Hockey fashion? Auf wiedersehen!

I'm a complete sucker for anything that's close to hockey garb. Well, kinda sorta. For the past, say, six years or so, a staple of my fashion nearly each and every day is the sentimental band t-shirt. Starting back in '97, I got my first band t-shirt at a Smashing Pumpkins enormo-dome show and that trend continued until basically last year, maybe even earlier. It's time to give up that hobby/fashion accessory. The time for change is now, and it's obvious to me that such a change involves hockey. Duh!

Ever since I saw some sort of advertisement in an issue of The Hockey News a few weeks/months ago that featured logos from a bunch of minor league and junior teams, I instantly knew what my next mission would be - start collecting not your typical hockey team merchandise. Eh... change the wording... get shirts/anything else that represents not your typical team (i.e. NHL). It's time to support the Calgary Hitmen, the Peterborough Petes, and/or the now-defunct Greenville Grrrowl. With team names like those, random locations, and simply amazing logos, you can't go wrong sporting any kind of hockey pride! So I tried a little bit (and, of course, I do mean little) to search up some stuff and didn't get that far. And when I did come across something, I often found out that these shirts that I would want cost $20+. Maybe purchasing a shirt for a month could be cool, but I just didn't justify it, especially for shirt designs that didn't work for me at first glance.

Well, thanks to a post at the brilliant Off Wing Opinion, I think I finally stumbled onto something. As if you didn't figure it out by now (by clicking on the link), there are shirts from teams of yesteryear. Teams that I never even knew existed. I have heard about the Macon Whoopies, but the Saskatoon Sheiks?! I can't even begin to imagine the questions someone would get just for wearing such a shirt. And you'd get major points from true die-hard hockey fans.

So outside of the amazing stuff at Throwbackmax.com (and not just hockey, too), does anyone know of any other cool merch stuff for hockey teams around North America? Or, hell, why stop there? Even any kind of internation teams' merch would work as well. It's always great to walk around town and spot someone wearing the jersey of the Swedish national team... oh, wait, no one would know what that is in Newnan (unless you're a hockey fan, which is slim even in Georgia, sadly). It's a cool thought though.

But seriously, does anyone have any kind of experience with lower-level hockey (or international-level/vintage, too) merchandise? I'd love to have in on any kind of recommendations/secrets/tips that anyone has experienced. I can't help it but love this kind of stuff!


C'mon, would it be wrong to wear a Magnitogorsk Metallurg Evgeni Malkin jersey when he comes to town soon? ;)
Pic courtesy of Hockeytop.