Inside the Quebec factory where NHL jerseys are made

When Steve Berard heard there would be a new designer for NHL jerseys, he didn’t expect it to be Fanatics.

“It was a surprise, but a good surprise, I would say,” Berard said.

Berard is the owner and CEO of SP Apparel, a Canadian company that has manufactured NHL on-ice uniforms in Quebec for nearly 50 years. It will continue to manufacture those jerseys, with Fanatics now being the official outfitter of the NHL’s on-ice uniforms for the next 10 years, starting next season.

The jerseys were revealed Wednesday ahead of Friday’s NHL Draft, where prospects will be among the first to wear their teams’ new sweaters.

If the jersey looks the same as last season’s, it’s actually by design. The goal of Fanatics and the NHL was continuity, giving players the comfort that although the designers were different, nothing fundamentally changed about their uniforms – at least for now.

Berard said, “It will be the same as before. The clothes, the concepts, everything.” “There’s no reason to take the risk of trying new things in the first year. We just want to make sure the NHL will shine and no one will complain about the jerseys because they are what the NHL has known for so many years and what The way we are were on those products.”

The NHL is confident that players will be pleased with the change in designers as the manufacturer will remain the same.

“The actual game-worn jerseys will be manufactured by the same facility that made them for Adidas,” said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. “They are the best in the world at this.”

When Nike bought Bauer In 1995, two of Bauer’s employees – Serge Berard and Phil Chiarella – purported to purchase Bauer’s jersey business in Granby, Quebec and renamed it SP Apparel in 1999. Chiarella died in 2008. Serge Bérard retired. Steve Berard became executive VP and co-owner in June 2016, and was promoted to owner and CEO in 2018.

The company had two decade-old factories: one in Granby and one in Saint-Hyacinthe.

“I like to say that when you turn on the TV and are watching a hockey game, all those jerseys are made right here in the factory,” he said. “Bricks. No windows. In the last 10-15 years, it was difficult to hire people and attract new people. So we wanted a nice factory.”

Berard remembers talking to a seamstress at the factory when she was about 24 years old. One day she asked, “Will I keep doing this for the rest of my life?” In relation to the dark, somewhat depressing environment of the old plant.

So SP Apparel opened a new, state-of-the-art facility in Saint-Hyacinthe last year.

“Now the factory is completely white, very bright. There are windows all around our factory,” he said. “All the washrooms are extremely clean, like when you go to hotels. I just wanted a better place for my employees.”

Although the aesthetics have changed, the process of making the jersey has not. The Factory is currently working on NHL, IIHF Tournament, AHL, CHL and 2026 Olympic national team jerseys, partnering with Nike, CCM, Bauer and Adidas, as well as Fanatics.

It starts with a designer’s idea to a partner like Fanatics. Then SP Apparel’s eight-person development team, who have “always” worked together in Berard’s words, takes the concept and implements it, including how it can be executed.

“An NHL jersey needs to be perfect. Good looking and incorporating new technologies,” Berard said. “It’s a fast-action game. There will be scratches on the jerseys. And of course there are fights, and we have to make sure the collars don’t come off one after the other.”

Once all parties sign off on the jersey, it’s on to a manufacturing process where SP Apparel “controls everything from A to Z.” They buy the yarn, they sublimate the jerseys, they weave and cut the fabrics, it’s all done in-house.

He said, “When everything goes well, it is our fault. When there is a problem, it is also our fault.”

The plant has automated some processes, such as using laser cutters, but NHL jerseys remain a handmade product. There are rows of tables with spools of yardage on top. Whirling sewing machines sew the crest on the front of the jersey and the “fighting straps” on the back, while all the letters on the nameplate are threaded separately.

“I don’t know when or how we can automate the chain of production. We need hands. There are a lot of pieces to fit together to make all the jerseys and we need people to do that,” Berard. That said, he said there are 200 people working year-round on manufacturing NHL jerseys.

“I would say about 10% of our factory is actual hockey fans. Other guys take great pride in working on NHL jerseys and seeing their product on TV about two months after it passes through their hands. ”

Brian Jennings, the NHL’s senior executive vice president of marketing and chief branding officer, has known the Berards for years. He has visited the factory in Saint-Hyacinthe and is amazed by their process.

“There’s something about the humility of the province, their pride,” he said. “If you went into the factory and walked around, you saw seamstresses, some of whom had been working there all their lives.”

Adidas launches its design Deal with the NHL in 2017. Its run included some bold designs and innovations – such as colorful reverse retro jerseys. But by the end of the deal, the league and Adidas were no longer in alliance, Jennings said. While Adidas began making shirts, hats, and locker room apparel, the company gradually began to focus on authentic jerseys.

Fanatics has been producing that kind of gear for the NHL for the past few seasons. “It was a natural evolution of our business with them,” Jennings said.

Berard said any concerns about Fanatics handling an NHL jersey design for the first time were calmed when he met their team and saw familiar names and faces in the industry.

“We knew we’d be working with a team that knows the NHL. We never had any concerns at that point. We weren’t saying, ‘Oh, are they going to lower the quality or make decisions like that? Will we take those that we don’t know about?'” he said. “When we met with the team it was really great news for us and we knew they wanted to continue to deliver the same quality jerseys we have been making for almost 50 years.”

It’s a team that includes Keith Leach, previously with CCM, Reebok and Adidas, who has been appointed as NHL VP/GM of Fanatics Brands to lead the project.

Leach said the first thing Fanatics did was build a strong uniform team that included Dom Filano, who was the lead designer at Adidas and helped develop the Vegas Golden Knights’ identity.

“We’re keeping it close to the standard of jerseys on the ice so the players feel a seamless transition,” Leach said. “We talked to players and teams and equipment managers to find out what was working and what wasn’t working.”

Leach’s team kept hearing one thing: Adidas jerseys had durability problems around the sleeves, which were breaking due to friction. He said the team believes this is a shift from regular clothes to recycled clothes. So the team built some pattern reinforcement into the arm, brought it back to the players and equipment managers, and got a thumbs-up from them.

Other changes to the uniform in Year 1:

• New shoulder fabric replacing the debossed pattern fabric used on the shoulders of former NHL jerseys.

• A new NHL Shield execution on the front neck of the jersey featuring a special hologram finish.

• Fanatics branding is embroidered on the back neck of the jersey.

• A redesigned on-ice player practice jersey, which now features an embroidered lightweight crest.

While the discussion with the players was informative, it was also a bit public relations. Fanatics had been creating apparel and headwear in NHL dressing rooms since 2018. Players needed to be informed that SP apparel is still in the picture.

“We felt like we were already building that strong trust, but it was important for us to say that we are teaming up with an industry leader in similar production and manufacturing,” Leach said. “Our No. 1 consumer is the athlete. We had to build this product to work for the athlete. That was extremely important.”

Undoubtedly, more public relations remained to be done regarding the radicals.

a few months after nhl After announcing its deal with the company, Fanatics received public criticism after Major League Baseball players complained about their new uniforms in spring training.

Players cited small letters on players’ nameplates, transparent clothing and cracks in their pants. While the uniforms bore the Nike logo, they were manufactured by Fanatics.

Ultimately, Fanatics was exonerated by the MLB Players Association, as it was originally a subcontractor creating uniforms based on Nike designs. The union said Fanatics “recognizes the critical importance of asking for feedback from players, getting buy-in from players, and not being afraid to have difficult conversations about jerseys or trading cards.”

Jennings said the NHL suffered “shrapnel” during the Nike baseball uniform controversy.

He said, “Unfortunately, for us, we were attracted to it because we had announced that the Fanatics were coming to our ice surface.”

Jennings said teams were contacting the NHL after hearing about the baseball uniform situation. So he reached out to Fanatics to ask if the league should be concerned.

“The good news is that the truth finally came out and we feel like we’re in good hands,” Jennings said.

The dusting of the entire baseball uniform was essentially Berard’s worst fear. “It’s kind of a nightmare where everyone is taking pictures of something that doesn’t work and it’s all public everywhere,” he said.

Berard is bracing himself for negative feedback, whether it’s needed or not.

“It’ll be fun to see what fans and people will say at the beginning of the season, because it’s the same jersey. So people will probably complain about something that doesn’t exist,” he said. ,

Fanatics’ design capabilities will be on display during the 2025 NHL Winter Classic and the 4-Nation Face-Off Tournament next February.

According to Jennings, major innovations to the jerseys and design process won’t happen until 2025-26.

Two teams were allowed to be “grandfathered” in with the new design the following season: the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, both of whom will have new logos and jerseys in 2024–25. They both came to the NHL before the deal with the Fanatics was struck.

While the NHL and Fanatics intended to hold off on new designs this season, there was an unexpected complication: the relocation of the former Arizona Coyotes franchise to Utah, where the temporarily named Utah Hockey Club will begin play the following season.

“Here we had these compressed timeframes that were beyond anything we had dealt with before,” Jennings said. “Got some sleepless nights, but I think he’ll have a good jersey in the draft.”

Jennings said it won’t be their official jersey, but Utah players will receive them sometime in August. There’s one thing both the NHL and Fanatics are excited about: fans will be able to own the jerseys that the Saint-Hyacinthe factory makes.

For the first time in a decade, fans will be able to purchase authentic on-ice jerseys called “Authentic Pro” jerseys.

“Everyone was more focused on that replica jersey, but from fans to collectors, there’s curiosity for it,” Jennings said. “I think the industry has underestimated the demand for a product that is exactly like what they wear on the ice.”

The makers of these jerseys have been stitching them together for decades.