The Washington Capitals 2011-12 season is over. It's a bummer, sure, but I still love my team. When out shopping with my fiancée on Sunday, I took advantage of some good Memorial Day weekend sales. I even bought a brand new Caps hat to wear to Nationals games, so people don't give me shit about my Cubs hats.
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| When it comes to baseball apparel, Cubs or GTFO. Luckily the Caps and Nats both rock the red. |
Since I had so much fun buying a lot of shit for pretty cheap, I thought I might apply that strategy to online retailers, specifically, Shop.NHL.com. And heavens to Betsy, was I wrong to even think that. The NHL's online store is one of the worst offenders when it comes to taking Walmart-quality clothing, slapping a logo or two on it, and charging quadruple its value. But I wanted something specific -- the official players' sweatshirt. Naturally, my navigation went to Washington Capitals >> Mens >> Sweatshirts. Not only was I disappointed to see the sweatshirt was not there, but I was horrified by what was listed instead.
First of all, there are 38 men's sweatshirts available for purchase. Exactly one of them is under $40. This:
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| KILL IT WITH FIRE. |
Two of them are over $100. For a sweatshirt. Look, I don't care if Mitchell wove the fabric and Ness stitched it together, no sweatshirt is worth $100. Twenty of them are between the $54 and $70 range. This is fucking ridiculous, Shop.NHL.com. But wait, it gets better.
Doing a Google search of "capitals players sweatshirts" I found what I was looking for, on the Dick's Sporting Goods online store. Unfortunately, they only had it for one player, Alex Ovechkin. Also, it's only available in home red, and not road white or Winter Classic off-white. Not that I wouldn't want Ovie's home sweatshirt, but options are always a good thing. Then I noticed that Dick's had it listed not under "Men's" but "Player Apparel." So I thought Shop.NHL.com might have pulled the same trick. Sure enough, they did, as this section is entirely composed of shirseys and two -- yes, only two -- hoodies. The first is the official Ovie one I found at Dick's, for the exact same price ($65.) The other is a faded navy and red abortion of a sweatshirt, labeled as "old time hockey" for some unknown reason (I'm guessing it's the laces on the neckline) for $110. No options. No customization. Just something you can find off the rack at Dick's, priced at around double of what it should be.
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| According to the NHL's official store, this is not categorized as a sweatshirt. |
So here is this product I want to buy. I might even pay $40 for it. But it is hard to find on the website, it's only available for one player, there are no customization options or alternate colors, and it's way too expensive. It's bullshit like this that keeps people from buying quality, attractive clothing to support their team. Guess I'll just wait for
MoonJersey to get it in stock.
What is this I don't even
