The Eastern Hockey League Collection — Royal Retros EHL Fan Shop

Authentic EHL Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL. Two Teams, One Real Movie.

Royal Retros carries throwback jerseys for the Eastern Hockey League, the East Coast minor-pro circuit that ran from the 1930s through 1973 and produced one of the most famous hockey teams that never played in the NHL. We stock two in-stock custom jerseys: the Johnstown Jets, the Pennsylvania dynasty whose players directly inspired the movie Slap Shot, and the River Vale Skeeters, the forgotten New Jersey club the Devils themselves paid tribute to on an NHL third jersey. Both run $89.99 for a standard cut and $119.99 for a goalie cut, with free custom name and number on the standard build. Sizes run Small through 5XL across every colorway. If you know Slap Shot, or if you grew up hearing about a 4,000-seat rink in Bergen County that closed for World War II and never reopened, this is where you find the real gear.

What You Can Shop in the EHL Collection

EHL Jerseys — two in-stock custom hockey jerseys, twill-style crest construction with period-correct striping. The Johnstown Jets jersey comes in Blue, White and a Yellow remix. The River Vale Skeeters jersey comes in Black, White and Green. Free custom name and number on the standard cut. $89.99 standard, $119.99 for the goalie cut. Browse the wider custom hockey jersey range if you want to cross-shop other leagues.

Customization — both jerseys offer free name and number personalization. Custom items are made to order and are final sale.

Sizes — Small through 5XL on both jerseys, in every colorway. We do not upcharge for big & tall sizes.

Shop by EHL Team

Johnstown Jets — five league playoff championships across two eras of one continuous franchise, and the direct real-life inspiration for the Hanson Brothers in Slap Shot. Shop the Jets jersey in Blue, White or the Yellow remix.

River Vale Skeeters — three seasons of sold-out, losing hockey in a Bergen County, New Jersey arena that closed for World War II and never reopened as a rink. Shop the Skeeters jersey in Black, White or Green, and cross-shop New Jersey for the wider state catalog.

Why Royal Retros Is the Home of EHL Throwback Gear

• Coverage that does not exist anywhere else. Real gear for a hockey story most retailers have never touched: the actual team behind Slap Shot, and the New Jersey club the Devils themselves saluted on an NHL jersey.
• Two franchises, real designs. Each jersey is built to its own team's identity, not a generic template with a different city name stamped on it.
• Free customization. Add your own name and number at no extra cost on the standard cut.
• Sizes Small through 5XL. No big & tall upcharge on any product in the collection.
• Deep minor-pro cross-shopping. Pair an EHL piece with the International Hockey League, the wider Minor League Hockey HQ or Legacy Hockey in a single order.

Quick Buying Questions

What sizes do EHL jerseys come in?

Small through 5XL on both jerseys, in every colorway, plus a Goalie Cut. We do not upcharge for big & tall sizes.

Can I customize an EHL jersey?

Yes — both jerseys offer free custom name and number on the standard cut. Custom items are made to order and are final sale.

What do EHL jerseys cost?

$89.99 for the standard cut, $119.99 for the goalie cut.

How fast does it ship and what is the return policy?

Standard products ship within 3–5 business days. Custom items with a personalized name or number are made to order and ship within 7–10 business days. Custom items are final sale. Standard items follow our return policy at /pages/returns.

Gift Ideas from the EHL Collection

• For the Slap Shot fan who wants the real team, not the movie prop — the Johnstown Jets jersey with a custom name and number.
• For the New Jersey hockey historian — the River Vale Skeeters jersey, the team the Devils themselves have paid tribute to.
• For the goalie in your life — either jersey in the Goalie Cut.

What Was the Eastern Hockey League?

The Eastern Hockey League was a minor professional hockey circuit on the East Coast that traces back to the 1930s under promoter Thomas Lockhart, who built it around teams that could share ice with his intramural hockey program at Madison Square Garden. The league operated as the Eastern Amateur Hockey League (EAHL) through the 1940s and into the early 1950s, sat out the 1953-54 season entirely, and returned for 1954-55 under a new name — the Eastern Hockey League — which it kept until the league folded in 1973. It is not two separate leagues that happen to share a name; it is one continuous organization under one long-serving commissioner that simply dropped "Amateur" from its name partway through. Both products in this collection reflect that full arc: the River Vale Skeeters played in the pre-rename EAHL years, and the Johnstown Jets played through the name change and beyond, into both eras. Some databases, including hockeydb.com, file the entire 1933-1973 run under a single "Eastern Hockey League" umbrella for convenience, since it is genuinely one continuous organization. We follow that same logic here rather than pretending the pre-1954 and post-1954 years were unrelated leagues.

How Big Did the Eastern Hockey League Get?

At its widest, the EHL fielded teams across eleven states and the District of Columbia — Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia — reaching its peak of twelve teams in two divisions during the 1967-68 season. The league had grown large enough to split into two divisions starting with the 1959-60 season — the same season the Johnstown Jets kicked off their three-championship run as South Division champions. Over its two decades under the Eastern Hockey League name, the league's roster included clubs like the Charlotte Checkers, the Clinton Comets, the Greensboro Generals, the Long Island Ducks, the Nashville Dixie Flyers, the New Haven Blades and the Syracuse Blazers, most of them still remembered fondly in their home markets today. By 1973, the same over-expansion pressure that hit so many minor leagues of the era caught up with it: the EHL folded after the 1972-73 season and effectively split into two successor circuits, the North American Hockey League in the north and the Southern Hockey League in the south. Franchises scattered between the two depending on geography, and the Johnstown Jets were one of the clubs that went north into the NAHL.

Who Won the Boardwalk Cup?

The EHL's playoff championship was the Boardwalk Cup, and one franchise dominated it more than any other. The Clinton Comets, who played continuously from the league's first season in 1954-55 to its last in 1972-73, won five Boardwalk Cups — 1959, 1964, 1968, 1969 and 1970 — more than any other club in league history. The Johnstown Jets were next with three straight titles from 1959-60 through 1961-62. The Nashville Dixie Flyers won back-to-back championships in 1966 and 1967. The New Haven Blades, the Washington Lions and the Washington Presidents each won a single title in the league's earliest seasons, and the Syracuse Blazers won the very last Boardwalk Cup ever awarded, in 1973, the same year the league folded. The River Vale Skeeters, playing in the pre-1954 EAHL years, never won a title in their brief three-season run.

The Johnstown Jets — The Real Slap Shot Team

The Johnstown Jets were founded for the 1950-51 season, playing out of the newly built Cambria County War Memorial Arena, and they were good from the start — regular-season titles in each of their first two seasons and back-to-back EAHL playoff championships in 1951-52 and 1952-53. When the EAHL suspended operations after that, the Jets spent two seasons in the International Hockey League, reaching the 1953-54 Turner Cup final before losing to the Cincinnati Mohawks. They joined the reborn Eastern Hockey League in 1955 and became one of its flagship franchises, eventually stringing together three consecutive EHL championships from 1959-60 through 1961-62 behind Cambria County sports hall of famer Don Hall and future championship coach Dick Roberge — both nine-time EHL all-stars. The 1959-60 title team was the best statistical squad in franchise history, finishing 45-18-1 for a .711 winning percentage, first place in the South Division. Roberge, who had starred as a Jets player through that dynasty, later returned behind the bench and was still coaching the team fifteen years afterward when it won its final championship in the NAHL. The Jets stayed in the EHL for the rest of its existence, through the league's 1973 folding, then followed the northern half of the league into the new North American Hockey League. Under Roberge, Johnstown won the 1974-75 NAHL championship, the Lockhart Cup, beating the Broome Dusters. That championship roster included three brothers named Carlson — Jeff, Steve and Jack — plus a hard-nosed goaltender named Ron Docken, and their reputation for physical, old-school minor-league hockey became the direct inspiration for the 1977 film Slap Shot. Screenwriter Nancy Dowd's brother Ned played for the Jets, and she spent time traveling with the team and recording life on the bus and in the locker room to write the script. Jeff and Steve Carlson played fictionalized versions of themselves in the movie as two of the "Hanson Brothers"; the third Carlson brother, Jack, had been called up to the WHA's Edmonton Oilers when filming began, so former Jets player Dave Hanson stepped into the role instead. The Jets played four seasons in the NAHL before the league folded in 1977, and the franchise itself folded that same year after the catastrophic Johnstown flood of 1977 destroyed the arena's ice-making equipment. Johnstown would not see the Jets name again — when pro hockey returned to the city a decade later, the new ownership group could not secure the rights to "Jets" and named the team the Chiefs instead, directly after the fictional team in Slap Shot. Across the Jets' full 1950-1977 history, 46 players who wore the jersey went on to play in the National Hockey League — an extraordinary number for a team that spent its entire life outside the top pro league. The Jets' home ice, Cambria County War Memorial Arena, is still standing today. In 2015 it was named the first-ever Kraft Hockeyville USA winner, an honor that brought the Pittsburgh Penguins to town to play a preseason NHL game in the same building where the real Slap Shot team once skated. Johnstown has not been without hockey since — the city is now home to the Tomahawks, a Tier II junior team that moved there in 2012 and keeps the sport alive in the town where it all started for the Jets.

The River Vale Skeeters — New Jersey's Forgotten Franchise

The River Vale Skeeters played three seasons, from 1939 to 1942, in a rink that existed purely because one man believed hockey would sell tickets in Bergen County, New Jersey. John Handwerg built a 4,000-seat arena next to his golf course in River Vale specifically to host the team, and by most accounts he was right about the demand even though he was wrong about the results: the Skeeters drew regular capacity crowds despite finishing with a losing record in all three of their seasons. They went 16-38-7 for fifth place in their 1939-40 debut, improved to 29-34-2 for fourth place in 1940-41, and fell back to 18-38-4 for sixth place in their final 1941-42 campaign. The team still managed to send four players on to the National Hockey League despite never having a winning season. The Skeeters' run ended abruptly in 1942, not because of attendance or finances but because the United States had entered World War II and the war office requisitioned the rink for defense purposes. The building was never converted back into an ice arena once the war ended, and the Skeeters simply ceased to exist. For most of the following eight decades, that would have been the end of the story — except that in November 2021, the New Jersey Devils unveiled a third jersey built as a tribute to the state's buried hockey history, honoring three long-defunct New Jersey clubs by name: the Newark Bulldogs, the Jersey Larks, and the River Vale Skeeters. The jersey was designed in collaboration with Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur and features 21 stripes, one for each of New Jersey's counties. The Jersey Larks connection is a nice piece of symmetry for this collection specifically — the Larks were themselves a real Eastern Hockey League club, playing a single 1960-61 season, which means two of the three teams the modern Devils chose to honor both trace back to the same league covered on this page.

Together, the Jets and the Skeeters bookend the Eastern League's whole story. One is a franchise from the amateur pre-war years that vanished the moment the country needed its rink for the war effort and never played another game. The other outlasted the league itself, fought through three different league names across nearly three decades, and ended up as the direct inspiration for one of the most quoted sports movies ever made. Both are the kind of teams that would have been lost to time completely if nobody bothered to make anything for them.

What Makes Ours Period-Correct

Construction and accuracy. Sewn-on tackle-twill numbers and lettering where the original build called for it, era-correct fonts and colors, and true-to-original construction — every EHL design is checked against period references before it goes live.

Extended EHL FAQ

What was the Eastern Hockey League?

A minor professional hockey league on the East Coast that traces to the 1930s as the Eastern Amateur Hockey League, was renamed the Eastern Hockey League for the 1954-55 season, and folded in 1973, splitting into the North American Hockey League and the Southern Hockey League.

Was the Johnstown Jets team really the basis for Slap Shot?

Yes. The 1977 film was based directly on the Johnstown Jets, specifically their 1974-75 championship season in the North American Hockey League — the Eastern Hockey League's direct successor for northern teams, which the Jets joined the same year the EHL folded. Screenwriter Nancy Dowd's brother played for the team, and two of the three real-life Carlson brothers appeared in the movie playing fictionalized versions of themselves; the third had already been called up to the WHA.

How many championships did the Johnstown Jets win?

Five league playoff championships across two league names: 1951-52 and 1952-53 in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League, and 1959-60, 1960-61 and 1961-62 in the Eastern Hockey League. They added a sixth title, the 1974-75 NAHL championship, after the EHL had already folded.

Why did the River Vale Skeeters only play three seasons?

Not because of poor attendance — the team regularly drew capacity crowds despite losing records. The United States entered World War II in December 1941, and the war office requisitioned the team's 4,000-seat arena for defense purposes shortly after. The rink was never converted back to hockey use after the war, and the franchise never returned.

Are these officially licensed?

No. These are heritage tribute reproductions inspired by long-defunct minor-league hockey franchises. Royal Retros is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Eastern Hockey League, the National Hockey League, the New Jersey Devils, or any team named on this page.

Is this gear connected to any hockey league or team?

No. Royal Retros is an independent throwback and tribute apparel shop. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any hockey league, team or organization. These are heritage-inspired designs made for fans of defunct and forgotten franchises, and we carry them because nobody else does.

How many EHL products does Royal Retros carry?

Two in-stock custom jerseys — the Johnstown Jets and the River Vale Skeeters. Both are rare, dedicated coverage of teams that most retailers have never touched.

Can I get a team you do not stock?

Tell us. The EHL's roster over its history included clubs in Charlotte, Clinton, Greensboro, Long Island, Nashville, New Haven and Syracuse, among many others, and interest in obscure minor-league hockey is exactly how collections like this one grow.

How many Johnstown Jets players reached the NHL?

46 players who wore a Johnstown Jets jersey at some point between 1950 and 1977 went on to play in the National Hockey League, a remarkable total for a franchise that never played above the minor-pro level itself.

Does the Johnstown Jets' old arena still exist?

Yes. Cambria County War Memorial Arena is still standing and was named the first-ever Kraft Hockeyville USA winner in 2015, an honor that brought a Pittsburgh Penguins preseason game to the same ice where the real Slap Shot team played.

Shop Related Collections

• Custom Hockey Jerseys — the full custom jersey range across every league we cover.
• International Hockey League — where the Johnstown Jets played in 1953-54 and 1954-55, between their two EAHL and EHL runs.
• Legacy Hockey — 70-plus defunct and relocated hockey franchises.
• Minor League Hockey HQ — our full minor-pro hockey catalog in one place.
• New Jersey — the state that gave the Eastern League the River Vale Skeeters, and the Devils' own 2021 tribute jersey.

The Eastern Hockey League at Royal Retros — Authentic EHL Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL. Two Teams, One Real Movie.