What an interesting and historic shirt this one is. It wasn't immediately clear what it was because of the alterations and the missing nameplate, but when it turned out to be a Huffer Christiansen Fighting Saints jersey, it became a quite important and historic jersey for a Minnesota hockey collector. First, I'll address who Huffer is and second I'll address the provenance and research.
Keith ‘Huffer’ Christiansen is a Minnesota hockey legend. He's got all the hardware needed for that. Standing 5'5" or so at that point, his first feat was to power the International Falls Broncos to a state tournament championship in 1962. Following that, he spent 4 years dominating college hockey with a brand new program, the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. From 1963-67, he became a huge reason for the early success of the infant UMD hockey program. He was so revered by the Bulldog faithful that he became the first athlete to ever have his number retired at that school in any sport. He was the first and only hockey player to receive this honor until some guy named Brett Hull came along. It was at Duluth that Keith was given a nickname that stuck: Huffer, for his huffing and puffing work ethic.
After graduation, there were two years and a championship with USHL Waterloo before being recruited to play with the US National team. He made his debut under player-coach John Mayasich in the unmitigated disaster that was the 1969 World Championships, held in Stockholm. Losing a perfect 10 for 10, the international superpower USA was relegated to playing in Pool B with such storied hockey juggernauts as Bulgaria and Japan. Following this embarrassment, if the club didn't win gold at the 1970 Group B championship in Bucharest, they were pretty much out of the picture to compete at the next Olympic Games, to be held in Sapporo in 1972. They came to play in 1970 and did win gold. Huffer had 5 goals and 5 assists. Team USA followed this triumph with yet another relegation in Bern in 1971 (with a 2 and 8 record), but again won the Group B (again in Bucharest) in 1972. They had eeked themselves into the Olympics and a few weeks later, now-Captain Huffer was standing on the #2 podium in Makomanai Arena receiving a silver medal on behalf of his team and listening to the playing of the anthems. He would later describe this as the highlight of his hockey career. It was a rags to riches story for him at that point with the national team. He showed up as a kid and went through a real rollercoaster before capturing an unlikely silver medal as an Olympic team captain. He went out on top that same year, so to speak, as Glen Sonmor convinced him to sign up to play professional hockey in Minnesota with the newly-formed Fighting Saints. He played two years with the Saints and would soon after hang up the blades, retire the axe, and move back to Duluth with his wife Evie, and get a 9-5 selling cars. He was inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN in 2005.
The story of how this jersey entered public view is an illicit one. In the 1970’s there was a bar in St. Paul, MN that was frequented by a lot of athletes and their parties often got pretty wild. Apparently, literal ‘piles’ of marijuana and cocaine were to be found on tables (plural…tables). Well one night Gordie Gallant walks in wearing a bloodstained #6 Pat Westrum (Minneapolis-Roosevelt High School Hockey alumnus) jersey and winds up using it as actual currency…to pay a bar tab. 40 years later, it emerged from the bartender’s closet and back into the world. The bartender had worn it out a few times, and so had removed and thrown out the Westrum nameplate that had been on the back; so it was blank, but that did make it easier to see that the Westrum plate had not been the only one that had ever been on this jersey.
The Saints (and Huffer) played their very first WHA season in 1972-73 in jerseys that had rounded logos (picture above), which are said to have been either sold to a youth hockey program after that first season or used afterwards as the Saints practice jerseys. The following year saw them with the better-know cherub logo that you see here. This was 1973-74, Huffer’s second and last with the Saints. Now the Saints did have their share of financing trouble. They folded after 4 seasons. They didn’t make a habit of throwing a lot of money around. They found a way to make certain things work, and this jersey is clearly one of them. Instead of ordering another jersey that was smaller for the now 5’6” 150 pound Huffer, there were alterations made to this size 46 jersey. The sleeves were doubled over and stitched to shorten them by roughly 3.5 inches each. Both inseams were also hemmed in to subtract about 2 inches each. Well after Huffer left the Saints after the 1973-74 season, again, to save a few bucks, the inseam stitching was removed and the nameplate was swapped for the 1974-75 season. This was Pat Westrum’s first year with the Saints and he wore #6. We know from another still-nameplated Westrum white Saints sweater that he did indeed also wear a size 46(he was 5'10", 185 pounds). Curiously, the sleeve alterations were never removed, though they aren’t duplicated on Westrum’s next jersey, so he didn’t love them enough to demand them when he got his new jersey.
So Steichens Sporting Goods on University Avenue in St. Paul was supplying the Saints with their equipment. In fact, they supplied nearly every serious team with everything in those days. They also took care of alterations that needed to happen with the jerseys, and would actually sell the thoroughly used-up jerseys out of their store when the team was completely through with them. Apparently, it was Steichen’s that handled the swapping of nameplates on this jersey because, as luck would have it, the discarded nameplates were kept by an employee and made their way into the hands of a local sports dealer some years back. Among these plates was a white Christiansen nameplate that is a perfect match for the outline still visible on this shirt. It would even be possible that this plate could have come from the round-logo 72 shirts to the cherub-logo 73 shirts, before being again removed in favor of the Westrum plate.
This has been a thoroughly fascinating jersey to get acquainted with and it is my pleasure to share it’s stories. To my knowledge, this is the only known Huffer Christiansen game worn jersey in any kind of public view. In fact, I have never heard of any other Christiansen game used item of any kind, from any team. It is possible that the family has some things, but I don't know about them if they do.
The nameplate has not been restored to the shirt's reverse, but I may yet make the decision to reunite the jersey with it’s original namebar. Time will tell.
Keith ‘Huffer’ Christiansen is a Minnesota hockey legend. He's got all the hardware needed for that. Standing 5'5" or so at that point, his first feat was to power the International Falls Broncos to a state tournament championship in 1962. Following that, he spent 4 years dominating college hockey with a brand new program, the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs. From 1963-67, he became a huge reason for the early success of the infant UMD hockey program. He was so revered by the Bulldog faithful that he became the first athlete to ever have his number retired at that school in any sport. He was the first and only hockey player to receive this honor until some guy named Brett Hull came along. It was at Duluth that Keith was given a nickname that stuck: Huffer, for his huffing and puffing work ethic.
After graduation, there were two years and a championship with USHL Waterloo before being recruited to play with the US National team. He made his debut under player-coach John Mayasich in the unmitigated disaster that was the 1969 World Championships, held in Stockholm. Losing a perfect 10 for 10, the international superpower USA was relegated to playing in Pool B with such storied hockey juggernauts as Bulgaria and Japan. Following this embarrassment, if the club didn't win gold at the 1970 Group B championship in Bucharest, they were pretty much out of the picture to compete at the next Olympic Games, to be held in Sapporo in 1972. They came to play in 1970 and did win gold. Huffer had 5 goals and 5 assists. Team USA followed this triumph with yet another relegation in Bern in 1971 (with a 2 and 8 record), but again won the Group B (again in Bucharest) in 1972. They had eeked themselves into the Olympics and a few weeks later, now-Captain Huffer was standing on the #2 podium in Makomanai Arena receiving a silver medal on behalf of his team and listening to the playing of the anthems. He would later describe this as the highlight of his hockey career. It was a rags to riches story for him at that point with the national team. He showed up as a kid and went through a real rollercoaster before capturing an unlikely silver medal as an Olympic team captain. He went out on top that same year, so to speak, as Glen Sonmor convinced him to sign up to play professional hockey in Minnesota with the newly-formed Fighting Saints. He played two years with the Saints and would soon after hang up the blades, retire the axe, and move back to Duluth with his wife Evie, and get a 9-5 selling cars. He was inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN in 2005.
The story of how this jersey entered public view is an illicit one. In the 1970’s there was a bar in St. Paul, MN that was frequented by a lot of athletes and their parties often got pretty wild. Apparently, literal ‘piles’ of marijuana and cocaine were to be found on tables (plural…tables). Well one night Gordie Gallant walks in wearing a bloodstained #6 Pat Westrum (Minneapolis-Roosevelt High School Hockey alumnus) jersey and winds up using it as actual currency…to pay a bar tab. 40 years later, it emerged from the bartender’s closet and back into the world. The bartender had worn it out a few times, and so had removed and thrown out the Westrum nameplate that had been on the back; so it was blank, but that did make it easier to see that the Westrum plate had not been the only one that had ever been on this jersey.
The Saints (and Huffer) played their very first WHA season in 1972-73 in jerseys that had rounded logos (picture above), which are said to have been either sold to a youth hockey program after that first season or used afterwards as the Saints practice jerseys. The following year saw them with the better-know cherub logo that you see here. This was 1973-74, Huffer’s second and last with the Saints. Now the Saints did have their share of financing trouble. They folded after 4 seasons. They didn’t make a habit of throwing a lot of money around. They found a way to make certain things work, and this jersey is clearly one of them. Instead of ordering another jersey that was smaller for the now 5’6” 150 pound Huffer, there were alterations made to this size 46 jersey. The sleeves were doubled over and stitched to shorten them by roughly 3.5 inches each. Both inseams were also hemmed in to subtract about 2 inches each. Well after Huffer left the Saints after the 1973-74 season, again, to save a few bucks, the inseam stitching was removed and the nameplate was swapped for the 1974-75 season. This was Pat Westrum’s first year with the Saints and he wore #6. We know from another still-nameplated Westrum white Saints sweater that he did indeed also wear a size 46(he was 5'10", 185 pounds). Curiously, the sleeve alterations were never removed, though they aren’t duplicated on Westrum’s next jersey, so he didn’t love them enough to demand them when he got his new jersey.
So Steichens Sporting Goods on University Avenue in St. Paul was supplying the Saints with their equipment. In fact, they supplied nearly every serious team with everything in those days. They also took care of alterations that needed to happen with the jerseys, and would actually sell the thoroughly used-up jerseys out of their store when the team was completely through with them. Apparently, it was Steichen’s that handled the swapping of nameplates on this jersey because, as luck would have it, the discarded nameplates were kept by an employee and made their way into the hands of a local sports dealer some years back. Among these plates was a white Christiansen nameplate that is a perfect match for the outline still visible on this shirt. It would even be possible that this plate could have come from the round-logo 72 shirts to the cherub-logo 73 shirts, before being again removed in favor of the Westrum plate.
This has been a thoroughly fascinating jersey to get acquainted with and it is my pleasure to share it’s stories. To my knowledge, this is the only known Huffer Christiansen game worn jersey in any kind of public view. In fact, I have never heard of any other Christiansen game used item of any kind, from any team. It is possible that the family has some things, but I don't know about them if they do.
The nameplate has not been restored to the shirt's reverse, but I may yet make the decision to reunite the jersey with it’s original namebar. Time will tell.