on a Minnesota theme. Where Kyle collects teams from Minnesota, John is more about former Gophers NHL jerseys as well as Minnesota Wild prospects jerseys before they reach the NHL.

Can't make it to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto? Then having the opportunity to see Jon Bakke's collection of vintage jerseys with an international flavor can save you the trip. That's not just an old Sweden jersey either, it's Borje Salming's jersey! John can be easily spotted at Minnesota Wild games wearing his rotating collection of gamers, as he doesn't just hang them in a closet, he wears his regularly to Wild games.

Here are two more collections, which come at the hobby from different directions. Chris Groth (hanging on the left) just collects what catches his eye, although with a Minnesota influence, such as Mikko Koivu's game worn retro Finland jersey worn for one game of the 2008 World Championship, but his Alexander Ovechkin game worn jersey was certainly an Expo highlight.

The collection folded on the the table on the right was a very interesting collection of vintage NHL jerseys, mainly the 1980's and 1990's, from our favorite period of NHL jerseys and were terrific to look at and talk about.

Here was our contribution to the proceedings, closer to the camera were our jerseys worn in the movie "Miracle" and our game worn international jerseys from places such as East Germany, Holland, Iceland, Japan, Poland and even Spain as well as the more traditional countries like Canada, the Czech Republic and Russia. We also brought our Minnesota Twins baseball gamers on the far side of the rack.

The walls of Tom Reid's are just dripping with hockey memorabilia and create the perfect environment to hold such an event.

Finally, the event organizer Dave Frechette, without whom the Expo would not exist. Dave's collection focuses primarily on Minnesota Wild players jerseys, primarily before they joined the Wild, or at least non-Wild jerseys. Examples in his collection are Wild prospects college and junior team jerseys, European born players European club teams, Wild coaches sweaters from their NHL playing days, Wild players previous NHL team's jerseys and Wild players jerseys worn when they played for their national teams, such as Mikko Koivu's Team Finland jerseys.

How he is consistently able to track down jerseys from such a wide variety of sources is one of the more impressive things to take in at the Expo. He also has an appreciation of hockey history, as evidenced by the rare and wonderful Minnesota Fighting Saints WHA jersey seen here as well as his North Stars game worn jersey he is wearing.

Look for an announcement on the gameworn.net forums or this blog for details of next year's gathering in early October 2011, which will be the 10th annual occurrence of this can't miss event!