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 Tag: Turtle Neck Sweaters ne of the big attractions at the BC Sports Hall of Fame is a

life-sized mannequin of hockey star Fred (Cyclone) Taylor, the star of Vancouver's only

Stanley Cup-winning team, the 1915 Vancouver Millionaires.There is a small problem, though.

No Millionaires sweaters from 1915 are known to have survived. Cyclone's mannequin is

actually wearing an old Ottawa Senators sweater -- the team the Millionaires beat to win the

Stanley Cup.This has bothered local hard-rock singer Thor for years. Thor is such a hard-

core Millionaires fan, he copyrighted the name a few years ago and has been reproducing

Millionaires merchandise.Now he has produced a replica of the 1915 Millionaires sweater,

which he will present to the BC Sports Hall of Fame May 1, so that the Cyclone can be shown

in the proper duds.When he says a replica, he means it.The sweater is made from wool, just

like in the old days, and has the 1915 "V" logo, which Thor's wife Kathryn painstakingly

studied and reproduced from old photos.There are no colour photos of the Millionaires

jersey, so they lifted the sweater's maroon colour off a 1920s Vancouver Lions jersey (the

Millionaires became the Lions a few years after their Cup victory).They even consulted the

Vancouver Heritage Foundation's True Colours heritage paint program to get the proper

colour.The result is quite amazing -- a brand-new 1915 sweater."If you didn't know any

better, and beat the jersey up a little bit, it could look like a true jersey that was worn

by one of the Millionaires players," said Jason Beck, curator of the BC Sports Hall of

Fame."They've done a fantastic job. It's as authentic a reproduction as you will find for a

jersey of this period."Indeed. One of the most distinctive features of the jersey is its

cream turtleneck, probably a holdover from the days when hockey was played outdoors."They

would either use a crew neck or a turtle neck back then," explained Thor, whose real name is

John Mikl."The elbow pads were worn over the uniform, and there's no room for shoulder pads

or anything like that. They got hurt quite a bit. They would actually hit each other with

sticks and break their collarbones all the time."Thor plans to produce a limited-edition

reissue of the wool jersey, which will sell for about $300. If a real one still existed, it

would probably be worth tens of thousands of dollars.But most Millionaires memorabilia went

up in smoke when the team's home, the Denman Arena, burned down in 1936.Taylor still had a

1907 Ottawa jersey in his own collection, which he donated to the Hall in 1966 and which the

mannequin wears today.Beck thinks it should remain on Taylor, because it is a genuine Taylor

jersey, but says the reproduction Millionaires jersey will probably be placed in the same

display.Taylor apparently did have some Millionaires jerseys in his possession, but he let

his kids play with them and they eventually wore out and were thrown in the trash.The Taylor

family still owns Cyclone Taylor's sports store empire. But the family doesn't seem to be

big into memorabilia -- they don't have any vintage Cyclone stuff.Cyclone's grandson Mark

also played in the National Hockey League with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington, but

says he didn't even have any of his own jerseys until his wife found one on a website and

bought for him for a birthday present.Then he tells a story from his childhood."We had Paul

Henderson's stick at our house, the stick he scored the game-winning goal [with] in the

Russia series [in 1972]," he recounted."I remember when we were little kids, we had it

outside and were about to start playing street hockey with it, 'til my mom stopped us.I

don't know why my granddad had it, but he had it for a week or something."We were just

little guys, so we didn't appreciate the value of it, or the meaning behind it."