Players wearing numbers because of other players

[gretzkyoilers]

Howe -> Gretzky -> Lemieux connection, right?

Gretzky: "He originally wanted to wear number 9—for his hockey hero Gordie Howe—but it was already being worn by teammate Brian Gualazzi. At coach Muzz MacPherson's suggestion, Gretzky settled on 99."

Mario: "”66 is 99 upside down, and I had the same agent as Wayne as a junior, and I wanted to have my own number,” Lemieux once told Sportsnet."

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Ed Belfour switched to #20 while in San Jose because of his coach/mentor from Chicago, Vladislav Tretiak.

iirc belfour first wore 20 to honour tretiak at an all-star game while still in chicago

 

[Bear of Bad News]

iirc belfour first wore 20 to honour tretiak at an all-star game while still in chicago

I remember him wearing #00 in that circumstance (documentation follows) but not #20.

I could be wrong - I'm usually wrong.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I remember him wearing #00 in that circumstance (documentation follows) but not #20.

View attachment 871723

I could be wrong - I'm usually wrong.

i think i’m probably misremembering what you describe

but i do remember some discussion of a tretiak tribute. there’s no way 00 was some oblique tretiak tribute is there? i just looked it up and belfour wore 29 at the canada cup, so it wasn’t there...

 

[scribe114]

Trottier set off a whole tree of 19s and 91s. Sakic already mentioned, and Fedorov belongs to that tree, and then for a while there were so many high end centres wearing 19 or 91 because of Yzerman and Sakic. Thornton, Seguin, Spezza, Toews, Tavares, Stamkos, Backstrom. I'm sure there are others I can't call to mind. If you were an elite Canadian centre from the mid 2000s through the mid 2010s odds are you were wearing 19 or 91.

Butch Goring took 91 when he moved to the Islanders because Trottier was wearing 19.

 

[scribe114]

Bobby Hull went through 16 and 7 before getting number 9 in admiration of Howe. He took 7 after Ted Lindsay retired, and 9 after Tod Sloan retired after the 1960-61 season.

When Howe and Hull played for the Whalers Howe of course wore 9 and Hull took his original number 16. They would do the same for All Star Games.

 

[Voight]

Not sure how much this "counts" but I know Stamkos ended up with 91 because he and Tavares played for the same team, coached by Stammers dad. Both wanted 19, and the Senior Stamkos didn't want be seen as biased so he gave 19 to Tavares and Stamkos obviously did the reverse of that.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

Nick Lidstrom asked for number 9 when he came to Detroit.

 

[Leafshater67]

I tried to get #69 in midget because we got New Jerseys. When my jersey showed up, it was #6 which is an okay number. I tried boys, I just wanted to represent my favorite Washington capital Mel Angelstad. It was 3-4 years after that but I thought him wearing it was so cool at the time.

 

[Crosby2010]

Gretzky had a trainer tell him to wear two 9s on his back when on his junior team a teammate of Gretzky's was already wearing the coveted Gordie Howe #9.

 

[DrandonBudinsky]

I’m not sure if I’m misremembering this, but I could have sworn I saw somewhere that Artemi Panarin wears 10 because of Pavel Bure. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

Bure did wear number 9 when he was on the Rangers, but obviously that number is not available since it’s retired twice for Adam Graves and Andy Bathgate