The EDGE 2.0 thread

[puckboy33]

That Canucks jersey is hideous (for other reasons besides being a Canucks jersey) - Nothing is stitched on anymore, the logos and wordmark are all embroidered into the jersey like old Starter and Pro Player replicas. Only difference is, the RBK jerseys are garbage......

If you look closely at the pics, it looks like the Reebok wordmark logo isn't even embroidered onto the jersey. Looks like it's either screened or sublimated.

[CJ Matthews]

So... social media really does work! I made a comment to the retail marketing guy at NHL HQ on twitter, about the inferior quality of the new jerseys, and he sent me a private message asking me to send him an email and elaborate. Would people like to contribute so I can tell him exactly what our problems are with the new merchandise? Would any of you object to me directing him to this forum or thread?

[VancouverDale]

Just an update I got from the seller.

" My supplier got back to me and they may not be none left (either someone got it all in the last few days – or they took ti down).

I am still waiting for confirmation but if that is the csse, I will have to refund you"

I've asked for the refund. Lol

[KaneIsDirty]

So... social media really does work! I made a comment to the retail marketing guy at NHL HQ on twitter, about the inferior quality of the new jerseys, and he sent me a private message asking me to send him an email and elaborate. Would people like to contribute so I can tell him exactly what our problems are with the new merchandise? Would any of you object to me directing him to this forum or thread?

Please send him the think to this thread to show him how disappointed we are with Reebok. This needs to get out to the public and not just the jersey collecting community.

[jerseymikea]

oh dear lord that indo Canucks is just so bad...the replica looks 10x nicer

I was in D1ck's today and saw the Reebok replicas with the wordmark next to the vector from last year. The new replica looked and felt lighter in weight. It was funny that the Flyers' Bobrovsky jerseys had the wordmark and the Jagr jerseys were vectors. Maybe it was the fact that the Vector jerseys actually had twill customization and the wordmark jerseys had that sublistitch,,, but I even think the sublistitch felt a lot cheaper. Maybe it's just me.

[ncthorn]

So... social media really does work! I made a comment to the retail marketing guy at NHL HQ on twitter, about the inferior quality of the new jerseys, and he sent me a private message asking me to send him an email and elaborate. Would people like to contribute so I can tell him exactly what our problems are with the new merchandise? Would any of you object to me directing him to this forum or thread?

Interesting. Perhaps look through the thread and make a few bulletpoints for him. Then, send him a link to this thread so he can see where you are coming from.

A few might be:

1. Cheap/lighter material than gamers

2. Unreinforced fight straps that use thin material

3. Made in Indonesia

4. Lack of tagging/Easy to fake

5. Machine stitching is similar to fakes

6. Neck ties shouldn't actually tie

7. Overall, the jersey fits smaller and weighs less than an on-ice model, heavy jerseys aren't necessarily bad in the middle of the winter

Im sure others could help add more.

[JohnnyOnTheSpot]

I would put extreme emphasis on the fact that they're not what's being worn, and never worn. So it's not authentic. And that there is no authentic retail version. That alone should be enough if you ask me. Plus, that thing is poop.

[mikey3319]

Haha johnny said poop. lol

The league or whatever wont do anything about it...like i said we are 3% of the retail market..the average fan doesnt know or wont care where it was made or looks.. they will think its the exact on ice jersey..reebok knows this

[chow_hound]

Please give him the link, and also if he wants email addresses here's mine. chow_hound@hotmail.com

While it could be a long shot the only way to initiate change is to make a statement and it doesn't matter if it's Nike, RBK, CCM or whoever, just because the brand made a bad decision doesn't mean the whole brand is awful.

2.0's are actually great quality and I think the focus here would be making Reebok understand that the AVERAGE consumer who purchases a hockey jersey for wearing to games or going to the bar (and represents the 99% of the market) doesn't care if it's an Edge, Premier, Indo-edge or a 2.0; they just want an affordable jersey to wear when they support their team. (Hence why the fake market is thriving, average fans just want cheap jerseys that model what the players wear)

So in simple for the average fan, sell a cheap priced retail premier jersey as they currently offer for around $100. (Must cost less than $20 to manufacture all in, so 80% margin per jersey is solid revenue)

Other then that, for the serious collectors sell the same F(&^*** jersey as worn on the ice. Think about it logically, currently if any fan who is a non collector but wants the "high end" model and is willing to spend $300 on a piece of crap from Indonesia (no offense to the country or people from there) you would think they would buy a 2.0 for the same price in a heart beat as the cost is the same to them. While the Margins to be made by selling Canadian made 2.0's is less than selling Indonesian made, it's better to sell 100 2.0's for $150 Profit each then 50 Indo's $200 profit each. They are simply alienating the entire hobby of collectors who will refuse to buy a substandard product and don't realize that because the quality is so poor, anyone who would consider buying an Edge would just as well buy a Premier and save the $200 and arguably have an equal quality product. At this point, the only difference between the retail edge and retail premier is a poorly assembled fight strap.

There is no point to cutting costs on the High End Model which probably represents 5% of total jersey sales (95% being the premier) as the profit would be significantly higher to reduce costs of the Premier which is sold EVERYWHERE and would generate greater cash returns.

The whole point to buying a Ferrari is it's made in Italy, Top performing, Sleek, and Driven by the elite.

Try selling a car collector a Made in China Repli-Car, built on a Fiero Chassis, With a Toyota Engine, and tell him it's "the same thing you'd get in Milan"... Pathetic.

[KaneIsDirty]

The whole point to buying a Ferrari is it's made in Italy, Top performing, Sleek, and Driven by the elite.

Try selling a car collector a Made in China Repli-Car, built on a Fiero Chassis, With a Toyota Engine, and tell him it's "the same thing you'd get in Milan"... Pathetic.

LOVE THIS ANALOGY!

[mikey3319]

LOVE THIS ANALOGY!

yep.. agreed!! pro jerseys were always made in canada.. KEEP IT THAT WAY!!!!!!!!!! hell even the ccm koho replicas were made in canada

[DropkickMurphy8]

I was in the NHL Store again tonight (went to Top of the Rock, and the store is basically across the street) and they still have no new EDGE jerseys, and the manager tried to convince me they were going to be selling 2.0's. Naturally I called him out and he played dumb, gave me the "oh well they come from Canada so I don't know"

I DID try on two replicas though, one from last year with the vector and one from this year with the wordmark (which IS a patch, surprisingly) - The one from this year was VERY thin, but it fit bigger. Last year's was constructed better, but fit tighter. At this point, I can't say I'm buying a WC jersey this year. I'm curious as to what Doubled Teamed at MSG is gonna be selling. If they have 2.0's, I would honestly just buy like an Erixson jersey at the end of the season and pay Mike to strip it and it would still be cheaper than buying a Callahan at full price. I'll be at the Anaheim game on the 3rd, and maybe the Winnipeg game on the 6th (maybe opening night too if tickets come down before I go to class on Thursday) so I'll ask questions and see if I can find out anything worthwhile for the Rangers collectors among us.

[flountown]

I just posted a little question on their facebook page, essentially asking how you can call something authentic when it is simply not the same as worn on ice.

Edit: And they deleted it, but I got one 'like' before the man took me down.

[chadarini]

Edge 2.0 jersey are actually very quality like you said. We need to make them realize they have a quality product 99% of hockey fans don't even know exist.

[ncthorn]

Good job flountown. It might also be smart to post on the official team message boards as well just to let people that arent necessarily collectors know that Reebok is screwing people with these.

[JohnnyOnTheSpot]

I saw we get a ###### petition together. Get everyone we've ever met to sign it, and pray it garnishes some attention. Flood NHL, Reebok, teams, retailers with it and hope for the best.

I'm also down for occupy NHL store. Those dirty hippies have some good ideas lol.

[NYIJM29]

Occupy the NHL Store? Like that'd work...thats just what Reebok wants. All of us will max our credit cards out in a matter of minutes.

[flountown]

Occupy the NHL Store? Like that'd work...thats just what Reebok wants. All of us will max our credit cards out in a matter of minutes.

Not on this garbage...

I also sent an email to the Puck Daddy to see if he could put together a blog post educating people on the Indo-Edge atrocity.

[DropkickMurphy8]

LMFAO! Occupy NHL Store. If I wasn't a full time student I'd totally do that. In other news, the NHL Store is selling patches for the Premiere series, along with WC patches and Rangers 85th patches (I thought they looked small though) - Oh, Winnipeg patches too.

I have hockey fans in one of my classes, I'm going to take it upon myself to educate the uninformed about why they should never ever buy a retail authentic with the Reebok wordmark on it. Can't hurt to spread the word, maybe it saves somebody from shelling out 300 bucks on a POS jersey that isn't even close to what the players are wearing.

[rabinsurance]

Plain and simple, the Edge 2.0 jerseys are hand made items, with bigger labor and material costs. To move production overseas, use more automation in production, and use less expensive materials most likely lowers the costs by as much as 80% or more. Very few textile products are made in North America anymore. So for Reebok to save 80% or more in costs they will more than gladly take some small criticism by a small vocal minority if it means that they can come to the market place with a less expensive "authentic" jersey and make a much greater profit. As a collector, I hate Reebok and what they have done to jerseys in all the leagues that they have the contract for. And I have basically stopped buying jerseys over the past 4 years. But when you look at it from a business standpoint, what they are doing makes sense. And at the end of the day, that's exactly what this is for them. A business.

[ncthorn]

Rabinsurance: As a business student, I completely understand what you are saying and I don't disagree. The problem is that if we just roll over and take it then nothing will ever be done. Sure, it isn't likely changes will be made, but increasing awareness can't be bad. Hell, if they were made in Indonesia with the same materials and same standards as the Canadian made ones, I wouldn't care. Problem is, this isn't the case at all.

I also sent Puck Daddy an e-mail which reads as follows:

Puck Daddy,

A fellow hockey jersey collector claims to have emailed you about this very topic, but I wanted to make sure that you get a feel for the sort of frustration many of us feel towards the way Reebok has chosen to market jerseys this year. As you may be aware, the EDGE jerseys were intensely unpopular with players initially as the water resistant material tended to drain sweat into players' already sweaty gloves. As a result, Reebok came up with the EDGE 2.0 jerseys that are more durable and use the older style airknit instead of the new Play-Dry material. These 2.0s have been the predominant jerseys worn by players for the past 3 years, but were never sold at retail and the authentic style jerseys available at team stores and retail outlets continued to be the 1.0 style.

Recently, Reebok has replaced the 1.0 retail style with a half-baked Indonesian made replacement that is being sold as authentic. As I am sure you know, real authentics are made in Canada and are of very high quality. These Indo-EDGES as we have come to call them are much lower quality than the true on-ice 2.0s and are significantly lighter weight. Unfortunately for Reebok, a number of us own game worn jerseys and can tell the difference. Not only is the quality much less, but as a result of cheap, automated production these jerseys share construction similarities with the Chinese fakes that the NHL works so hard to combat. These new jerseys even lack neck tagging ans simply have the size and "Made in Indonesia" label printed on the inside collar. One of the best ways to tell a legitimate jersey from a fake has always been to examine the tagging for misspellings and incorrect fonts. Now, buyers are going to struggle to tell which jerseys are legitimate and which are fakes.

Lastly, Reebok calls these jerseys authentics and claims they are what the players wear on-ice. This is as false as advertising gets and is borderline insulting. Please help to educate potential buyers about these abominations and help push Reebok towards offering us collectors and fans a true authentic jersey.

Here is a link to a thread on the IceJerseys forums where we have followed this issue over the past few months: http://forums.icejerseys.com/index.php?showtopic=3539&st=500

Thanks for your time

[Burnaby Joe Sakic]

I picked up Stastny's. I originally bid on Lindstrom's when they first started but then that got higher and I didn't really feel like spending that money on a "nobody" player. So I figured i'd go all out on Stastny. Forsberg was my favorite player growing up and Stastny is my favorite player now. So it only made sense. This is my first "gamer" that i'll actually receive. I preordered Giroux's Set One Away jersey with the Flyers but that won't come in for a while.

On a side note, I don't know if this is allowed to ask but you post on HFboards don't you?

I do. I'm Avs Hockey Podcast there. Great pickup too. You didn't play around there.

[DropkickMurphy8]

Rabinsurance: As a business student, I completely understand what you are saying and I don't disagree. The problem is that if we just roll over and take it then nothing will ever be done. Sure, it isn't likely changes will be made, but increasing awareness can't be bad. Hell, if they were made in Indonesia with the same materials and same standards as the Canadian made ones, I wouldn't care. Problem is, this isn't the case at all.

I also sent Puck Daddy an e-mail which reads as follows:

You spelled "and" wrong :-p....but seriously, well done. I'm educating some friends on Facebook about the crap Reebok is pushing as "authentic" and that they should just buy replicas instead, since the Indo-EDGE is a glorified replica with a fight strap. I'm going to be very angry when I look at jerseys on eBay and can't tell the real ones from the knockoffs. Hell, I think the knockoffs might be of better quality than this Indo-crap.

If we really want to ###### off Reebok, we should all stage a protest at the NHL Store wearing bootleg jerseys to show that they're constructed better than what the official supplier is selling....

[ncthorn]

Aww man thats what I get for typing on my 12" HP TouchSmart. Should have done it on the Alienware M17x... Oh well haha. I don't expect much, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

[Krendelev]

I just posted a little question on their facebook page, essentially asking how you can call something authentic when it is simply not the same as worn on ice.

Edit: And they deleted it, but I got one 'like' before the man took me down.

If you are Andrew M your post is still there. I just responded to it.

http://www.facebook.com/ReebokHockey?sk=wall&filter=1