It always seems as though the numbers are all over the place. I get that they can’t just be numbered 1 – 11 as the team is often much larger and will differ per starting lineup but who delegates who wears the ‘number 40’ shirt and does the team even have that much players with reserves & substitutes taken into account?
Who decides who gets to inherit a number from a retired legend for example?
In: 8
Ice Hockey here.
It is largely left up to the players to determine which number they want to wear. That said, history tends to influence player preferences.
For example, goalies will typically wear 1, 30, and 31. Lots of players wear between 1-31 because those numbers might have been all that was available growing up in minor hockey (although this is changing). There is also a concentration of highly skilled players that wear numbers over 60.
Lastly, you have the legendary numbers where it is an unwritten rule that you don’t wear them unless you are a top talent. 4, 9, 19, 66, 68, 87, 88, 91, 99.
For 99 (Gretzky), it’s retired league-wide, so you literally can’t wear it. Though it’s not retired in other leagues, from minor hockey to beer league, most players will not wear 99 – and those that do better have the skill to back it up or else you will be the subject of lots of trash talking from opposing teams.
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