Minnesota Athletics: Holiday Season Gift Guide #TBT

Several years ago I completely ripped this idea off of Paul Lukas’ annual ‘Uni Watch Holiday Gift Guide’. It’s been pretty popular, although no reader has ever bought ME anything, thanks for nothing. Without further ado, here is this years installment.

Auction Items

Gopher Sports is auctioning a bunch of official gear off. From awesome Gopher football Goldy helmets, Bronko Nagurski prints, to an incredibly sweet softball helmet with retro Goldy, or a game worn white hockey jersey (#15) and more this auction has something for everyone. Winning any of these items will probably empty your bank account though.

Clothing

There is a lot of really great vintage t-shirts on Etsy this year. Perhaps none more intriguing than the above shirt, which seems to present an alternate history.

• Here is a sweet 1970s Angry Goldy shirt that says “GOLD RUSH”
• More Angry Goldy, this time on a sweater
• NCAA ICE HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP sweater
• Faux 1980s football shirsey
• Taz from Looney Tunes collab with Gopher basketball from the 1980s?! Smash.
• J.B. Bickerstaff game worn jersey (with a pretty lol price)
• 1992-1995 Apex Chris Darkins jersey (at a much more reasonable price)

Pennants and Buttons

Show em who you root for by buying a pennant! Especially with this pennant allegedly from 1910 (not sure how the seller arrived at that date.

• This 1940s mini pennant is more affordable at $15
• Homecoming pin from 1947 “Whipurdue”
• ‘Mardi Gras’ themed homecoming from 1941

Photographs!

This is my yearly rant about this. If you are familiar with this just skip it.

You like historic pictures, I mean who doesn't? Giving historic sports images to the person who has everything says, "bullshit you don't have everything, here is a cool as hell photo to put in a frame and on your wall."

You can buy Gopher images for football, basketball or hockey either from the Minnesota Historical Society or Ebay. From MNHS what you are buying will be a reproduction made from the original, you can buy it online and it'll be shipped to your door. I have several of these and no one knows it's not the real thing, suckers.

If you want an actual print from the 1940s go on over to ebay, collectors are out here selling real photos all the time. Most of these photos come from a guy called John Rogers, who is kind of an a-hole. So I'd advocate you don't buy them.