Last week Monday, the Tim Horton’s donut chain teamed up with Mattel and the Professional Women’s Hockey League to sell two special hockey-themed Barbie dolls. One of the Barbie dolls is blonde and modeled after Marie-Philip Poulin, while the other has darker hair and is modeled after Sarah Nurse.
But if you are looking for one, you’ll have to check eBay, because the dolls sold out the day they were released.
Both the Tim Horton’s website and the PWHL online store state the dolls are sold out. Dolls were priced at $29.99 USD or $34.99 CDN. The PWHL website says that dolls might still be available at select Tim Horton’s donut shops.
These dolls do look nice. They have removable helmets with full cages – safety first, kids! – and stylish pink-and-purple PWHL jerseys. And the Tim Horton’s logo is on the front of the shoulder, right where the sponsor patch would be. The dolls include skates, sticks, and even little pucks. Awww!
And while buying hockey-themed Barbie dolls for my hockey collection isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, I could see these two chilling on my shelf, next to my 12″ Wayne Gretzky Mattel doll from 1983 and my 12″ Patrick Roy Pro Zone action figure from 1997. (Yes, Mattel actually marketed the Wayne Gretzky doll as a “fashion doll.”)
It is great that these PWHL Barbie dolls were so well-received, but I wonder how many of these ended up in the hands of children…and how many ended up in the clutches of toy resellers.
I mean, do an eBay search for “PWHL Barbie” and you’ll find about 70 or so of them, with asking prices – and sold prices – upwards of $60 USD.
Did some middle-aged dude go to every Tim Horton’s in Saskatoon, buying all the PWHL Barbie dolls that he could in hopes of reselling them? Or camp out as his computer, hitting the refresh button every five seconds until the dolls were listed, and then buy 50 at a time?
Maybe. But like the Tim Horton’s hockey cards, the Tim Horton’s PWHL Barbie dolls caught on like wildfire and then sold out just as quickly.
Hopefully, more of these dolls will be available at a later date, maybe in time for Christmas. Anything that gets kids – especially girls – excited about hockey is great.
Note: This article is an updated version of an editorial that originally appeared in Volume 3 – Issue 33 of the Puck Junk Newsletter. For stories like these, plus news and updates about hockey cards and collectibles, subscribe to the newsletter here.
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