5 Great Things About the St. Louis Blues’ Victory in the Winter Classic
5. Ken Hitchcock’s Fedora
Over the Winter Classic’s nine-year history, a few coaches have made some bold fashion statements. More often than not, though, they’ve stuck to the status quo, wearing a letterman jacket and perhaps a baseball cap or a toque. While Ken Hitchcock has long been known as one of the NHL’s most quick-witted head coaches off the ice, he generally maintains a brash, intense demeanor during games, so it would have been easy to see Hitchcock dressing conservatively for Monday’s game. It seemed as if the best we could hope for would be one of Hitchcock’s signature hoodies.
Instead, Hitchcock shocked the world and played along as well as any coach ever has during a Winter Classic game. In addition to the standard letterman jacket, Hitchcock wore a fedora that caused him to draw comparisons to both Cam Newton and a mob boss on social media. Hitchcock apparently bought the hat himself from Levine Hat Co. last week.
After the Blues’ win, Hitchcock admitted to having reservations about wearing the hat for the game. Once he sensed that the players enjoyed the look, though, he went through with it. Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Jeremy Rutherford:
Hitch walked into the #stlblues locker room pre-game and took a poll with players whether to wear the hat. They loved it.
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) January 2, 2017
The question now looms: does Hitchcock have to keep wearing the fedora as long as the Blues keep winning?