DALLAS, Texas — Fashion and hockey aren't often used in the same sentence. Walk around the American Airlines Center during a Dallas Stars playoff game, and you'll see a lot of jerseys and t-shirts.
The apparel of fans always feels predictable, but one group of Stars fans really stands out from the rest.
Yes, indeed. The wives and girlfriends of players are the only ones sporting an exclusive, non-replicable item of clothing in the arena: their 2023 playoff jackets.
You may not know this, but if an NHL team is lucky enough to make it to the postseason, it also means their WAGs (wives and girlfriends) are responsible for designing a unique jacket they sport during the team's run.
The tradition is believed to have started in 2017 when the WAGs of the Washington Capitals started wearing matching denim jackets with players' names on the back of them during the playoffs.
"Everyone looks forward to when we get the green light to start talking about playoff jackets," defenseman Joel Hanley's wife, Kate, said. "Every year, it's been getting bigger and bigger, which is so cool."
This year, the LF bomber jackets the ladies are sporting are incredibly unique and sentimental.
Each has patches, logos, numbers, bands and names from jerseys their boys have worn on the ice.
The girlfriends of Miro Heiskanen and Roope Hintz were in charge of the design this year.
"We've been on a bunch of different teams, and you don't get this on every team," Brittany Wedgewood said, the wife of goalie Scott Wedgewood. "It brings us together as a team."
"We're so grateful to have them in time for playoffs, they're so sick," Kate Kirchof, the fiancee of center Tyler Seguin, said. "It's so much fun seeing all the jackets from around the league and what the girls come up with."
Ever since 2017, the playoff jacket tradition has grown and popularized, too.
On TikTok, users often rank and rate the best ones of the postseason.
Last year, the Stars' WAGs chose to do leather jackets with the boys' names painted on their sleeves by Taylor Kampa Olson.
This year, the WAGs from the New Jersey Devils ran with the same idea, and Olson painted their jackets.
"It's just so fun to have a fashionable token of the team with the girls all together," Kirchof said.
Hanley laughed, adding that she doesn't have to plan an outfit for any playoff games.
"We're all such a close group of girls. It's enjoyable to experience this together, with our jackets, and support the guys," Hanley said.
As for the anxiety playoff hockey brings, the ladies add that they experience it just like any fan.
But, at least they get to talk to the guys after the game. After the Stars dropped the first games of the Wild and Kraken series in overtime, some nerves had to be calmed.
"It felt so sad," Wedgewood said. "But then we were laughing about it the next day because the guys came home and were like, 'Oh, it's just game one.'"
Glad to know the guys on the ice weren't fazed by any of that.
*insert nervous laughter*
The Stanley Cup Finals are slated to begin on June 8. The ladies hope they wear their jackets until then.
"We're not going home before June," Wedgewood said.