The Hockey News Archive
The NHL’s culture includes a focus on suit-and-tie fashion for players. And in this feature story from THN’s Feb. 10, 2020 edition (Volume 73, Issue 3), Winnipeg Jets star center Mark Scheifele revealed his taste in sharp clothing to THN writer and editor Ronnie Shuker.
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NHLers are renowned for their fashion choices, and Scheifele is no different. And the Jets star explained why his fashion reveals his personality.
“Your suit is showing off your personality,” Scheifele said. “If you’re adventurous, if you’re shy, if you’re outgoing, whatever it is. It shows a different light of the player as opposed to just a guy on the ice. That’s what makes it cool. That’s why I’m more interested in it now. I get to show off that I’m a little goofy, that I’m fun-loving and that I just want to have fun.”
Scheifele is a household name in Winnipeg, but his fashion taste has evolved over the years. He told Shuker that he’s learned from high-profile stars like former New York Rangers superstar Henrik Lundqvist, and he’s now a much more discerning individual when it comes to his suits.
“At the start of my career I only had a black suit, a blue suit and a gray suit, just the simplest things,” Scheifele said. “I’ve started to realize that maybe I can…do a blazer and slacks and maybe I can add a few more things. I started to learn from some of my buddies on the team that are a little more in-depth with fashion, and I feel like my fashion game is only growing from here.”
SHARP-DRESSED SCHEIFELE
By Ronnie Shuker
It’s only 10 A.M., and the photo shoot is already behind schedule. The crew is scurrying about the downtown Montreal studio while a harem of stylists attends to the model behind the curtain in a makeshift changeroom. One stylist is steaming his suit while another messes around with his shirt and blazer. A third is fidgeting with his pants and shoes while a fourth wields a staple gun like a semi-automatic weapon to make the suit fit perfectly.
The model emerges with more staples in the back of his suit than a stationary warehouse. He’s used to being in the spotlight, just not in this way. He steps onto the stage and walks toward the photographer. The lights go up and the camera starts to rapid fire.
Meet Mark Scheifele: budding fashionista and suit connoisseur. “That’s the cool part about fashion,” Scheifele said. “Your suit is showing off your personality, if you’re adventurous, if you’re shy, if you’re outgoing, whatever it is. It shows a different light of the player as opposed to just a guy on the ice. That’s what makes it cool. That’s why I’m more interested in it now. I get to show off that I’m a little goofy, that I’m fun-loving and that I just want to have fun.”
Fun-loving. Scheifele self-ascribes the adjective several times during a short break from the photo shoot for the clothing brand RW&CO. For a long while, Scheifele was regarded as the quintessential hockey nerd – an all-hockey, all-the-time kind of guy. Since arriving in the NHL full time, however, Scheifele has started tapping into another side of himself, one he didn’t even know he had back in 2013-14. By his own admission, he was more fashion faux pas than fashionista back then, as his fashion sense extended about as far as sweatpants. (He admits he didn’t even start wearing jeans until high school.) And doing laundry was a life skill that had evaded him even after the Winnipeg Jets drafted him seventh overall in 2011. Separating lights from darks or determining what temperature to wash certain fabrics? He would’ve preferred a bag skate to staring down the dials of a washing machine.
It wasn’t until Scheifele hit the NHL and had to wear suits on a regular basis that he began to give fashion more than a passing thought. He quickly realized that the spotlight would always be on, even during the off-season, and especially playing in Canada. Since then his clothing consciousness has gradually expanded, and his wardrobe has grown in step with it. Six years later his fashion sense is beginning to rival his hockey IQ. “I want to wear cool-looking things,” Scheifele said. “I’m not going to go and wear a bright pink blazer, but I like to wear blue. I’ve got blue eyes, so I like to wear the color blue a lot. I like a slim fit. I like to think I have an athletic body, so I want to show that off a little bit.”
Scheifele’s first foray into the fashion world was with a handful of Jets teammates at a charity fashion show put on by the NHL Players’ Association in 2015. A couple years later, Independent Jewelers came calling and wrapped some Rolexes around his slick wrists. The next thing Scheifele knew, he was plastered across a bunch of billboards throughout Winnipeg. The hockey nerd had morphed into a fashion model, and his teammates had taken notice. “I definitely got some ribbing after that one,” Scheifele said. “But a lot of the guys just thought it was cool, especially in Winnipeg, where you don’t see it a whole lot. Not a lot of guys are on billboards or in a store or whatever, so when the guys first saw it they were like, ‘That’s really cool. I wish I had something like that.’ So I think it went from ribbing to jealousy pretty quick.”
Scheifele is among a growing number of NHL players, past and present, who have moved into the fashion world in one form or another: P.K. Subban, Steven Stamkos, Sean Avery, Brad Richards, as well as fellow RW&CO. models Johnny Gaudreau, Morgan Rielly and Phillip Danault. Still, only one reigns supreme: Henrik Lundqvist, even as the Rangers goalie enters his late 30s. “He’s still the king of fashion,” Scheifele said. “He’s the best-dressed in the NHL by far. There are other guys who definitely try to do more outrageous things than him, but even if he’s just wearing a standard black suit, he rocks it and makes it look great.”
While Lundqvist remains the NHL’s gold standard, Scheifele says Josh Morrissey is his go-to guy on the Jets for fashion advice. For his part, Morrissey says he doesn’t shy away from being “brutally honest” when dispensing his counsel, but he’s impressed with his teammate’s fashion game and willingness to go outside the box. “I don’t think he’s afraid to try anything,” Morrissey said. “He’s a confident guy, and I think that’s all it is, that’s fashion. If you think something looks cool and you have confidence wearing it, then anyone can pull it off. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you feel good and you think you look good and you have some confidence wearing it, that’s all that matters. I’d say that he’s a confident guy, so he could pull anything off.”
That confidence extends to Scheifele’s goofy side, which still makes the occasional appearance despite his increased level of fashion consciousness since arriving in the NHL. That goofiness came out in full bloom back in 2018, when Scheifele wore a money suit designed with greenbacks all over it as part of a team-bonding “ugly suit” road trip. He would’ve looked a lot goofier had teammate Andrew Copp not upstaged him with a suit that looked like it had lost a fight with a bag of Skittles.
Although he has his limits, Scheifele isn’t afraid to push himself beyond his comfort zone. “I like to try different things,” he said. “I don’t want to be stuck in a rut and wear the same boring suit every day. I want every day to be a new one, if that’s just changing up the tie or the shoes or whatever. I like to have fun with it and see what works. It’s a trial and error thing. I just want to show off the fun-loving side of myself.”
From September to April or May (and someday June) Scheifele is largely limited to hockey. But during the off-season Winnipeg’s “fun-loving guy” gets to indulge in his favored non-hockey pursuits, such as golf, tennis and pickleball, while training in Toronto with Gary Roberts. He’d like to play softball, though for some reason, unbeknownst even to Scheifele, his contract forbids it, along with skydiving and bungee jumping, naturally. Not that he’d be jumping out of an airplane or off a bridge anyway. “I’m not a big adventure junkie,” Scheifele said. “I don’t need that adrenaline. I get satisfaction from the simple things in life.”
Although far from flamboyant, Scheifele’s suits are a distinct departure from what he started out wearing when he made his NHL debut in 2011. And now a veteran of seven NHL seasons, he’s just getting started with his new off-ice pursuit. “At the start of my career I only had a black suit, a blue suit and a gray suit, just the simplest things,” Scheifele said. “Ever since I connected with RW&CO., I’ve started to realize that maybe I can try this, maybe I can do a blazer and slacks and maybe I can add a few more things. I started to learn from some of my buddies on the team that are a little more in-depth with fashion, and I feel like my fashion game is only growing from here.”
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- Archive: Jets Star Scheifele's Sense Of Fashion Influenced By Rangers Icon Goalie Lundqvist
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