Shawn Cronin Baltimore Skipjacks Velcro Tear Away Jersey

Baltimore Skipjacks #22, Road, 1988/89 CCM Maska AirKnit production tag sewn in neck, Sz MEN L, tag dimensions are 1 1/4'' x 1 1/2'' 

This jersey is obliterated with a seasons worth of battle, inclusive of 11 team repairs and is more of a fighting assistant/tool than a jersey.

Both shoulders are heavily saturated with extremely heavy game wear, usage, grime and fight abuse. Large orange/reddish board paint transfers showing on left shoulder. Good material snagging, stick/puck marks, team repairs and good general wear showing throughout front body. Front hem shows more of the same excellent wear and heavy game grime. Good hack marks showing across front logo; good edge material/stitching fraying showing on front logo as well. Front of neck has been stretched out and re-inforced with white team stitching. 

Velcro square sewn on front left chest, cut-out plate with twill alternate captain's 'A' sewn on front and velcro on back remains affixed to front of jersey and in-tact. 

Both sleeves have some great game and fight damage, with thick stick/puck marks, team repair work and un-repaired holes showing. Right sleeve shows more damage with bottom of #2 torn away and unrepaired, orange board paint on the cuff and just above the cuff, a 2'' x 2'' cut-out red airknit repair plate sewn on to the jersey from the exterior to assist in fixing damage. Back body exhibits decent wear; back hem shows good general filth and areas of wash-out blood stains. Top run of nameplate looks like it was partial torn away from jersey and re-attached with a row of stitching. Small style CCM patch embroidered in red, red, blue sequence with 'R' showing to the top right of the 'M' glued on to the back right hem. Excellent pilling showing inside both sleeves; fight strap shows appropriate wear with velcro torn away from base and not repaired. 

ILLEGAL VELCRO TEAR-AWAY SLEEVES: Around this mid-to-later 1980's era, several noted enforcers in the NHL and AHL started experimenting with different jersey/equipment alterations to gain a competitve advantage when fighting - some techniques were intended to make a jersey easy to come off, some meant to secure a jersey to a player. This example features the most legendary enforcer customer jersey alteration; the highly controversial (and highly illegal after its ban) "tear-away velcro sleeves". This is the ultimate example of an enforcer jersey modified strictly to assist with fighting, as when an opponent grabs on to the sleeves during a fight, both tear apart and fly open, leaving nothing to grab on to. This was accomplished as follows: Both sleeves have been sliced from the cuff to the pits. From there, a strip of sleeve-length red fabric custom fitted with red velcro has been added to the sleeve opening; the other side of the sleeve opening has the corresponding 16'' red velcro strip sewn in sleeve-length. This velcro strip has carefully placed cut out pieces of hockey tape affixed in intervals to make sure the velcro gave way and opened up when being pulled on during a fight. Heavy stitch work showing affixing these strips to the under arm of the jersey/where the sleeve meets the under-arm diamonds, additional reifrocement stitch work show on both cuffs as well. This was a calculated and well-crafted customization that was executed perfectly for the desired effect and was done so as to hide the customization, possibly from the opponent and/or game officials. 

Noted NHL enforcers John Kordic and Basil McRae featured similar velcro sleeves, with Kordic in one iteration of this customization having horizontal white velcro straps too visible  on the exterior of a blue jersey - shortly after this, the NHL banned velcro tear-away sleeve jerseys altogether and the AHL followed shortly after, however this rule was not always followed on the American League level. 

We are pleased to have this surviving example in the archives, as this pinnacle of enforcer jersey customizations is not only the most sough after, but also the rarest - Shawn Cronin (Skipjacks), Steve Martinson (Adirondack),  Rod Dallman (Hershey) Jim Thomson (Utica) and  both  Serge  and  Mario  Roberge  (Sherbrook)  are a  few  noted  enforcers  known  to have used velcro tear-away sleeves in the AHL. 

The Barbarian fought 24 times during the 1988/89 season with 14 of those fights coming on the road in this very jersey: Marc Laforge (Sept 30), Tim Hanley (Oct 7), Carl Mokosak (Oct 8), Rob Ray (Nov 5), Dave Korol (Nov 19), Mike Stothers (Nov 23), Wayne Van Dorp (Nov 25), Shawn Byram twice (Dec 10), Bob Bodak (Dec 17), Charlie Bourgeois (Dec 31), Joe Reekie (Jan 11), Chris Pryor (Jan 14) and Serge Roberge (Mar 10).