Keen on the details

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This article was published 04/07/2016 (3581 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chris ‘Keener’ Dougherty has long since outgrown running his jersey business out of his apartment—mostly because the jerseys were starting to take over.

Previously located in a small shop off of Osborne Avenue, Keener Jerseys recently moved into a larger space in Wolseley at 982 Portage Ave.

Dougherty, who grew up in West Kildonan, said the business grew so quickly it was time to upgrade in both space and location.

“We started off thinking we’d just do online stuff but as we got more known in Winnipeg, a lot of people were stopping by to see if they could look at jerseys and the place on Osborne was too confusing for people to find,” Dougherty said.

Keener Jerseys specializes in making custom jerseys that replicate game-worn jerseys from teams all over the world. While that is Dougherty’s passion, the shop also manufactures jerseys for recreational sports teams — primarily hockey, but football and baseball as well.

Keener Jerseys has outfitted North Winnipeg Nomads Football Club teams, and is making jerseys for West Kildonan Collegiate’s badminton and rugby teams.

“I’ve been doing this kind of thing since I was 15,” said Dougherty, who graduated from West Kildonan Collegiate when it was located on Salter Street.

“When I was even younger, my mom bought me a Jets jersey and I wanted it to look how the players would look but nobody in town would do that… so I had to find material myself and my mom showed me how to sew.

“At around 17, people started bringing me their jerseys to do. When the internet came around I started advertising and people started sending me stuff from all over the world. I would sit in my apartment and sew and my buddies would come over and I would have jerseys everywhere.”

While a few other shops in the area do similar work, Dougherty’s attention to detail has set him apart as an international business. He has spent years meticulously creating the original fonts for hundreds of teams and learning about how different jerseys were made.

“St. Louis, they have two layers of twill and that’s what the sewn-on numbers are, and they have a third layer of vinyl which is the ironed-on stuff,” he said. “Back in the ’80s, the owner didn’t want to pay for three-layered numbers so the company said we can do two layers and throw in a layer of vinyl for the 3D effect, so he did that because he’s a cheap guy.

“It’s unique and I’ve never seen it done by another team and Gretzky was on the team when they had that style, and Brett Hull got 80-something goals wearing that.”

So naturally, Keener Jerseys makes St. Louis jerseys the same way.

“Keener is a craftsman and he knows more about jerseys than anyone in the world, almost like that’s his actual thing,” co-founder Jason Olson said. “I think there’s a subtle kind of thing where people realize like, ‘Hey, that’s a block font but something’s kind of different about it.’ Well, what’s different about it is it’s the exact font from the NHL and it’s perfect, so that’s what’s different.”

The shop also makes custom hoodies, hats and T-shirts for teams who want something extra with their jerseys, and according to Dougherty, many teams do.

“We say we’re jerseys first because we don’t sell baseball bats or skateboards,” Olson said. “We don’t sell products like that so we should be really good at making jerseys because Keener is the best in the world.”

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