Kingston's OHL Team Will Honour the Tragically Hip with Custom Jerseys

Published Jan 06, 2017

As far as local tributes to their hometown heroes go, the city of Kingston has most recently paid homage to Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip with a phone book cover and a commemorative stone following the frontman's terminal brain cancer diagnosis . Now, the city's Ontario Hockey League team is set to honour the band by wearing special jerseys for an upcoming game.The Kingston Frontenacs will don the jerseys in an upcoming game against the Mississauga Steelheads on January 28 at Kingston's Rogers K-Rock Centre. From there, the game-worn threads will be auctioned off online, with all proceeds going to the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research through Sunnybrook Hospital.As you can see above, the jersey's design was based upon that of Downie's favourite NHL team, the Boston Bruins. The jerseys will also feature the name of every album and song released by the band over their storied career. The Kingston Whig-Standard reports that the jerseys were designed by the Frontenacs and Ontario-based jersey manufacturers Catstich."We started with the base of the 1964 Boston Bruins home jersey, to reflect the year Gord Downie was born and his favourite team," Frontenacs director of business operations Justin Chenie said in a statement. "We added the Tragically Hip's logo-wordmark from their 2011 concert at Bobcaygeon as the main logo on the front of the jersey, and their signature-wordmark on the back."Chenier added that "in Kingston, hockey and the Tragically Hip go hand in hand. Their music has been a fixture at hockey games — including the hometown Kingston Frontenacs — for decades."He has invited the band members to the game and is hoping to have them honoured in person."As a team, we've talked about honouring the Tragically Hip, and when the reality of Gord's diagnosis set in, we knew we could to do something special to honour the band and help raise funds to help with the research for brain cancer."Full details on the jersey auction website will be released the week prior to the game. Tickets for the game are on sale at the Rogers K-Rock Centre or online through Ticketmaster, provided they haven't been scalped