January 17 --- On Thursday night, the NHL Auction ended for the gear from the New Year's Day Winter Classic, a blockbuster regular-season match-up in Buffalo between the Sabres and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.  This was a game seen by more viewers on TV in the U.S. than any other regular-season NHL game in at least 10 years.

If you've been following this specific jersey story on BallHype and blogs such as Going Five Hole, you know that long before the game took place there were plans to auction some of the prized merchandise, certified by the MeiGray Group.  Little did anyone know then though, just how big of a deal this was going to be, especially in the case of the one specific game-worn jersey of Sidney Crosby, who in the game scored the winning goal in spectacular fashion in front of a record U.S. crowd for hockey.  Over 71,000 saw this game in person on a snowy afternoon at Ralph Wilson Stadium, normally the home of the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

The clothing for both teams and the pucks had special designs just for this one game, thus there was automatic value for collectors. 

The one game-worn Crosby jersey, when first offered at auction on NHL.com two weeks ago, had a starting bid of $ 5000.00, and immediately shot up to over $ 20,000.00 within a few hours.  By closing time of the 14-day auction on January 17, the winning bid was exactly $ 45,000.00

Many other items were offered, and while none came close to that one in the bids offered, goal-scoring pucks and several other players' jerseys did each go for many thousands of dollars in the end.  I thought that the pucks were especially cool, but even the lowly non-scoring game pucks went for too much for my own meager budget constraints.

Budget-conscience NHL memorabilia collectors can find non-WINTER CLASSIC items on the official site at any time.  Not as shiny as as Sidney Crosby jersey but no less current is one particular item for any Predators fan, as an example, and one that is actually available and at a fixed price.  The "Nashville Predators Jordin Tootoo Whistle" goes for 10 bucks.  No apparent limit on quantities there; knock yourself out !

author: BallHype member ric-s    auction site: auctions.nhl.com