St. Louis Blues Jordan Binnington Ornament Solid From Neck Down

The St. Louis Blues goaltender will get his own ornament for 2020. If only the head was as good as his skills.

The St. Louis Blues might not be on the ice for Christmas time, but that doesn’t mean you cannot have a hockey themed holiday. In fact, through Hallmark and the Blues, it will be pretty easy.

Recently, FanSided unveiled some of the top holiday gift ideas with a Blues theme. One that did not make the list, because it had not been made public, was a Jordan Binnington ornament.

That’s right. You can hang a replica of the Blues Stanley Cup winning goaltender from a branch on your Christmas tree.

The only problem? The head looks terrible.

I’m sorry, but it does.

Before I go into this, it should be mentioned that the ornament is for a good cause. Most of the proceeds will go to local charity in St. Louis and also in Binnington’s home town as well. That alone is reason enough to get it.

It should also be said that the body of the ornament looks great. It’s a bit of a rough mold, but the pads are quite accurate, the pose is very good and even the glove hand looks very solid. The stick, which can often be bent or just wonky looking, also is in solid position and looks great.

The problem, as it is with almost every goaltender figurine of any sort, is the mask/head. This is not a knock on Hallmark as figures from everything like Starting Lineup to even more expensive figure lines tend to look awkward.

Even something known for accuracy like McFarland Toys sometimes makes their goaltender necks look too exposed.

The problem with this particular ornament is there is no neck. Yes, goalies sometimes look like they’re shrugging what with the high shoulder pads and squat position, but the neck of the mask is practically fused with the jersey.

You could let that slide given that it’s an ornament and not made for pristine accuracy. However, as someone that loved goalie masks since he was a kid, I’ll never understand why the masks look so poor on these types of things.

It’s plain, first of all. Then, the cage itself looks like someone tried to make a cookie mask and the icing didn’t come out quite right.

Again, it is just an ornament, but as a fan of goaltenders, it’s always bothered me how bad the masks tend to look on most of these types of things. Yeah, it’s just a resin figure, but you could at least give the chin piece more space so it doesn’t look like a Chris Osgood mask. We could also do without two black dots for eyes.

All that said, it’s a good looking ornament as a whole. The accuracy of the body overcomes my gripes and the charity aspect is good too.