Colton Gillies Game-Used Stick

A couple months ago, I picked up an item for my collection that I had nothing of up to this point: a game-used hockey stick. While I do have a couple of cards with stick pieces on them, this is actually the first full piece that I have gotten my hands on.

This stick, at one time, belonged to former Minnesota Wild left winger Colton Gillies. The seller I purchased it from acquired it from Gillies during the 2009-10 season, when he was playing for the Wild's AHL affiliate, Houston Aeros. Being a former Houston resident, and current Minnesota resident, this was a perfect item to pick up, as it represents both of my "home bases" from the past 20 years.

Here's a few photos I snapped of the stick, just to show off to you all:

The signature and inscription on the blade reads "To Jack 04/26/10 Colton Gilles." Having the inscription isn't necessary, but cool, and it doesn't really bother me that it has another person's name on it. I just think it's an extra nice touch to even have the signature, as not all game-used items carry one.

Apart from the autographed blade of the stick, the other really cool part is the customized nameplate toward the top of the stick. Each stick will have this element, as it allows a particular player's stick to be easily identified on the stick rack among those of his teammates.

The butt end of the stick is wrapped in red tape, with a coil of some kind wrapped around underneath the tape, to give a better grip on the end. It is also done in red, which along with some green on the stick itself, matches the red and green colors of the Aeros, which the team adopted for the 2009-10 season and beyond, to match up with the colors of their parent club.

Here's a better look at the stick-maker's logo, which gives a really good view of the green element along the stick. This is taken from the reverse side of what is pictured on the full stick photo, but it gives a better look at the stick design, plus there's much more wear across this part of the stick.

I now have the stick mounted on the wall of my home office/guest bedroom/man cave. It's one of those things where it may not be of a major player, but that doesn't really matter, as it's always good to have anything extra to bring you that much closer to the game, plus it just looks really cool.