Charity Hockey Game Jerseys: What to Order and When

By the Puck Drop Prints team. Updated November 2026.

A charity hockey game needs two visually distinct jersey sets, and at Puck Drop Prints charity hockey game jerseys run $65 each in sublimated fabric on a six-jersey minimum. Thirty players across two benches costs $1,950 , takes 4 to 5 weeks to make after proof approval plus 3 to 5 days to ship, and includes names, numbers, and shipping.

Here is the part nobody tells the poor soul organizing the thing: the jerseys are the only line on your budget that can turn around and make money. Ice time can't. The ref can't. The jerseys can.

Every year somebody's uncle gets diagnosed, somebody's teammate doesn't come back, or the local fire hall needs a new roof, and a hockey rink turns into a fundraiser. This is the ordering guide for that game.

A charity game is usually the biggest single order a rink community places all year, two full benches at once, not one team of twelve.

How many jerseys does a charity hockey game actually need?

Count both benches, then add four. A charity game with two teams of fifteen needs thirty jerseys, and you will need a handful more than your sign-up sheet says, because ringers appear, organizers get talked into playing, and somebody's brother-in-law drives four hours to be there. Order the buffer.

The six-jersey minimum at Puck Drop Prints applies to the order, not to each team. One order of thirty covers both sides. You do not need two separate orders and you do not pay two minimums.

The two benches do have to look different from twenty rows up, though. A charity crowd is full of people who have never watched a hockey game and are there because they love somebody who is sick. Light versus dark, not navy versus black.

One more thing worth knowing before you count: every team order comes with a free swag store branded with your logo. For a charity game, that store is a second fundraising channel that costs you nothing to open.

The same crest in a light colourway. One design, two colour builds, thirty jerseys, that is the cleanest way to dress two benches on a single order.

What do charity hockey game jerseys cost?

Charity hockey game jerseys cost between $55 and $99 per jersey depending on the fabric, on a six-jersey minimum with names, numbers, and worldwide shipping included at no extra charge. Sublimated at $65 is the usual pick for a charity game. Matching socks add $20 a pair.

Here is the whole menu, with the specs.

GSM is grams per square metre, the standard measure of fabric weight, a higher number means a heavier, more durable sweater. The 220 GSM sublimated jersey is the heaviest thing on that list, which is why it wins a game where half the roster hasn't skated since March.

Now the number the organizing committee actually asks for. Thirty players, sublimated jerseys they keep, paid for by the buy-in:

Charge each skater $100 to play and the jerseys are paid for with $1,050 left over before a single puck drops. Raise the buy-in to $125 and the jerseys plus matching $20 socks are covered with $1,200 to spare. That is the whole trick, and the rest of this article is just the ways to run it.

Full breakdown of every option lives on the custom hockey jersey pricing page.

Reversible jerseys or two separate sets?

Buy two sublimated sets if the players keep their jerseys. Buy reversibles if the organizer keeps them. Thirty sublimated jerseys cost $1,950 and go home in thirty bags; thirty reversibles cost $2,970 and come back in one bin for next year's game, which makes them cheaper by the second year.

A reversible hockey jersey is one jersey built with a different colour on each face, so a single garment gives a player two looks. Flip half the room and you have two teams out of one order.

For a one-off memorial game, go sublimated. The jersey is the keepsake, and the point is that everybody walks out wearing the name of the person the game was for. Nobody wants to hand that back into a bin.

For the annual fire-hall-versus-police game that has run for eleven years and will run for eleven more, go reversible. You buy the set once, you store it once, and every year after that your jersey line is $0. Roster changes get handled with a reorder rather than a rebuild.

Reorders, for what it's worth, are $85 each for one or two pieces and drop back to the team price of $65 at three or more, which is the actual argument for over-ordering the first time rather than topping up later.

How do you make the jerseys pay for themselves?

Three mechanics, and the biggest charity games run all three: sell the jersey to the player at a markup, auction the game-worn jerseys afterward, and sell a sponsor spot on the sleeve or the back. The jersey is the only item at a charity hockey game that gets bought twice, once before the game and once after.

The NHL proved the auction half at scale. In November 2018 the Washington Capitals raised $131,003 across their Hockey Fights Cancer campaign, and the auction of the signed lavender warmup jerseys, sticks, and pucks accounted for $67,395 of it, per NHL.com. Roughly half the campaign came out of jerseys that were worn for about twenty minutes.

You are not the Capitals. But the mechanic scales all the way down: a jersey that cost $65, was worn by somebody's dad in a game played for somebody's mum, and has thirty signatures on it, is not a $65 item anymore.

The practical version for a beer league fundraiser:

• Buy-in. Charge $100 to $125 to play. Covers the jersey and socks, clears margin, and nobody blinks because they're keeping a real sweater.
• Auction the specials. Order four or five extras with no name on the back, get them signed by everyone at the bar afterward, and auction those instead of the ones people are wearing home.
• Sell the sleeve. A local business will pay more for a logo on thirty jerseys at a charity game than for a rink board nobody photographs.

Create your logo in ChatGPT, then bring the artwork to Puck Drop Prints with your order request. Save the logo file so next year's committee does not have to start over.

When do you have to order for a charity game?

Order at least six weeks before puck drop. Sublimated and reversible jerseys take four to five weeks to produce, plus 3 to 5 days in transit, and tackle twill in five to six, and you need one to two weeks on top of that to chase thirty people for sizes. Working backward from the game date is the only version of this that works.

The order runs: submit an inquiry, get an email back, approve the design, fill in the Team Order Info spreadsheet with sizes, names, and numbers, then 4 to 5 weeks of production and 3 to 5 days of shipping. The full sequence is on the how it works page.

Roster collection is the step that kills charity games, not production. A regular team is twelve guys in one group chat. A charity game is thirty people who don't know each other, half of whom will read the message and not reply, and one of whom will send his size as "medium-ish." Start that step before you start anything else, our guide to collecting sizes, names, and numbers exists because of exactly this problem, and the size charts list torso width, sleeve length, and top-to-bottom in inches for all 26 cuts so nobody has to guess.

If your game date is tight, the turnaround guide has the order-by date math in full.

Names and numbers are included on every jersey type at no extra cost, which means a memorial name across thirty backs adds nothing to the $65.

What should you put on a charity game jersey?

Put the cause on the front and the person on the back. The crest carries the charity, the ribbon colour, or the memorial logo; the nameplate carries either the player's name or, on a memorial game, one name worn by everybody. Sponsor marks go on the sleeve or the upper back, settled at the design proof stage.

Colour does a lot of the work here and costs nothing. Lavender reads as cancer, pink as breast cancer, blue as men's health, teal, gold for childhood cancer, the crowd understands the jersey before anybody explains the game. Sublimation prints the artwork into the fabric rather than stitching it on, so a full-bleed colour scheme is not an upcharge the way a stitched twill crest is.

The single most effective design decision in charity hockey is the shared nameplate. Thirty players, one name across all thirty backs, the name of the person the game is for. It photographs better than anything else you can do and it costs the same as thirty different names, because names are included.

Bring the sponsor's logo file to the design step and confirm placement before you approve the proof. Once the proof is approved, production starts, and a sponsor who was promised a sleeve and got a chest is a phone call nobody enjoys.

Create the charity game logo in ChatGPT, then send the artwork with your order request. Save the file for next year.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do charity hockey game jerseys cost?

Charity hockey game jerseys at Puck Drop Prints cost $55 for roller, $65 for sublimated, and $99 for reversible or tackle twill, on a minimum team order of six jerseys. Custom names, numbers, and worldwide shipping are included in those prices. Matching custom socks are $20 per pair with a team order.

How many jerseys does a charity hockey game need?

A charity hockey game needs one jersey per skater on both benches, plus roughly four spares. Two teams of fifteen means thirty jerseys and an order of about thirty-four. The six-jersey minimum at Puck Drop Prints applies to the whole order rather than to each team, so one order covers both sides of the ice.

How far in advance should a charity game order jerseys?

Order at least six weeks before the game. Sublimated and reversible jerseys have a four to five week turnaround and tackle twill takes five to six weeks, and collecting sizes, names, and numbers from a thirty-person charity roster realistically takes another one to two weeks on top of production.

Can charity hockey jerseys be auctioned after the game?

Yes, and game-worn jersey auctions are one of the most reliable fundraising lines in hockey. The Washington Capitals raised $131,003 through their November 2018 Hockey Fights Cancer campaign, of which $67,395 came from auctioning signed warmup jerseys, sticks, and pucks. Ordering four or five unnamed spares to auction protects the jerseys players want to keep.

Can a sponsor logo go on a charity hockey game jersey?

Sponsor artwork is placed during the design stage, before the proof is approved. Sublimated jerseys print the full design into the fabric, so sponsor marks on a sleeve or the upper back are part of the artwork rather than an added stitched patch. Send the sponsor's logo file to Puck Drop Prints with the design request and confirm placement on the proof.

Are reversible jerseys a good choice for a charity hockey game?

Reversible jerseys suit a charity game that repeats every year and keeps its jerseys in storage, because one $99 jersey dresses a player for either bench and the set is reused indefinitely. A one-off memorial game is better served by $65 sublimated jerseys, since players keep those as a keepsake rather than returning them.

Ready to dress both benches?

Send the game date, the head count, and whatever the cause is. Puck Drop Prints will get a design back to you, and the jerseys will be at the rink before warmups, which is more than can be said for half the guys who signed up.

Start Your Order.