If you see a social media post praising NHL players’ outfits, there’s a pretty solid chance that several Utah Mammoth players appear in the photos.
This is the first season in which the NHL is allowing its players full autonomy over their outfit choices. The previous collective bargaining agreement mandated that they had to wear suits, but the only guideline now is that they “dress in a manner that is consistent with contemporary fashion norms.”
Mammoth defenseman Mikhail Sergachev has been at the forefront of the charge, hiring a stylist to “work on (his) game.”
“It’s just mixing sports stuff with the classics,” he told the Deseret News. “It can be a sports coat with a tie and shirt, nice pants, or it can be, like, baggy pants, nice top. It depends.”
Sergachev met the stylist at a friend’s dinner party over the summer. Her résumé includes working at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and collaborations with Nike.
She hadn’t worked with men in the last eight years, but she was willing to give it another try with Sergachev.
Dmitri Simashev, who famously lived with Sergachev’s family for the first month of the season, has also drawn attention for his interpretation of the “contemporary fashion norms” required by the CBA. But he didn’t hire a stylist.
“He’s using me,” Sergachev said abruptly. “I try to help out as much as I can. He’s got a great sense of style. He’s good.”
Mammoth captain Clayton Keller is also aboard the fashion train.
“I’ve always been into fashion and shoes and things like that,” he said. “My dad, growing up, was always just, like, big into shoes, so I guess that’s where I got mine from.”
He said his favorite pair of shoes that he never wears are his off-white Jordan 1 Chicago sneakers, which currently resell in the $5,000 range.
He estimates that his collection is roughly 100 pairs, with some in Utah with him and others at his place in Arizona.
Keller didn’t hire a stylist, per se, but he does have occasional fashion conversations with a friend of a friend who is a stylist for an athlete in another league. The stylist sends Keller pictures of clothing while he’s at designer stores, asking if he wants him to ship him anything.
When the Mammoth are on the road, he and a group of his teammates like to get together and go shopping. He said he’s never had to buy an extra suitcase to bring home his finds.
“I’ve probably been close a couple times, going to New York, I’ve been stuffing things in my bag and backpack.”
Karel Vejmelka, on the other hand, prefers the old suit-and-tie approach.
“I feel confident like that, you know what I mean? It looks pretty good, more fancy and it looks better,” he said. “Way more like (you’re) getting ready for the game.”
Like most players, he has a collection of suits — about 10, in his estimate. But he doesn’t necessarily shop for them.
“When I see a nice suit, I’m buying it, but I’ve got a bunch now. If I see something nice, some fancy one, I take it, but it’s not something I like to do every week.”
While he doesn’t have much interest in straying from his old ways, he does appreciate the freedom.
“It’s kind of nice to have the option to wear something special,” he said. “A bunch of guys, they have those different kinds of styles, and I think it’s a really personal thing to wear basically whatever we want.”
Of course, Vejmelka is on a very short list of NHL players ever featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine, so he has the license to do whatever he wants, fashion-wise.