As a retail framer and manager, I did custom work for private customers, and commercial framing for restaurants, hospitals and health care clinics—even a movie set or two. The shop also did work for the Minnesota Twins baseball team and the Minnesota Wild hockey team.
For the Twins, we would mat and frame a photo of a player, with a second opening in the mat for a plaque. The team would give these frames to their commercial partners as a holiday gift. We framed 80-120 of these every year.
When the Wild franchise began and opened the Xcel Energy Center arena (now the Grand Casino Arena) in St. Paul, we framed real hockey jerseys that bore the number of the luxury suite along with the sponsor name where the player's name would be. Some suites had multiple sponsors, and each sponsor required a unique jersey to be framed. That first year we framed 75 jerseys during our Christmas rush.
We also framed jerseys, souvenir pucks and autographed player photographs that the Wild sold in their gift shop, and other framed items that the team gave away as thank you gifts to their sponsors or auctioned off to raise money for their foundation.