It's as much a tradition of the post-Stanley Cup Final celebration as the player handshake and the captain collecting the Chalice from the commissioner: Moments after the last game ends, dozens of officially licensed hats and shirts are given to players on the winning team; and are prominently featured in every team photo on the ice and champagne-drenched image from the locker room.

When the Pittsburgh Penguins won the 2009 Stanley Cup in Game 7 on Friday night, some players tossed on commemorative T-shirts and nearly all of them wore the gray, fitted caps with the Penguins logo on the front and a large image of the Cup on the back.

"The Stanley Cup is such a cool graphic," said Keith Leach, director of merchandise for NHL apparel at Reebok. "It's the coolest trophy in sports."

Several months ago, when the process of creating this year's Cup gear began, all the NHL and Reebok had was "the coolest trophy in sports" as a starting point. The development of the championship hats and shirts from concept to the shelves of retail stores this morning was challenging and complicated one.

How does one, for example, design something when the color scheme could be anything from red and white to black and teal?

What kind of materials should be used? "A plastic back-strap trucker hat ... it just doesn't do it," said Jim Haskins, NHL Vice President of Consumer Products.

How many units are produced? How does this stuff get approved? Where does the gear created for the losing team end up?

There are plenty of mysteries in this process; many of them are solved in taking a look at the step-by-step journey of the 2009 Stanley Cup champions gear from Reebok.

Reebok has the locker room licenses this season, as they've alternated between companies like VF Corporation and New Era during the decade.

"When we signed the long-term deal [with the NHL] in 2004, it was a 10-year deal and there were some other rights deals that ended up finishing this year," said Leach, adding that Reebok would like exclusive rights to the locker room gear annually.

Haskins said that, for now, the NHL prefers to have different companies create the gear. "With that alternating, we think it's kept the design process fresh," he said.

Here's how the process works:

Conception

One of the initial steps is ensuring that the gear won't repeat looks and styles from recent history; not only to keep the style fashion-forward but to make sure those who collect Stanley Cup gear won't be disappointed by something repetitive. 

"Fifteen years ago, it was a volume driven proposition, where a dum-dum hat was put together, put on an athlete and multiple units where sold through retail. I think the consumer is much more sophisticated today," said Haskins. "In hockey, we really tried to change up what was a simplified execution and make it more of a premium product."

Like, for example, the 1995 New Jersey Devils champions black hat that featured a generic design and a snap-back; by the team's 2003 Stanley Cup, the hat became a Nike-produced product with sleek graphics, quality material and a Velcro back.

"That hat from 1995 was a hat that might go on a shelf," said Haskins. "The 2003 hat and beyond, you're much more likely to wear at a BBQ and have as a part of your wardrobe."

The League and its manufacturer collaborate on potential designs well before the postseason. "It is a process that starts as much as eight to nine months out prior to the playoffs," said Haskins.

Different concepts are created, all of which tie in with the NHL gear already in the marketplace and build around a common design element: The Stanley Cup.

"While other Leagues may be touting the championship as the front and center identity for their products, we've always made the trophy our centerpiece because it's so unique, so historic and unlike any other," said Haskins.

Colors and Materials

After general conceptualization of the gear is complete, the details start falling into place; as in what it will be built from and how to make it attractive to the eye.

Reebok made news earlier in the postseason when it announced that, for the first time, the locker room Tees would be made using eco-friendly, 100-percent organic cotton fabric. The tags on the shirt are made from recycled materials, and the "signature green stitching on the shoulder and inside neck seams" indicates that it's championship swag even Al Gore could love.

As for the hats, the concept was for a Flex-fitted hat, a style preferred by the players, according to Haskins.

Developing the color scheme for the gear is annually a trick task; after all, the designers have to create a template that will work with the bright red of the Detroit Red Wings as it will with the vivid teal of the San Jose Sharks. (Yes, the Sharks winning the Cup needs to be considered. Even though they're the Sharks. And it's the playoffs.)

The Cup itself is a neutral color. "We support that with a secondary neutral color," said Leach. The templates leave room for color customization during the final design phase, when the Cup finalists are in sight. Leach said they make sure the team color comes through, perhaps with a secondary border around the design on the shirts and hats.

As you can see, there's a stripe of gold bordering the logo for Pittsburgh personalization.

The prospective designs for the championship gear are reduced down to about three finalists, Haskins said. They are tested in front of focus groups of fans for market feedback. The final input comes from a licensed product committee in the NHL offices, which considers the look of the championship gear to be a quintessential facet of the Stanley Cup experience for fans.

"I can't say that Gary Bettman sees it," said Leach, "but I imagine that he may."

Printing on Demand

The concept is approved. The design is finalized. Now it's just a matter of bringing it from the drawing board onto the bodies of players and fans after the Cup is captured ... and determining how many items to create.

Leach said that Reebok tries its best to forecast demand by creating a classification system for the NHL's 30 teams. "We tend to put teams into pools by the size of the market," he said, indicating there are generally three groups of 10 teams apiece. "Depending on the market, we try to forecast the numbers. But nobody has a crystal ball."

That's why Reebok and other apparel companies have printers ready to roll during the Final. "The beautiful thing about this is that we can print these products in our facility in Indianapolis, but we actually set up a system of local printers across North America," Leach said.

That on-demand technology has improved mightily over the last 15 years. Fans would sometimes see inconsistencies with quickly printed shirts and heat-pressed logos on hats. Haskins said those difficulties "spawned an industry" that advanced the technologies and have now created a "seamless look" for gear created on the fly.

Leach agreed: "The technology -- be it embroidered or heat press or screen printing -- the average consumer wouldn't be able to see any difference."

When the Cup Is Raised

On the night the Cup could be awarded, somewhere in the bowels of the arena are two buckets: one with promo products for the athletes to wear and another with retail items ready for sale that evening.

"To ensure seamless execution, we do print up hats for each of the teams. So in this case, there [were] already Penguins hats and Red Wings hats made up. But only the championship team hats are used for the exposure," said Haskins. (We'll get to the fate of those "loser" hats in a moment.)

When the final horn sounds, officials hurriedly hand out championship gear to the winners on the ice, who proudly throw on their commemorative hats for all to see -- especially the League's consumer base.

"It's the perfect recipe. It authenticates [the gear], and it just drives up demand with such high visibility, as soon as the Cup is handed out," said Leach. "It's amazing how the fans pick up on the official product. It definitely translates to retail sales."

Despite the tug-of-war over marketing and publicity that occurs between the NHL and NHLPA at times, Haskins said the League has a "tacit agreement" with the players that they'll wear the gear after the game.

"They do benefit from the sale of the goods through the terms of the CBA. They're a part of the business," he said.

In the Stores

Long after the last gulp of champagne has been sucked out of the Chalice in the winning locker room, the on-demand printing press are still cranking out product to be shipped all over region. "[We have] printers in Pittsburgh and Detroit, ready to create products right after the game and getting them into stores the following morning," said Leach.

He said Reebok was hoping to ship as many as 100,000 units this postseason, but that with "two very good markets" it could be even higher.

What makes these items distinctive from other hockey gear is their shelf life. Leach said there are three phases for sales of championship gear: The immediate binge after the winner is crowned; the various celebrations (ring ceremonies, banner raisings) at the start of the following season; and then sales through a "good portion" of that next season.

That's the lifecycle of the winners' gear; now, what about the bridesmaids?

Where Second Place Goes To Die

Ever since New England Patriots Super Bowl "champions" shirts were found on poor Nicaraguan children after their loss to the New York Giants in 2008, the notion of "losers" surfacing in odd places has been a sports fan legend.

Reebok and the NHL said that, in fact, much of the discarded Cup gear is sent along to those in need around the globe.

Haskins said that the "the 144-200 [units created] for the non-winning team are ultimately destroyed or used as a donation to charity in third-world countries."

World Vision, the Christian humanitarian organization that gave irrelevant Patriots Super Bowl gear to Nicaragua, compiles promo T-shirts and uses them in third-world countries, according to Haskins. "All the Leagues have been very, very satisfied with that charitable endeavor," he said.

So while ecstatic Penguins fans are buying up Stanley Cup champions gear in local stores this morning, Red Wings fans in clinical denial of their team's defeat are just a flight to Central America away from realizing their championship fashion dreams.

As for the NHL and its fashion partners ... they're only a few short months from doing this all over again.

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