The American Hockey League’s Syracuse Crunch turned again the clock over the weekend to pay tribute to their dwelling metropolis’s hockey historical past.
The Crunch took to the ice on Saturday, March 30, to tackle the Windfall Bruins because the Syracuse Canal Mules, the primary recognized beer league hockey staff to skate on the Erie Canal within the early Nineteen Twenties.
The Canal Mules jerseys had a cream-colored base with broad blue stripes throughout the shoulders and alongside the underside. The entrance of the jersey featured a braying mule brand with “SYRACUSE CANAL MULES” written round it.
A hybrid cross between horses and donkeys, mules are clever and hard working animals that turned the important thing to spreading items, individuals and concepts throughout New York State.
The sleeves have been blue with cream stripes and white numbers with blue outlines. The collars have been cream with white laces, and the Crunch’s ordinary brand sat on the fitting shoulder whereas the emblem of their NHL father or mother membership, the Tampa Bay Lightning, appeared on the left shoulder.
The again of the jerseys had white names within the blue stripe throughout the shoulder and blue numbers within the cream portion.
The unique Canal Mules staff was made up of staff from the Greenway Brewery in Syracuse who would convey home-brewed drinks with them after they performed pick-up video games on the Erie Canal, a synthetic waterway that ran by way of Syracuse on its method from Albany to Buffalo. The staff was named after the mules that might pull barges from metropolis to metropolis alongside the canal’s towpaths.
The unique Canal Mules disbanded in 1923 when the portion of the Erie Canal that ran by way of downtown Syracuse was crammed in.
Fourteen of the Canal Mules jerseys worn by the Crunch on Saturday have been auctioned off on the ice after the sport. One other jersey, together with customized Canal Mules nameplates, have been auctioned off on-line to profit the Erie Canal Museum.
The jerseys labored properly for the Crunch, as they defeated Windfall 4-0.
