This one has a super interesting story. Circa the summer of 1971, Brother Francis Carr of Hill High School in Maplewood, MN (a St. Paul suburb) needed new jerseys for his varsity hockey team, which was a dominating force in the Independent/Private School league at the time. Their colors were green and white, so Ted Steichen, owner of the legendary Steichen's Sporting Goods in St. Paul (which supplied jerseys and other sporting goods to numerous high schools, colleges, pro teams, and international teams), got the idea to ask Brother Francis if he would like to buy the entire set of retired North Stars jerseys and have them re-crested as Hill High School Pioneers jerseys. Pause was apparently given since these North Stars jersey were not only green and white, as Hill's had always been, but green, white, and gold. After Brother Francis decided that this was not enough of an impediment to stop the deal, it did happen. Apparently, the color scheme change was not beloved by the Hill-faithful, but per Brother Francis, people got over it! So Hill High School did go ahead and buy exactly 42 (21 white and 21 green) recycled North Stars jerseys and in 1971-72, the newly-renamed Hill-Murray Pioneers (no longer just 'Hill') won a Minnesota State Independent High School Hockey Tournament Championship in those jerseys. Furthermore, they did it in their home arena, historic Aldrich Arena. The Pioneers would proceed to wear these jerseys through some glorious years, only finally seeing a new set of sweaters at the beginning of the 1978-79 season. The jerseys went out near the top, being retired after yet another State Tournament berth (now the public - not Independent - state tournament), which yielded still more hardware, a Consolation Championship. Neither Hill HS nor Hill-Murray HS ever missed a state tournament in these jerseys. Three Independent tournaments were reached (1972, 1973, and 1974) and then, after that organization went defunct after 1974, four more public tournaments were reached (1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978). The Pioneers, in these jerseys, were champions only the one time in 1972, but were runners-up, third place, or consolation champions with regularity. Needless to say, the North Stars clearly had not used up all the magic in these shirts.
To understand how this peculiar transaction had come to happen, one needs to understand that, in those days, Steichen's took back in trade many of the jerseys that it had sold to teams like the North Stars, the Fighing Saints, and the Gophers. Steichen's sold them in their store on University Avenue in St. Paul (and later on Rice Street in suburban Roseville, MN) as 'Game Worn' jerseys. Though they may have been slightly ahead of their time in filling this niche for collectors, they no doubt helped to expand and accelerate that hobby, and deserve some credit for that visionary idea. So since game worn jerseys were not being sold in the more developed market that they enjoy now, at times, it was not so easy to sell off all of the used jerseys that flooded in in the summer. It is no wonder that Ted Steichen would want to sell off 42 jerseys in one shot to Hill. One must guess that both Brother Francis and Ted got a good enough deal that it made good economic sense for each of them to get this done. On Brother Francis's side, he was not getting shiny new equipment; he was taking hand-me-down jerseys which had bumps and bruises and blood stains. On Ted Steichen's side, he was buying a bunch of man-hours to swap out the old "N" crests with the new "Pioneers" crests. Not only that, but Ted was also giving up the ability to sell Hill some brand new jerseys, which may have made him more money. Well apparently, all of this fit well enough in each of these two budgets and Spring/Summer cleaning won out over shiny new jerseys.
So what are the jerseys, exactly? Well the North Stars wore this style of white jersey for three seasons (from the 1967-68 season until the 1969-70 season) before swapping the here-pictured green forearms for the white forearms seen beginning in the 1970-71 season. So these three years, in the expansion infancy of the North Stars, is when these were worn in NHL play. Which year(s)? Well, before determining the year, one must also know that during it's playing days, this jersey was a #16. You can see from the photos that perhaps a young ex-player who bought the jersey from the school after he graduated had preferred the #9...and perhaps he had had his mom turn the #6 upside-down before sewing it back on and hanging it on his wall. Well that is exactly what happened, in case you're still wondering.
So in the first season (1967-68), #16 was worn by these four players:
Andre Pronovost, Bronco Horvath, Duke Harris, and George Standing;
and then, in both 1968-69 and 1969-70, the #16 was worn by Claude Larose. In the second of those two years he wore a C (pictured).
This jersey does not appear to sport a removed C, but it is possible that all evidence of that letter could be lost to time with such heavy use and washing through all these years. The examination continues, and I would love to be able to pinpoint the player and year, but I have not gotten there yet. What I do have is the words of Brother Francis Carr himself speaking to the provenance of these jerseys:
Per Brother Carr:
"I just talked with Ted Steichen. He owned Steichen's Sporting Goods and we did almost all of our purchases through them. When the North Stars were changing jerseys, Steichen's bought back the ones they had and asked if we wanted used NorthStar jerseys. They carefully removed the N with the star and put "Pioneers" in place. I sort of remember being able to see the outline of the N after we got them, which must have been a thrill for our guys, but now the jerseys were Hill-Murray's. Neither Ted nor I remember the year we got the jerseys, or how long we wore them (we sure didn't get new sets of jerseys very often in those days). I think this was the first time we had gold as one of our colors, too. I sort of recall some folks being miffed about that, but they just had to get over it. Later, I think HM went from gold to black. I was gone by then.
Brother Francis"
And also some recollections of Ted Steichen's son Jimmy:
"I remember these well. We took the N’s off and on went the Pioneers and off to Hill-Murray. Can you imagine how much they would have been worth if they were still North Star jerseys?"
This is a story that just seems very unlikely to happen in our modern era. It's really a good-old-days story and a great picture of a time that we probably won't see again any time soon. Even if it weren't a jersey that went from an expansion-era North Stars team to a dominant and iconic high school team, it would be a good story; in this case, especially considering the names of those who had a part to play in it, I would say that it definitely qualifies as a great story. Thanks for reading it!
To understand how this peculiar transaction had come to happen, one needs to understand that, in those days, Steichen's took back in trade many of the jerseys that it had sold to teams like the North Stars, the Fighing Saints, and the Gophers. Steichen's sold them in their store on University Avenue in St. Paul (and later on Rice Street in suburban Roseville, MN) as 'Game Worn' jerseys. Though they may have been slightly ahead of their time in filling this niche for collectors, they no doubt helped to expand and accelerate that hobby, and deserve some credit for that visionary idea. So since game worn jerseys were not being sold in the more developed market that they enjoy now, at times, it was not so easy to sell off all of the used jerseys that flooded in in the summer. It is no wonder that Ted Steichen would want to sell off 42 jerseys in one shot to Hill. One must guess that both Brother Francis and Ted got a good enough deal that it made good economic sense for each of them to get this done. On Brother Francis's side, he was not getting shiny new equipment; he was taking hand-me-down jerseys which had bumps and bruises and blood stains. On Ted Steichen's side, he was buying a bunch of man-hours to swap out the old "N" crests with the new "Pioneers" crests. Not only that, but Ted was also giving up the ability to sell Hill some brand new jerseys, which may have made him more money. Well apparently, all of this fit well enough in each of these two budgets and Spring/Summer cleaning won out over shiny new jerseys.
So what are the jerseys, exactly? Well the North Stars wore this style of white jersey for three seasons (from the 1967-68 season until the 1969-70 season) before swapping the here-pictured green forearms for the white forearms seen beginning in the 1970-71 season. So these three years, in the expansion infancy of the North Stars, is when these were worn in NHL play. Which year(s)? Well, before determining the year, one must also know that during it's playing days, this jersey was a #16. You can see from the photos that perhaps a young ex-player who bought the jersey from the school after he graduated had preferred the #9...and perhaps he had had his mom turn the #6 upside-down before sewing it back on and hanging it on his wall. Well that is exactly what happened, in case you're still wondering.
So in the first season (1967-68), #16 was worn by these four players:
Andre Pronovost, Bronco Horvath, Duke Harris, and George Standing;
and then, in both 1968-69 and 1969-70, the #16 was worn by Claude Larose. In the second of those two years he wore a C (pictured).
This jersey does not appear to sport a removed C, but it is possible that all evidence of that letter could be lost to time with such heavy use and washing through all these years. The examination continues, and I would love to be able to pinpoint the player and year, but I have not gotten there yet. What I do have is the words of Brother Francis Carr himself speaking to the provenance of these jerseys:
Per Brother Carr:
"I just talked with Ted Steichen. He owned Steichen's Sporting Goods and we did almost all of our purchases through them. When the North Stars were changing jerseys, Steichen's bought back the ones they had and asked if we wanted used NorthStar jerseys. They carefully removed the N with the star and put "Pioneers" in place. I sort of remember being able to see the outline of the N after we got them, which must have been a thrill for our guys, but now the jerseys were Hill-Murray's. Neither Ted nor I remember the year we got the jerseys, or how long we wore them (we sure didn't get new sets of jerseys very often in those days). I think this was the first time we had gold as one of our colors, too. I sort of recall some folks being miffed about that, but they just had to get over it. Later, I think HM went from gold to black. I was gone by then.
Brother Francis"
And also some recollections of Ted Steichen's son Jimmy:
"I remember these well. We took the N’s off and on went the Pioneers and off to Hill-Murray. Can you imagine how much they would have been worth if they were still North Star jerseys?"
This is a story that just seems very unlikely to happen in our modern era. It's really a good-old-days story and a great picture of a time that we probably won't see again any time soon. Even if it weren't a jersey that went from an expansion-era North Stars team to a dominant and iconic high school team, it would be a good story; in this case, especially considering the names of those who had a part to play in it, I would say that it definitely qualifies as a great story. Thanks for reading it!
