Hockey Card of the Day #45

NNO - Sergei Federov
90-91 - ?
(back)

Does anyone know what set this off-brand card comes from? There is no company name or copyright date anywhere on the card. I'm hoping this was from some illegal, unlicensed set. The thing is, it's much higher quality than some of the crap that came out in 90-91 (I'm looking your way Bowman).

If it's any help, this foil Eric Lindros card seems to be from the same set as well.

Hockey Card of the Day #44

NNO - Stan Mikita
72-73 O-Pee-Chee Team Canada
(back)

These decapitated heads were inserted in packs of 72-73 O-Pee-Chee. I like them much better than the regular 72-73 OPC cards, though I think I would like this card even more if Mikita was wearing his trademark bulbous helmet.

Actually, this card probably ranks in my top ten favourite hockey cards, coincidentally with a couple of other cards that also feature people who have had their heads removed-- though in these cases they were reattached on someone else's body: 71-72 Rogie Vachon and Mike Corrigan.

Also notable in the category of cards featuring head transplants is the '74 Nabisco Sugar Daddy set that placed pro-athletes heads on cartoon bodies. Derek Sanderson's card is my favourite of that bunch.

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #22

#236 - Oleg Tverdovsky
95-96 Skybox Impact
(back)

It's embarrassing when the NHL tries to be cool. Like the NHL's Faceoff Rocks debacle that kicked off the 08-09 season and featured two artists, Def Leppard and Alanis Morrisette, who were arguably never cool, and have quite obviously not been cool for at least a decade.

All of the NHL's efforts to prove that they are cool through shitty events and celebrity endorsements (with the exception of this one) just remind me that I have nothing in common with 99% of hockey fans and make me wonder why I even like the sport.

This card gets inducted into the hockey card hall of shame for the hokey "Hockey's Hip" logo and the paragraph on the back that makes me want to punch the writer in the face.

Hockey Card of the Day #43

#10 - Mike Dunham
95-96 Edge Ice - The Wall
(back)

Whatever that thing on Dunham's mask is supposed to be (a grotesque red-faced gorilla?), it gets my vote as the creepiest goalie mask ever.

This card was part of a insert set of minor-league goalie masks that featured such minor-league staples as Rick Knickle, Troy Gamble, Wendell Young and Pokey Reddick. These cards were inserted in packs of 95-96 Edge Ice, which was an ambitious 200 card set of AHL/IHL players. Like most companies that only released minor league sets, Edge Ice did not return for a second year. If anyone has one of these sets they want to get rid of, I want one.

Top 10 Hits

I'm trying to find the ten best hits ever shown on hockey cards. I know the NHL and NHLPA don't allow fighting on hockey cards, but as far as I know there is no issue with bodychecks. Still, it's really hard to find many cards with good photos of players running each other over. So far I have just four worthy candidates.

#67 - 1980 U.S. Hockey Team Aggressive blocking - 1991 Impel U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame - Apparently running a guy over is also called "Aggressive blocking."

#79 - Steve Bernier - 07-08 Upper Deck

#149 - Dany Heatley - 07-08 Upper Deck

#520 - Rick Tabaracci - 90-91 Upper Deck - I think this one is my favourite right now.

Can anyone help me flesh out this list?

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #21

#157 - Mike Corrigan
71-72 O-Pee-Chee

My new favourite card of all-time.

Hockey Card of the Day #42

#69 - Randy Ladoceur
94-95 Stadium Club
(back)

Anytime I see someone wearing these jerseys in public I assume they are slightly retarded.

70-71 Topps

70-71 Topps is a pretty nice, simple set-- not the most exciting or attractive of all the 1970's sets, but it's definitely not the worst. The 132 cards in this set are almost exactly the same as the first 132 cards from O-Pee-Chee's set from the same year, though it is a little confusing why Topps would take the first 132 cards and have career minor-leaguers in the set (like Wayne Hicks and Dave Amadio, who hadn't played in the NHL since 67-68 and 68-69 respectively and would never play major-pro again) instead of players like Tony Esposito and Alex Delvecchio.

The back of the cards have a nice ugly-green background complete with an illustration and a few player stats. I always prefer to see career stats on cards, so it's especially disappointing when cards don't even list complete stats for the previous season. At least the write-ups have lots of unnecessary quotation marks.

Since the late-60's, early 70's were the era of the first two expansions and lots of players were changing teams, Topps (or OPC) decided to either crop out as much of the player's jersey out of the photo as possible or just take the logo off the jersey itself. I always disliked that in the past. Taking a logo off a jersey just makes it look like a budget set that couldn't afford the proper licensing, but now I would kind of like to see a new set do that on some those 'vintage' cards. Maybe they could bring back some airbrushing too!

Five of my favourites:

#69 - Gary Smith - It would take just a few more years for this respectable-looking young man to turn into this.

#90 - Jim Morrison - Not the oldest, but the oldest-looking man to ever play in the NHL.

#6 - Johnny McKenzie - The creepiest-looking man to ever play in the NHL?

#40 - Gump Worsley - Gump does not find that very amusing.

#105 - Bruce Gamble - Floatin'.

I got many of these images from the great Hockey Card Cyber Museum. They have all the 70's Topps sets and are starting to work on the 80's O-Pee-Chee ones. You have to get a (free) guest pass to enter the site, but it is definitely worth it.

Thanks to Jeremy and Nitzy for bringing the Hockey Card Cyber Museum to my attention. Check out their hockey blogs by clicking on their names.

I also took one image from checkoutmycards.com, which also has lots of 70-71 Topps cards for your viewing and purchasing pleasure.

Hockey Card of the Day #41 - Grand Poobah of Unibrows

#65 - Rick Hampton
75-76 Topps
(Buy it)

This guy has it all wrong-- he's got his eyebrows on his upper lip and his mustache on his forehead. And I though Thomas Jelinek was the Lanny McDonald of unibrows. . .