How to Collect Jersey Sizes, Names, and Numbers From Your Team

To collect team jersey sizes, names, and numbers without losing your mind, send one spreadsheet with six columns, set a hard deadline two weeks before you order, and refuse to accept answers by text message. Six fields per player is all Puck Drop Prints needs: legal name, nameplate spelling, number, jersey size, sock size, and position.

That is the whole system. The reason it fails on most teams is not that the system is complicated. It is that the captain asks in a group chat, gets eleven replies, four of them jokes, and then tries to reconstruct a roster from memory three weeks later.

Your goalie will answer last. He always does. Plan for it.

Eighteen stalls, eighteen rows in the spreadsheet. The team minimum is six jerseys, and six fields per player is everything the order needs.

What information do you actually need from each player?

You need six things per player: legal or preferred name, the exact spelling for the nameplate, jersey number, jersey size, sock size, and whether they play out or in net. That is it. Anything else — height, weight, chest measurement, their opinion on the design — is noise you will have to sort through later.

A nameplate is the strip of lettering across the upper back of a jersey carrying a player's surname. On a sublimated jersey it is printed into the fabric rather than sewn on, which means the spelling is locked the moment production starts.

Collect the spelling separately from the name. "Mike" and "MIKE" and "Mikey" are three different nameplates, and the guy who wanted "MIKEY" will absolutely notice.

How do you get 18 guys to actually reply?

Use one form, one deadline, and one follow-up. Post the link in the team chat with a date attached, send a single reminder 48 hours before that date, and tell everyone that whoever misses the deadline gets whatever size the captain picks for them. Teams that do this get 90% of responses inside three days.

The mistake is running the collection in the chat itself. A group chat is not a database. Replies scroll, get buried under a highlight clip, and arrive as "M I think? or L?" at 11:40 on a Tuesday.

Three rules that fix it:

1. One source of truth. A Google Form, a shared sheet, whatever — but exactly one, and no answers accepted anywhere else. If a guy texts you his size, you tell him to put it in the form.
2. A deadline earlier than your real deadline. Set the roster deadline two weeks before you actually need to order. That buffer absorbs the two stragglers and the one guy who changes his number.
3. A default for non-responders. Announce it up front. "No answer by Friday means you're getting a Large with your last name on it." Suddenly everyone answers by Friday.

The default rule does more work than the other two combined. Nobody wants the captain choosing their nameplate.

The roster conversation happens on this bench, in the ten minutes before puck drop. It should not be where the data lives — names and numbers are included on every jersey, so information is the only thing you actually have to collect.

What size should each player order?

Hockey jerseys are sized to fit over shoulder pads and elbow pads, not over a t-shirt, so most adults land one size above their street size. Puck Drop Prints publishes 26 jersey sizes — 15 player cuts from T2 through 4XL, and 11 goalie cuts from Youth GS through G4XL — measured flat in inches across torso width, sleeve length, and top-to-bottom.

A goalie cut is a jersey built wider through the chest and shorter through the body so it clears a chest protector and does not bunch under a blocker arm. A goalie in a player-cut 3XL is not the same thing as a goalie in a GL, and every tendy knows the difference immediately.

Send every player the full jersey and sock size charts with the form, not after it. A player who can compare his favourite jersey laid flat against a torso-width number gives you a right answer the first time. A player guessing from "S, M, L" gives you a coin flip.

What does it cost when someone gets their size wrong?

A single wrong size costs $85 to replace instead of $65, plus another 4–5 weeks of waiting. Reorders of one or two pieces are priced at $85 for roller and sublimated jerseys and $99 for reversible and tackle twill; ordering three or more drops back to standard team pricing. One bad row in a spreadsheet is a $20 penalty and a month.

This is the argument for the two-week buffer in one table. Collect early, confirm once, and the $20 never happens. Full numbers by jersey type are on the custom jersey pricing page.

When does the roster have to be locked?

Lock the roster at least six weeks before your first game. Sublimated and roller jerseys take 4–5 weeks and tackle twill takes 5–6, with 3–4 of those weeks being actual production that only starts once you approve the design and the spreadsheet. Working backwards from a season opener is the only calendar that matters.

Here is the real sequence. You submit an inquiry, Puck Drop Prints emails you back, the design gets built, and then you receive a Team Order Info spreadsheet to fill out. Production does not begin until that spreadsheet and the design are both approved. Every day the roster sits half-finished is a day the clock has not started.

So the deadline you announce to your team is not the day you want jerseys. It is roughly seven weeks earlier. The full breakdown lives in how long custom hockey jerseys take to make, and the ordering steps are on how it works.

Production runs 3–4 weeks once the design and the roster spreadsheet are both approved — 4–5 weeks door to door on a sublimated order.

Copy this roster template

Paste these six column headers into a blank Google Sheet, share it with edit access, and you have the whole collection system in about forty seconds. Add one row per player, including the coach and the spare tendy.

Two extra columns are worth adding if your team splits payment: a paid checkbox and a socks yes/no. Do not add more than that. Every additional column is another reason for someone to abandon the form halfway.

Keep the finished sheet. When you add a player in January, or reorder next season, the roster you already built is the reason it takes one email instead of three weeks. Coaches running kids' teams should also read the youth team jersey ordering guide, because growth spurts make the sizing column a moving target.

Frequently Asked Questions

What information do you need to order custom team jerseys?

A custom team jersey order needs six pieces of information per player: name, the exact nameplate spelling, jersey number, jersey size, sock size, and position. Puck Drop Prints sends a Team Order Info spreadsheet after the design stage to capture all of it in one place. The team minimum is six jerseys.

What size hockey jersey should each player order?

Hockey jerseys are cut to fit over shoulder and elbow pads, so most adults order one size above their normal shirt size. Puck Drop Prints publishes 15 player sizes from T2 through 4XL and 11 goalie sizes from Youth GS through G4XL, each listed with torso width, sleeve length, and top-to-bottom measurements in inches.

What happens if a player gives the wrong jersey size?

A replacement ordered on its own costs $85 for a sublimated or roller jersey and $99 for reversible or tackle twill, versus $65 or $55 inside the original team order. Three or more replacement pieces ordered together return to standard team pricing. The replacement also takes another 4–5 weeks to arrive.

When does a team roster need to be finalized?

Lock the roster at least six weeks before the first game. Sublimated and roller jerseys take 4–5 weeks and tackle twill takes 5–6 weeks, and production only starts after both the design and the completed roster spreadsheet are approved. Setting the team's internal deadline two weeks earlier absorbs late responses.

Can every player on a team order a different size?

Yes. Sizes are collected per player, so a team order can mix any combination of the 26 available jersey sizes, including goalie cuts, at the same price per jersey. The only requirement is a minimum of six jerseys in the order. Sock sizes are chosen separately from a nine-size scale.

Get the spreadsheet from us instead

If building your own sheet feels like one more job, skip it. Start an order and Puck Drop Prints sends you the Team Order Info spreadsheet already formatted, alongside a free logo design and a mockup of your jersey. You fill in the rows, approve the design, and the clock starts.

Start your team order — six jersey minimum, names and numbers included, free worldwide shipping.