The saying 'What's in a name?’ was made famous by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but we think that the saying ‘what’s in a number?’ hasn’t been explored nearly enough.
The number that each individual hockey player wears generally has a deep, personal meaning, or a story that goes along with why they wear it. It’s easy to understand why players opt for classic numbers that exist on every team, but what about the weirder numbers?
There are a few players in NHL history that have gone completely off the board with jersey numbers, so here are the five rarest ones in NHL history.
*NOTE, the only existing database for NHL jersey numbers starts in the 1950-51 season*
98
Before 2017, this number had only been worn once in NHL history by Minnesota North Stars player Brian Lawton. Since then, Jesse Puljujarvi, Victor Mete, and Mikhail Sergachev have also joined the 98 club.
99
We bet you can think of one player who wore the league-wide retired number 99, but can you name the other two guys who’ve rocked this one? Aside from Wayne Gretzky, the Winnipeg Jets' Rick Dudley wore this for one season in ’81, and the Leafs Wilf Paiement wore it from ’81-’83. The Great One made this number famous from 1980-1999, and no one will ever sport it again.
69
Yeah, yeah, laugh at Rob Gronkowski’s favourite number before we give you the full analysis on this one. Only two players (other than Jesse Pollock) have rocked 69 in the NHL; The Capitals’ Mel Angelstad in 2004, and the Sharks’ Andrew Desjardins in 2011 and 2012.
0
The lone goose egg is the only number in NHL history that’s only been worn by one player, and it was by Neil Sheehy of the Hartford Whalers in 1988.
00
It’s mind-boggling to us that double zero is more common than plain old zero, but that’s the case! While zero was only worn once 00 has been worn twice: once by Martin Biron for the Sabres in 1996, and once by John Davidson for the Rangers in 1978.
