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. . .

1992 - Action Hockey Freaks

I've been looking at a bunch of other sports card blogs today and they all seem to be into listing what they pulled from whatever boring pack of cards. That's all they do, they open a pack of cards and list what was inside. Most of them don't even scan the full pack. Laammee.

But if that's what people want, I'm prepared to compromise. So here it is: One pack of 1992 Action Hockey Freaks!

Just in case you missed this set when it was first released, Hockey Freaks is a set of the fictional futuristic Atomic Hockey League which is set in the 2034. Sounds like a winner to me!

SP1 - Detroit Unemployed
Not just a foil sticker, but very topical too!
#6 - The Stuntson Brothers - Boston Stranglers

#14 - Charlie Horse - Chicago Gangsters
This guy is into branding other players' asses with a 'G'.
#23 - Brad Luck - Detroit Unemployed#31 - Wayne Grizzly - Los Angeles Pollution
Must be a good pack if I pull the Gretzky parody. #41 - Great Sesame - Montreal Flying Hasbeens#48 - Greg Proctor - New York Scums#56 - Boulhouboulhou Boulhou - Ottawa Mountees
And finishing off the pack is a racist caricature. Awesome! The back of this card is worth reading.

Check out my cards

I've been too busy/tired/lazy to update the blog much lately, but I did put up some shitty cards for sale on checkoutmycards.com.

Someone already bought all of my 06-07 Sunkist Alumni cards and re-listed them at a higher price (what the fuck?), but there still are plenty of other cards to waste your money on, like beautiful Saskatchewan Place,



and convicted sex offender, Graham James

and some great NHL Pogs!


so click here to view my cards and send me your low-ball offers!

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #20

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #20
#106 - Manon Rheaume
94-95 Sports Stars USA

I thought I'd already found the ugliest Manon Rheaume card-- then I saw this reject from the Saved by the Bell set.

All you Rheaume fans will be happy to know that Upper Deck is finally releasing its first Rheaume card in the 08-09 NHL Legends Masterpieces set. It's about time!

Hockey Card of the Day #40

#116 - Corrado Micalef
83-84 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

I've seen pictures of this guy without his helmet on and he doesn't have a big down syndrome forehead or Gary Smith-esque 'fro. So what's in that dome?

Despite having such a relic of a goalie mask in his NHL days, Micalef was hip enough to wind down his career with four seasons in the RHI with the Montreal Roadrunners, Orlando Jackals, and San Jose Rhinos from 94-97.

New Hockey Pin Store!

Over 100 new pins!

Great goalie masks, great mustaches, Ron MacLean!, great goons and more. They will all be posted over the next few days at http://stores.ebay.ca/Get-High-on-Buttons

Hockey Card of the Day #39

#E9 - Jim Kyte

94-95 Classic Enforcers of Hockey

I guess these budget brands did have a good idea every once in a while. Since NHL cards aren't allowed to show fighting, Classic made a ten card set of AHL and IHL'ers beating this shit out of each other (or at the very least staring each other down).

Apparently this career minor-league goon is a hero in Syracuse where he has a banner with his name and number in the War Memorial at Oncenter, the home of the AHL Crunch.

Hockey Card of the Day #38

#412 - Link Gaetz
91-92 Pinnacle
(back)

I like what this card insinuates. But as much as I wish this card was made by some harsh Link Gaetz critic, the back actually talks about how Gaetz raises award-winning chickens. . . which I guess is kinda bizarre when you think about the guy. But if he was such a great chicken breeder, why is he working construction in Mission, BC? SPCA complaints?

Box of shitty cards!

My friends from Calgary gave me a big box of random hockey and baseball cards. Most of them were shitty, some of them were funny, all of them smelled like hippie.

Five of my favourites:

#45 - Gino Odjick - 93-94 Parkhurst Emerald Ice - Can you believe the Canucks traded this guy for Jason Strudwick? Forget the Luongo deal, this was Keenan's worst trade ever.

#28 - Eric Lindros - 98-99 Collector's Choice Starquest - The ugliest card in the box award winner!

#5 - Sergei Samsonov - 98-99 Pacific Aurora Championship Fever - For this set they had ten different people all design one small part of the card without seeing what the others were doing.

#645 - Alex Fernandez - 1991 Upper Deck Baseball - I don't usually write about baseball cards, but since they were in the box I thought I could at least show this card because number 13 is wearing a friggin' 'Can't Touch This' hat!

#NNO - Cleveland Indians - 1991 Upper Deck Team Holograms - The Indians logo is the most racist logo in sports. I can't believe they've been allowed to keep it for so long. Could you imagine a team getting away with this as a logo. It's about the equivalent.

Hockey Card of the Day #37

#AR2 - Gilbert Dionne
92-93 Upper Deck All-Rookie Team

What a douche!

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #19

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #19
#5 - Doug Bonner
1995 Signature Rookies
(back)

Surprisingly, Signature Rookies managed to fart out one more set after the 1994 Roman debacle. As much as I was hoping the 1995 cards would have a wild west theme, SR decided to go for a more toned-down kind of ugly. While SR did not shell out to license the team's logo, they were nice enough to spend a few seconds photoshopping "Seattle" onto the jersey. In case you were wondering, Bonner's pro career consisted of a handful of games in the AHL and a few seasons kicking around the ECHL and UHL. There are only 4,499 more of these floating around... you better grab 'em before they're gone.

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #18

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #18

#CXVIII - Wendell Young
1994 Signature Rookies Tetrad Autographs

I love when budget companies did their impression of high-end cards. Here is a Signature Rookies autograph of a washed-up player that is painfully hand-numbered 2640 of 7750. If the photoshopped jersey and ugly Roman column on the front aren't bad enough for you, check out the Windows 95 wallpaper and hockey clip art on the back. At least they had the good judgment not to write the blurb in Latin as well.

The Goon Collection (SOLD)

Since goons are the best sellers so far, I've put together a five-pin goon set that includes Tim Hunter, Link Gaetz, John Kordic, Gino Odjick and Bob Probert that you can purchase for the low price of $7.50 (plus $2 shipping to anywhere).

I am going on a short tour with my band. All order received by 5pm Pacific Friday, Aug. 15th will be shipped before I go. All other orders will be shipped when I get back on the 25th.

Hockey Pins

Hockey pins are now available for $2 each! Each 1" pin is lovingly handmade from an authentic NHL trading card. Special requests accepted. Email bszine(at)hotmail.com.

Lots of pins available (click to view flickr set or see individual pins below):

Wendel Clark - 1 2
Link Gaetz - 1 (sold out) 2 (sold out)
Michel Goulet - 1
Dirk Graham - 1
Dale Hawerchuk - 1
Kelly Hrudey- 1 2
Guy Lafleur - 1
Mike Liut - 1 (sold out)
Lanny McDonald - 1
Kirk McLean - 1 2 3
Marty McSorely - 1 2
Mark Messier - 1 2
Stan Mikita - 1
Gino Odjick - 1 2 (sold out)
Gilbert Perreault - 1
Bill Ranford - 1 2 3
Patrick Roy - 1
Denis Savard - 1
Ilkka Sinisalo/Kevin Hatcher - 1
Stan Smyl - 1
Doug Wilson - 1

$1 flat rate shipping to anywhere will be added at checkout. Be sure to specify which pins you want in the paypal comments section.

Wish List #3

#442 - Pavel Bure
95-96 DEL

In one game with the Landshut Cannibals of the German Elite League during the 94-95 NHL lock-out, Bure managed to get three goals and a sweet hockey card. I can appreciate any jersey that would not look out of place in the RHI . You can't tell from the front of this card, but those savages on Bure's jersey are actually holding a bone hockey stick! I found a site made by a person who owns Bure's game jersey from Landshut. He has a photo of the back of the jersey.

I thought I could get this card off of eBay for a buck, but it shot up to $25 since I last looked. I guess have to settle for friggin' 'Prince Pavel'.

79-80 O-Pee-Chee

This may be the best set of hockey cards ever. Everything about them is beautiful. There may be other sets that look nearly as good on the front, but 79-80 OPC has by far the best back of any cards I've seen. It doesn't get better than putting all the stats and important info in a skate and having a cartoon on every card.

In good condition, this set is worth more than I'd ever be willing to pay, but I managed to find a set of low-grade cards that fit my budget of not very much money. All of the cards have dinged up corners, and some are fairly badly off-centered, but some cards have actually been corrected, like Charlie Simmer who apparently was a left winger and not a center as OPC claimed, and Vic Venasky who was obviously missing a mustache.

There are more great cards than I can show, but I can say that this set has pretty much everything you could want. There are league-leaders, team cards (including ones for the WHA teams that were merging with the NHL) badass goalies, sweet unibrows, and terrible painted jerseys. My one beef with the set is that they don't show Gerry Cheevers with his stitch mask down. It doesn't seem right to have great photos of third-rate goalies and then such a boring photo of one of the greatest.

Five of my favourites:

#62 - Jim Bedard - The only unconventional photo in the entire set. I dig the 70's scoreboard in the background.

#155 - Stan Mikita - I also dig Mikita's bulbous head.

#175 - Gordie Howe - He may not be the oldest man ever put on a hockey card, but he's the oldest man who ever deserved it.

#327 - Ed Staniowski - A third-rate goalie with a great photo.

#328 - Ron Plumb - Plumb had already played for the Whalers for two season before this card came out, but the best OPC could do was this blurry photo five-year old photo from his one season with the San Diego Mariners. Awesome!

Hockey Card of the Day #36

#334 - Peter Ihnacak
83-84 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

This is my favourite one-third of a rookie card that I own. It was given to me by a friend who salvaged it from a wall in a house he was renovating along with a pretty sweet 82-83 O-Pee-Chee Pete Peeters card. I trust that the gods of worthless hockey cards have already taken care of the person responsible for the destruction of this card.

Hockey Card of the Day #35

#440 - Doug Gilmour Checklist
93-94 Leaf

After 1993 the NHL stopped including an open cocaine bar at the awards shows. Gilmour came prepared with his 'good vibes' bowtie, but when Chelios giggled through his acceptance speech and Turgeon tried to fill the Lady Byng trophy with some of that good shit to bring back to Long Island the NHL finally had enough.

Hockey Card of the Day #33, 34

(Left) #20 - Rick Nash
07-08 Upper Deck Series 1

(Right) #275 - Rick Nash
07-08 Upper Deck Series 2

Rick Nash walking on, and off, the ice! If you would like to see more photos of the Columbus Blue Jackets not playing hockey, you may also want to check out card numbers 271, 274, and 276. Just because no one cheers for Columbus doesn't mean you can be lazy, Upper Deck.

Spotlight: Mike Liut

#306 - Mike Liut 82-83
O-Pee-Chee
(back)

Very few players have looked as consistently badass on their hockey cards as Mike Liut. Even after he got rid of the molded 'ghoul' mask, Liut still managed to look tough. I never had the chance to actually to see Liut play any games, but the lack of Liut video on youtube leads me to believe he never lost his shit like Ron Hextall on Chris Chelios in the '89 playoffs. It's too bad because with a mask like that you'd think he'd have swung his stick like he was Grim Reaper taking down a victim with his sickle at least once.

Five more of my favourite Liut cards:
#187 - 84-85 O-Pee-Chee
#127 - 88-89 O-Pee-Chee
#267 - 88-89 O-Pee-Chee Stickers
#??? - 90-91 Panini
#68 - 90-91 Score

Wish List #2

#GG-DC - Don Cherry Game Gear
00-01 Topps Stars

While this card is on my wish list, there's no denying that it is tackier than most of Cherry's suits. Every trading card company is dropping the ball when it comes to Don Cherry memorabilia cards. I hate to give away my great ideas but here's a freebie: make the suit in the photo an actual patch from one of his Hockey Night in Canada suits. Imagine getting this card with a small piece of authentic Don Cherry plaid. That'd be the hottest card since Gretzky-2000.

And while I'm giving away great ideas, I'd like a Ron MacLean memorabilia card with a patch from one of those old blue Hockey Night in Canada jackets like he's wearing in the video below, please.

Representatives from Upper Deck or In the Game can send job offers to bszine@hotmail.com. Anyone with this card or the Linden card from the last wish list post can send trade offers to the same address.

Free box of Upper Deck!

It's hard to believe that people would pay $72 for a box of these cards considering that the base set is worth nothing and most of the inserts aren't worth much more than that. I guess the point is to pull some exclusive hd-high gloss-parallel-autographed-game worn-rookie card and sell it on eBay for a pile of money. But if you don't get one of the few boxes that have those cards, then you're pretty much stuck with a pile of worthless cards. 07-08 is the new 91-92.

This box was free, so the price was right, and even though I already had the base set it was fun to open a box of hockey cards without the guilt of having spent a lot of money on it. One of the best things about this box was that out of the 192 cards in the box (24 eight-card packs) there wasn't a single double. Upper Deck was always the worst for that back in the 90's. The box of 93-94 Jumbo Packs that I opened recently was almost one-third duplicates, including quadruples of every Swede's favorite Belarusian, Alexander Andrijevski.

Out of my 192 cards, I got almost exactly what the box said I would: 172 base cards, including all the superstars like Sidney Crosby and Dan Cloutier; six Superstar insert cards, including Andrew Raycroft and Dwayne Roloson,'Hometown Heroes', Ryan Miller and Jarome Iginla, 'NHL's Best', Phil Kessel 'Award Winners' (the Masteron trophy is tied with the Lady Byng for lamest award in my books), and Scott Niedermayer's 'Lord Stanley's Heroes' card where it looks like he had to clip the bird shit out of his disgusting homeless-man beard; six Young Guns rookie cards-- I got some pretty marginal 'guns' in this batch-- Matt Niskanen, Ryan Callahan, David Krejci, Jared Boll, Daniel Winnik and Curtis McElhinney; Mark Stuart and David Legwand Game Jersey cards, and probably the only card actually worth more than a buck-- the 'Signature Sensations' Martin St.Louis autograph.

By my estimation, these cards are worth, at most, $35 if sold individually, which means I would have lost about $40 if I had purchased the box and was looking for a profit. I wish that Upper Deck would at least put enough cards in the box so you have the chance of getting the full base set when you buy a box. For $72 it's the least they could do, especially since it would only take one more card per pack.

All of these cards are up for trade. Make me offers of Pro-Set t-shirts, as well as weird and terrible hockey cards.

Wish List #1

#188 - Trevor Linden (A Day in the Life)
97-98 Leaf

As much as I love Trevor Linden and cordless telephones, $8 after shipping was just a little more than I could justify spending on this gem. But instead of letting it pass me by altogether, I've decided it time to start the Get High on Hockey wish list! Friends, family, and fans can all take note that all cards added to my wish list make great presents for all occasions! Hell, even a decent scan of the back of this card would be a pretty nice surprise. I'm dying to find out what they could possibly write on a card like this.

Two other cards from Linden's "A Day in the Life" series also caught my attention: #196, "Window's '94 Linden" is another beauty whose bidding was a little to rich for my low-income ass. Oddly, #195, "Beach Bum Linden" was not looked on as favourably by the discerning collectors, selling for just sixty cents. I guess I should've snapped that one up.

But seriously, I may be playing GM Place again next year with the Flying Vees, and I'd be surprised if Linden isn't involved with the Canucks somehow. "Cordless Linden" is just the kind of card I'd love to have autographed, so let me know if you have it and we'll make a deal.

Back!

It's been over a month, but I'm back to updating so you'll have another way to waste two minutes while you should be working.

During my time away from the blog I was indulging in some of my other hockey fantasies. First off, I went to Toronto to play in the Exclaim! Cup, the annual hockey tournament of the arts featuring all your favorite Canadian semi-celebrities, like Chris Murphy of Sloan, Dave Bidini of the Rheostatics (and author of one of my favorite hockey books, Tropic of Hockey), and George Strombopolous of The Hour. My team, the Vancouver Flying Vees, went an unspectacular one win, two losses in the tournament, but we ruled the musical part of tournament (each team forms a band and performs one night of the tournament) with a short set split between Velvet Underground covers and hockey rock n' roll.

I picked up a few random cards from the 2003 Exclaim! Cup tournament, including these of the two teams that beat the Vees, and this one random Wheatfield Souldier. I have to say that these guys had the best jerseys in the tournament, featuring the Winnipeg Jets' honorary captain, Burton Cummings.

Back in Vancouver, I got to fulfill a hockey fantasy that I never thought would happen: playing to 19,000 people during a Canucks game. Despite the fact the Canucks blew the game and their season, it was pretty sweet playing from the front row of the balcony and exploring GM Place with my media pass.

More posts soon!

Hockey Card of the Day #31, 32

#326 - Jonathan Cheechoo
07-08 Upper Deck Series 2

San Jose vs. San Jose? Bullshit! They had half a season to get a photo of Cheechoo and they the use one from the team's intra-squad game.

#271 - Pascal Leclaire
07-08 Upper Deck Series 2

Why is it that Schwarzenneger gets to be in all the best hockey villain movie scenes?

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #17

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #17
#253 - Pro-Set Youth Parade
92-93 Pro-Set
(back)

The least desirable hockey card in existence. If this isn't a last minute filler for some card that Pro-Set couldn't get the rights to produce, I don't know what is.

In an unrelated matter, I really want to get one of these sweet shirts that were advertised on packs of 90-91 Pro-Set. They were never available in Canada no matter how many of the 'hottest discount' cards you collected. If an American reader has one, or if anyone sees one anywhere, please let me know. I wear size small or medium and will gladly trade all of my Pro-Set Youth Parade cards, or something of similar value, like a slimy banana peel and a used band-aid. . . or just pay cash.

Hockey Card of the Day #30

#327 - Colorado Rockies (Records)
77-78 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

The best thing about this card is the stats on the back for most shutouts in a season and in a career which say "never accomplished." I know the team had only been in Colorado for one season, but if you include the stats from the team's time in Kansas City, it still would read "never accomplished."

Doug Favell eventually recorded the team's first shutout early in the 77-78 season, a 3-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. That one shutout gives Favell a share of the team record for most career shutouts by a Rockies goaltender. Bill Oleschuk and Bill McKenzie were the other two goalies to get shutouts during the team's six years in Colorado before they were moved to new Jersey for the 82-83 season.