Beyond what’s initially obvious about a hockey jersey, there may be a few questions left unanswered as to who it belonged to, where it came from and ultimately what it’s used for at the current moment. As many of you already know, my father is or was, depending on how you look at it, Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and in many ways the jersey itself is representative of his accomplishments and life in general. Considering that my dad came from the small-ish town of Parma, Ohio with no previous connections to the entertainment industry or the like, he’s what I would consider to be a pretty successful and lucky person. As a result, my dad and indirectly the jersey itself are a lot to live up to, but being that my dad is a really humble and warm guy, it doesn’t really ever seem like that. More often than not, he’s encouraging me to get in trouble, make mistakes and have fun more than anything else in my life because he knows that I’m straight-laced and goal driven. In a lot of ways, my dad sits on both of my shoulders equally, spurring me on to be both fun and responsible simultaneously all the while being a good dad, despite not seeing him all that much.

So in that case, the jersey itself is very representative of my relationship with my dad. I cherish it. I take it off its hanger maybe once every few months either to just look at it or to wear it somewhere because my friends think it’s fascinating. But likely I think most people get the wrong idea when I wear it out; “Is that THE jersey?”, “Why would he give something up like that?”, “YOUR DAD IS WHO!?”. So for the sake of the matter, I’ll explain the origins behind this exact jersey of mine.

This particular jersey was given to my dad in 2002 by some very overzealous Cub’s officials in Chicago for what I’m assuming was at that time the 15th anniversary of Ferris Bueller. Like any movie that glorifies an American city that isn’t LA or New York, Bueller made Chicago fun and lively, and absolutely demystified any preconceived notions of the city being a sleepy, midwestern burg. For that matter, my Dad was invited to Chicago to this particular Cub’s game to essentially just say hi and be a good sport. He was invited down from the box seat that the city had given him and as he got down to the field, a Wrigley Stadium staff member handed him the fresh, Gordie Howe jersey to put on. He then sung the National Anthem, shook a few hands and came back up to the box to sit with me, my mom and my sister. A couple of years later, my dad gave me the jersey along with a few other things he had kept over the years from his various jobs, including a Ranger’s jersey with our name on the back and a fez.

Other than those anecdotes about my dad, the jersey itself is pretty un-extraordinary. The player who the jersey originally belonged to was a man named Gordie Howe, who played for the Detroit Red Wings from 1946 to 1971. Nicknamed “Mr. Hockey”, Gordie Howe won four Stanley Cups for the Red Wings and is generally considered to be “one of the greatest athletes in the sport of hockey”.

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