This was commissioned by Mark C. for his DIY project: a replica of the Detroit Red Wings jersey seen in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It was a fun and quick design project, and I’m allowed to share it here with you. The inset was an alternate I tried to run with, it didn’t work.

After the jump a lot of boring analysis of the Red Wings jersey seen in the film.

Several oddities about this film version of the classic Red Wings jersey: the logo is tilted about 30 degrees and sits really high and off-center. The logo also had a different tire that was more white. There is a white collar on this red jersey, something that’s never happened in team history (it’s always red on a red jersey).  The stripes are noticeably thicker. The waist stripe sits pretty high, at least compared to the mid-80’s era jerseys (the only time in team history it didn’t sit on the very bottom of the jersey).

I could be wrong about the stripe thickness, because the actor who played Cameron is a tall and skinny guy, which is totally messing with my Spidey-senses. Regular stripes on a thinner frame look misleadingly thicker in my opinion.

Why does it look different than a standard Red Wings jersey? If I had to venture a guess it would be because they wanted something that would telegraph well on film, and that meant a custom jersey. I also think there was symbolism at work here too: the red jersey with a car motif could represent the red roadster in the film; the logo being tilted could foreshadow the car’s doom, as the logo looks like it’s falling back! Would certainly explain the use of a Detroit jersey showing up in a film set in Chicago.

Have to give props to the film’s wardrobe department for using this jersey and going with Mr. Hockey for the name and number. Just a beautiful sweater.

No plans to offer this jersey, and it appears there are no jerseys like this available either. The Red Wings should look into offering this variant for geeks and film fans!

UPDATE: Turns out Gordie Howe himself sent the jersey to the film’s production, according to this interview with Sports Illustrated. What’s interesting is that Howe says “I had a lot of proud moments in that jersey.” which implies that it is a game-worn jersey. However the design of the jersey doesn’t match up with anything in the Red Wings jersey history, according to the NHL uniform database. Thanks to Sara for the tip! I hope to find out more one day.