Connor Stuart wore this gorgeous gold alternate game worn jersey for the Arizona State Sun Devils hockey team throughout the 2019-2020 season.
The young defenseman turned winger skated in 24 games with ASU that season, a career high. He also recorded his lone NCAA point with an assist that same year.
Stuart has been a bit of a utility forward for coach Greg Powers, and has unfortunately seen his ice time dwindle since his career high as a sophomore in 2019-2020. Connor has played in just 8 games across his other three seasons with the Sun Devils.
He is a Phoenix, AZ native and was a member of the Jr. Coyotes 16U AAA and 18U AAA teams before heading to the NAHL in 2015-2016. He began his ASU career in 2018-2019 after three years in junior hockey.
Connor Stuart moves the puck on January 4th, 2020 against Michigan Tech. (photo credit: Sun Devil Hockey)
Arizona State wore their new gold alternates in nine games in 2019-2020. Connor Stuart wore this one in seven of those contests, missing the games on December 7th, 2019 and January 28th, 2020.
Stuart’s jersey was sold directly by the ASU team shop at Oceanside Ice Arena. Purchasing it was kind of an adventure because the shop photos were not particularly detailed so it could have been a completely clean jersey with the nameplate removed.
Thankfully, it turned out better than expected.
It turned out that the jersey had some decent wear for 7 games.
The right sleeve has four nice beefy repairs in the wrist area which pretty much made the investment worth it by themselves. The left sleeve has some stick marks up around the sleeve numbers and an unrepaired hole just below the elbow.
The ARIZONA STATE crest is twill and what looks and feels like jersey material. It has some loose threads hanging off of various letters. The sleeve numbers are sublimated maroon and white, and also have the familiar perforation that looks so great on ASU sweaters.
The back of Stuart’s jersey is clean with the exception of the area where the nameplate was located.
There are obvious signs of removal, including maroon and white threads left behind. There doesn’t appear to be any ghosting of Stuart’s name which isn’t a huge surprise given how few games the jersey was worn in.
I was able to acquire Stuart’s missing nameplate for this jersey and have it re-attached and now the jersey is whole once again.
Connor Stuart shown wearing this jersey in an intermission social media post by the ASU hockey account. (photo credit: Sun Devil Hockey)
The gold alternate jerseys arrived to much fanfare in the Valley.
Auston Matthews was part of the hype video debuting them, and they really caught the eye of fans.
For a long time, only five of these gold game worn jerseys were out in the wild. Logan Jenuwine’s (worn in just a couple of games), Carson Briere’s (never worn), Gvido Jansons’, this Stuart gamer, and Brinson Pasichnuk’s. Nowadays there are a decent amount of them in the hobby.
I was very happy to add this one to the collection, particularly once I saw it had some decent wear. The wear was a bonus, though, as it ultimately came to the fact that Connor Stuart was a local boy playing for the hometown team.
Yes, he’s only played just over 30 games in four seasons.
That doesn’t matter.
He is a local kid who found a way to go to college by playing hockey in a place where hockey isn’t supposed to exist. His story is a great one for youngsters here in Arizona striving to continue their career in a sport that’s foreign to the desert.