Penguins Merchandise Flies Off Shelves After Stanley Cup Victory

Stanley Cup Champs T-Shirts Among Top Selling Penguins Items

More than 500 people in the early hours Saturday morning "had come and gone ... hauling bags crammed with championship T-shirts, as well as pennants, magnets and other doodads" at a Pittsburgh-area Dick's Sporting Goods location to celebrate the Penguins' Stanley Cup championship, according to Fuoco & Schackner of the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE. The sales were so active that "some sizes quickly sold out, but shipments to restock the championship merchandise tables arrived all day" Saturday. The "much-sought steel gray Stanley Cup championship hats didn't arrive at the store until" 8:30am ET Saturday, and demand was so high that a sales associate "simply lifted them out of just-opened boxes and handed them to waiting customers without ever putting them on the sales table." Penguins fans also "queued in line at PenStation, the Penguins team store at Mellon Arena, for the post-championship opening" at 7:00am Saturday. The approximately 1,000 customers "who crowded the store in the first 2 1/2 hours of operations snatched up so much merchandise that certain sizes sold out" (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 6/14).

BLUE LINE SPECIAL: Pittsburgh-based retail store Mike Feinberg Company Owner Marcia Hellman said, "Saturday, when we opened the doors, they were flying in; we had championship t-shirts. We couldn't keep them in stock." Hellman said that she has "doubled in her sales of hockey merchandise since the Pens Cup run" (KDKA.com, 6/15). Pittsburgh-area J.C. Penney Sales Manager Traci Kral said that the official Penguins locker room T-shirts were "hot items, as were children's shirts." Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Liz Hayes noted the Steelers' February win in Super Bowl XLIII "prepared local retailers for the crush of customers looking for Pittsburgh Penguins gear on Saturday" (VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH, 6/14).

BEHIND THE GEAR: YAHOO SPORTS' Greg Wyshynski detailed the creation of the '09 Stanley Cup Champions merchandise. When the process began several months ago, "all the NHL and Reebok had was 'the coolest trophy in sports' as a starting point." The development of championship hats and shirts "from concept to the shelves of retail stores [Saturday] morning was challenging and complicated." There are "plenty of mysteries in this process; many of them are solved in taking a look at the step-by-step journey of the 2009 Stanley Cup champions gear from Reebok." After "general conceptualization of the gear is complete, the details start falling into place; as in what it will be built from and how to make it attractive to the eye." Despite the "tug-of-war over marketing and publicity that occurs between the NHL and NHLPA at times," NHL VP/Consumer Products Jim Haskins said that the league "has a 'tacit agreement' with the players that they'll wear the gear after the game." Haskins: "They do benefit from the sale of the goods through the terms of the CBA. They're a part of the business" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 6/13).