If you were around PNC Arena on September 13, 2013, you might remember one of those odd little sports-and-pop-culture moments that sticks around forever. Taylor Swift was in town for The Red Tour, and Jeff Skinner was in the building too, representing the Hurricanes and ending up with a signed jersey and a photo that has lived on the internet ever since.
Skinner later explained how it all went down on the What Chaos! podcast in 2023, when he was with the Buffalo Sabres.
He said he waited in line like everybody else, standing out among a crowd of young fans before finally reaching Swift. By that point, he had already signed the jersey himself.
When he handed it over, Swift asked him if he wanted her to sign it too.
That’s the kind of moment that can freeze a person for a second. Skinner didn’t, though.
He said he had already signed it for her before the picture was taken, and he played the whole thing off with a laugh. The result is one of those photos that gets funnier the more you know about it.
There’s also the extra layer that has followed Swift around in sports circles: the so-called Taylor Swift Curse. The idea is that when she wears a team’s jersey or otherwise gets behind a team, bad luck follows. Pittsburgh and Nashville were both mentioned as examples, and in Los Angeles, fan complaints led the Kings to remove a banner honoring her in 2020 because of fears they’d been cursed with a long stretch without a series victory.
If that curse was working on Skinner, it took its time. He posted a personal-best 31 goals in 2013-14, but his years with the Hurricanes had plenty of ups and downs before he was traded to Buffalo. It wasn’t until 2025, after more than 1,000 games, that he finally made the playoffs with the Edmonton Oilers.
The photo came back into the spotlight last June, when Swift attended Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final in Sunrise alongside now-husband Travis Kelce. Whether she remembered the Skinner moment or not, the internet certainly did.
Curse or no curse, it’s still a classic Hurricanes story: a simple jersey exchange that turned into an awkward, funny, and very online piece of team lore.
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