Get High on Hockey

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #23

2010-12-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

#67 - Mike Grier
97-98 Upper Deck
(back)

Get High on Hockey is back from the dead. . . for today. . . just because this card features three of my favourite things: an unflattering photo, pizza, and an ugly couch.

It's been a while since I've seen a suitably awful card, although I have been interested in old cigarette cards that are certainly awful and offensive. You really have to read the back of this 'Puppy Stew' card to understand what I mean.

Hockey Card of the Day #45

2009-01-06T14:16:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-04T20:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T18:29:00.000-08:00

#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

2008-12-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

#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

2008-12-02T03:05:00.000-08:00

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

#52 0 - 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

2008-11-24T23:24:00.000-08:00

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

My new favourite card of all-time.

Hockey Card of the Day #42

2008-11-17T18:15:00.001-08:00

#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

2008-11-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

#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

2008-10-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

#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!

2008-09-12T19:45:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

#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

2008-09-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

#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!

2008-09-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-30T01:39:00.001-07:00

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

What a douche!

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #19

2008-08-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-25T15:35:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

#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

2008-07-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

#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

2008-07-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

#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

2008-04-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

(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

2008-04-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

#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

2008-04-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

#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!

2008-04-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

#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!

2008-04-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

#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

2008-02-26T18:33:00.002-08:00

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

2008-02-24T22:05:00.000-08:00

#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.

Hockey Card of the Day #29

2008-02-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

#239 - Craig Cameron
75-76 Topps
(back)

Now that's a million dollar smile!

Hockey Card of the Day #28

2008-02-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

#26 - Alexander Andrijevski
93-94 Upper Deck
(back)

I bought a box of 93-94 Upper Deck Jumbo Packs because I remembered that jumbo packs ruled when I was a kid. I didn't get any Wayne Gretzky cards, but I did get four Alexander Andrijevski's. Luckily, I needed this card for my collection of worthless and forgotten hockey players.

Hockey Card of the Day #27

2008-02-13T23:47:00.000-08:00

#156 - Rogatien Vachon
71-72 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

In the 80's, O-Pee-Chee was into airbrushing the jerseys of recently traded players. That looked bad, but just as bad was their cut and paste technique of the 70's. Rogie doesn't even have the same colour skin as the body they've pasted him on. And Larry Hillman, a defensemen, had his head pasted on a goalie's body (Joe Daley's, who was traded to Detroit after the 70-71 season).

Hockey Card of the Day #26

2008-02-07T00:51:00.001-08:00

#344 - Adam Graves
90-91 Upper Deck
(front)

Some guys grow playoff beards, Graves grew a playoff scumstache.

04-05 Upper Deck All-World

2008-02-05T18:47:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure why, but I really appreciate ugly and ridiculous hockey cards. Maybe it is because while everyone chases down the latest hot rookie card, I can be just as happy with a bottom of the barrel common card that makes me laugh (and saves me a lot of money). This is why Upper Deck's NHL lock-out year All-World set gets two thumbs up from me.

The set's 90 base cards mostly feature NHL players with their European teams, with a few former European-NHL stars thrown in as well. There are a lot of stars included in the set, but the real star of this set is the garish jerseys these guys are wearing-- some of which would even make race car drivers weep. Among the worst offenders are the Swiss National League's, SC Bern and Zug; the Czech Extraliga's HC Zlin and Pardubice (it is nice to see Kappa clothing on someone who is not trying to sell drugs to me at the bus stop) and Finnish SM-Liiga's Jokerit Helsinki (though to be fair this photo is from the 94-95 lock-out, not that it makes that collar any less ridiculous).

I know that European teams make most of their money from sponsorships, which explains why it looks like they have the yellow pages printed on their jerseys, but surprisingly the team with the highest payroll in Europe during the lock-out, Ak Bars Kazan of the Russian Super League, also had the best jerseys. These jerseys wouldn't even be bad for the NHL. It is definitely better than what Anaheim wears.

Five of my favourites:

#27 - Nikolai Khabibulin - Does he always look like this?

#44 - Borje Salming - This photo seems like it would have been from Salming's pre-NHL days, right? But all of his stats that I have found say that he only played for AIK Solna in the early-90's. Could they not afford good cameras, or is something wrong? European readers please let me know.

#55 - Hakaan Loob - He's missing his nice purple bow tie.

#78 - Joe Thornton - The best of the few action shots.

#87 - Igor Larionov - A classic jersey that will make you wish for the days of pre-capitalist European hockey.

07-08 Upper Deck Series 1

2008-01-24T00:13:00.000-08:00

I don't feel like this set really needs a big write-up. All you really need to know is that there aren't nearly as many exciting action shots as the previous year's set, I don't like the skinny little bar at the bottom/side of the cards, but it is still a lot better than the new O-Pee-Chee set which is once again ugly. 07-08 Upper Deck is above average, but below great.

Five of my favourites:

#54 - Joe Sakic - Overhead shots are always stand-outs.

#79 - Steve Bernier - There should have been more cards like this.

#128 - Martin Biron - The one improvement over the previous year's set is the goalie cards. There are a lot more horizontal action shots, which are always the best.

#131 - Simon Gagne - I just noticed that all but one of the cards I pulled from the set as potential favourites are horizontal cards. They should just make the whole set like this.

#147 - Chris Phillips - I always like when I can see what the player is doing in the context of the play.

77-78 O-Pee-Chee WHA

2008-01-15T13:11:00.000-08:00

Nothing shows the WHA's instability better than its final O-Pee-Chee set. More than a quarter of the cards in the relatively small 66-card set have "Now with. . ." printed somewhere on the front. Four of the twelve teams that existed during the 76-77 WHA season folded prior to the release of O-Pee-Chee's 77-78 set, which would have made it hard for O-Pee-Chee to release a full sized set with the correct teams listed on each player's card, so they really didn't bother to try to get it right.

The lack of up-to-date photos makes for a nice variety of jerseys with all eight surviving teams included (Birmingham Bulls, Cincinnati Stingers, Edmonton Oilers, Houston Aeros, Indianapolis Racers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets) as well as the four teams that folded after the 76-77 season (Calgary Cowboys, Minnesota Fighting Saints, Phoenix Roadrunners and San Diego Mariners) as well as, for some reason, the Los Angeles Sharks, a team that relocated to Michigan after the 73-74 season, and the NHL's Vancouver Canucks. Since the set is only 66 cards you mostly get the WHA stars, like Bobby Hull, Frank Mahovlich and the Howe brothers, this unfortunately means players like the Carlson brothers, who played the Hanson's in the movie Slap Shot do not get cards. It's not hard to understand why O-Pee-Chee did not make another WHA set even though the league lasted until the 78-79 season-- the league was constantly on verge of going under, and judging from the number of photos reused from previous WHA sets, O-Pee-Chee had better things to do than make cards for the rebel league.

One of the nice things about this set is the number of action shots. O-Pee-Chee was sometimes guilty of putting too many boring shots of people standing around or posing. While this set does have some of that, it also has some pretty good photography, especially for a set from the 70's. There is action, and there are rad game photos of goalies. I'd also like to point out how much I love the fuzzy edges and off-centering. Sure, it means the cards aren't in mint condition, but they have so much character. Some of the cards have the line of copyright information at the bottom of the card, some have a little at the both the top and bottom, while others don't have it at all. Beautiful!

My favourites:

#1 - Gordie Howe - Gordie doesn't get a regular card in the set, just this one commemorating his 1000th professional goal. Note the Plexiglas boards!

#2 - Jean Bernier - I like the crude old Nordiques jersey and that wearing a helmet is notable enough to get mentioned on the back.

#3 - Anders Hedberg - He's got the crazy-eye!

#14 - Don McLeod - I wish we could go back to the days of double-chinned goaltenders.

#37 - Terry Ruskowski - This card came with a little piece of authentic 77-78 O-Pee-Chee gum stuck to it!

#41 - John McKenzie - if you can believe it, gramps here played another two seasons after this photo was taken.

#49 - Al Smith - Goalies looked so badass in the 70's.

Hockey Card of the Day #25

2008-01-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

#72 - Brian McFarlane
06-07 Parkhurst
(back)

Here is the highly sought after rookie card of the author of my second through fifth favorite books on hockey: It Happened in Hockey, More It Happened in Hockey, and Still More It Happened in Hockey. In case you are wondering, Ed Willes' The Rebel League, about the WHA's short but amazing history is my favourite book on hockey. When Ed Willes gets a hockey card, I will gladly pay up to 25 cents for it.

94-95 Be a Player

2008-01-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

So far on my blog I've covered some pretty awful sets, like the infamous 90-91 Pro-Set, which featured errors, referees and the puck; Sunkist's riculous 05-06 'orange peel' set with it's horribly photoshopped jerseys; Pro-Set Platinum's 91-92 second series which, most notably, features cards of children's entertainer, Fred (Mr.) Rogers and CNN douche, Larry King; as well as numerous low-budget draft pick and major junior sets that really scraped the bottom of the barrel of good taste and basic competency. But all these sets pale in comparison to the set that I am naming the official Worst Set of All-Time: 94-95 Be A Player.

Be A Player, which was produced by the Upper Deck and the NHLPA, was kind of a big deal back when it was first released because it was the first set to include an autographed card in every pack. Hopefully, the excitement of finding an autographed card was enough to off-set the disappointment of finding out that the set was not licensed by the NHL, meaning that none of the players were shown wearing their team's jersey. When the players are shown playing hockey (which isn't as often as you'd expect in a set of hockey cards) they are wearing a variety of ugly NHLPA jerseys, and when they aren't playing hockey, you find some of the worst hockey cards in existence.

The set can be divided into ten different, but all terrible, sub-sets:

Hockey players being hockey players - This includes the few action shots, the many posing in hockey equipment shots, and the poorly airbrushed uniform shots.
Hockey players being golfers - Golfing might be fun, but it isn't very cool. No one collects golf cards, and no one should have ever made cards of hockey players golfing.
Hockey players being models - Half of this set looks like a NHLPA clothing catalog.
Hockey players being themselves - This is one of my favourite parts of the set because I get to see how professional hockey players are just like regular people: they like playing pool, rollerblading (note that this is from the same photo shoot as his 91-92 Upper Deck card), dogs, being gay, impersonating Kenny G, and arson!
Hockey players giving tips - The boring part of the set.
Hockey player snapshots - There's shots of 14 NHL stars or up-and-comers, and then, for some reason, Garry Valk.
Hockey players as kids - You get to guess who the person is from their childhood photo. I guessed Cammie Granato on this one, but it was actually this guy.
Denis Leary talking about hockey players - You remember him? The guy who had that comedy song 'Asshole'. He makes some 'PG ' jokes on some players' cards.
Hockey players in the news - I always hate these cheesy fake newspaper things. It usually means that their are too many words and not enough action, but this card makes up for it on the back-- a player playing real hockey!
Hockey players as fanimated superheros - Try to imagine the worst thing you could possibly put on a hockey card. This is worse.

I could have put almost all of the 180 cards from this set into my Worst Cards of All-Time list, but I've narrowed it down to these five inductees:

#34 - Jason Arnott - I snuck into these waterslides at the West Edmonton Mall once when I was on a band trip. I'm a little disappointed I didn't get a photo on a trading card.

#62 - Steve Smith - Too bad Steve isn't as good at golf as he is at scoring in his own net in the 1986 playoffs.

#141 - Denis Leary - It's sad that a comedian is one of the few people shown playing hockey in this set.

#174 - Curtis Joseph - Touching his balls!

#178 - Eric Lindros - I always wondered what Eric Lindros would look like as a pimp from the year 3000. Not that he was a bad dresser back in the 90's though.

06-07 Fleer

2008-01-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

It doesn't seem like Upper Deck is going to be releasing a Fleer set this year, which is too bad considering this was the second best set of 06-07, in my opinion (which is the correct opinion). I already said just about everything I have to say about this set in a previous post, but since I got the set off of eBay for next to nothing, I thought it deserved it's own post.

Upper Deck should have released these cards as their O-Pee-Chee set instead of the ugly brown cards that got the O-Pee-Chee brand name. Everything about the Fleer set is closer to the traditional look and feel of the O-Pee-Chee sets of the past except that the backs only have stats from the player's last five NHL season stats.

Five of my favourites:

#45 - Nikolai Khabibulin - Judging from what I can see of his face through his mask, he must be the world's ugliest dude.

#94 - Rob Blake - Since this was one of the first sets of the 07-08 season there weren't photos of some of the players with their current teams, so they either used a photo of the player with his previous team and put the current team's logo in the corner, or, in Rob Blake's case, they hired a handicapped person to hold up his new jersey for a photo.

#114 - Scott Hartnall - As much as I liked Nashville's gaudy third jerseys, it's about time they were put out of the NHL's misery.

#125 - Trent Hunter - This guy looks like he was drafted from the dark corner of one of those internet cafe's where you see people playing war games online 24 hours a day.

#154 - Sidney Crosby - Ever heard of him?

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #11

2007-12-31T20:43:00.001-08:00

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #11

#316 - Patrick Roy (Chippy's Checklist)
97-98 Collector's Choice

Yeah, this card was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys until I used it as a dart board and then stuck it in my bicycle spokes. I don't understand why any company would encourage people to keep their cards in good shape. They should make it as hard as possible for people to keep their cards in mint condition so that those collectors who are really anal about their cards can at least be have something of value to show for their lack of a soul. Topps got it right with the scratch off names in their 80-81 set. Next year, I'd like to see a set that has a scratch and win on every card and gum back in packs of O-Pee-Chee.

Parkhurst Santa Claus!

2007-12-25T00:39:00.000-08:00

Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #9
No# - Santa Claus
91-92 Parkurst

Even Santa thought Pro-Set cards were crap. I can understand why he'd throw away that 90-91 Pro-Set hockey card, but why is he getting rid of the Vanilla Ice rookie card?

The back of the card is a bit of a bummer.

Hockey Card of the Day #24

2007-12-21T19:51:00.001-08:00

#231 - Dennis Kearns

71-72 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

He may look like a midget with a beer gut, but look closely at the marks on his neck and his self-satisfied grin-- the ladies loved him.

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #9

2007-12-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #9
#13 - Markus Naslund
91-92 Classic Four-Sport

Classic knew how to squeeze every penny out of the trading card fad of the early-90's. This card from Classic's 91-92 Four-Sport set features the exact same photo as Naslund's card in Classic's Draft Pick set from the same year. The big difference between the two cards is the horrible marble border they slapped on the Four-Spot card, which is one of the worst I've ever seen on any card. The back of the Four-Sport card is like an uglier version of the Draft Pick card as well, with an near identical design, but without the photo and, for some reason, only with two of the four sentences that its counterpart has.

The Four-Sport set was called that because it was where Classic combined all the draft picks from the big four North American sports into one easy to collect set. The only problem is that the fifty hockey cards included in the Four-Sport set were the same as their previously released draft pick set. I haven't seen the rest of the set, but I can only guess the other 49 hockey cards also have the same photos as the ones in the draft pick set. It's unfortunate, but Classic probably didn't have too many problems finding suckers to invest in a near identical draft set.

The Naslund card above was the cheapest hockey card for sale on checkoutmycards.com, so it has proven to have been a very good investment (just click on the google ad about selling your cards for $0.20 and I'll earn back the three cents I spent on the card).

Teemu Selanne Bobbing Head

2007-12-18T02:03:00.001-08:00

#BH15 - Teemu Selanne

98-99 Collector's Choice Bobbing Head
(back)

Bobble heads don't float my boat, but I definitely appreciate cards that have to be destroyed to be enjoyed. Cards like these are a nice little 'fuck you' to what is really a stupid hobby where value is based on how sharp a card's corners are (as well as artificial demand created by the extremely limited production runs of cards like the ugly Sidney Crosby rookie card in this article).

I'm happy to say that this Selanne bobble head card just went up in value by as much as 3/100000ths of a cent because here's what it looks like when it's all put together-- kind of pathetic. Maybe if a few thousand more people pull their Selanne bobble cards out of their industrial strength protective plastic cases, in a few decades it might be worth something.

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #8

2007-12-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #8

#18 - Felix Potvin
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline - Power Play

Pacific's other insert sets featured players eating chicken mcnuggets and flaccid old-timers with boxes of viagra.

Eric Lindros Baseball

2007-12-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

#100T - Eric Lindros
1990 Score Rookie & Traded (Baseball)
(back)

If I was the Quebec Nordiques' manager back in 1991, I'd have sent him to the Toronto Blue Jays for Pat Borders and Joe Carter in a second.

Wayne Van Dorp

2007-12-12T12:53:00.000-08:00

#527 - Wayne Van Dorp

90-91 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

The local paper usually sits in the rain for a few days in front of my house before someone moves it, but today while I was stepping over it, Wayne Van Dorp's name caught my eye. I've always liked his 90-91 O-Pee-Chee card; the back is one of the best I've seen on any hockey card, it has a typo and talks about a pre-game blowup with Basil McRae. I thought Wayne Van Dorp had dropped off the face of the earth, but apparently he plays pick-up hockey with other retired pros at the same rink that I play at. They had this nice photo of Wayne.

95-96 Collector's Choice - You Crash the Game

2007-12-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

I remember these inserts being really exciting back when they first came out. If the player scored on the date listed on the front of the card, you could send it in (with $3 postage) and get the full 30 card You Crash the Game redemption set. The set had the same photos and design as the cards you sent in, but instead of the ugly purple and teal border, the redemption cards had either silver or gold foil bars that said "Silver Set" or "Gold Set" really large so that you knew what colour it was. In addition to the 30 card set, you got two bonus cards which were the same as the regular card, except the background was tinted gold and the bar on the left side of the card said "Bonus Card" so that you knew that it was not part of the regular set.

The backs of the cards were a little different, the redemption cards (the ones you sent in) just had the contest rules and skill-testing question, while the redemption set (the cards you got back) had a very poorly thought out double spaced blurb about the player. The silver, gold, and bonus cards all had the exact same backs.

I probably should have just kept the winning cards I pulled from the packs and saved myself the postage; the full 30 card You Crash the Game Set recently did not get a single bid at $3.99 on eBay.

Wayne Gretzky Rookie

2007-12-10T17:07:00.001-08:00

#18 - Wayne Gretzky

79-80 O-Pee-Chee

Dented, creased, stained, torn and taped. The most badass Gretzky rookie card you will ever find.

Canucks We're With You

2007-12-08T22:28:00.002-08:00

Don Cook
Canucks We're With You (1975)
Listen!

The Canucks' 86 points wouldn't have put them any higher than third place in any other division, but it was good enough to earn them their first Smythe Division championship and a bye to the second round. Although they were beaten by Montreal in five games, the team's first division championship and playoff appearance earned them this fine two-verse masterpiece by Don Cook released by Paperback records, who, three years later, also released the Vancouver Whitecaps soccer team's single, White is the Colour.

Hockey Card of the Day #20

2007-12-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

#6 - Esa Tikkanen
91-92 Topps Team Scoring Leaders
(back)

Topps was always second banana to O-Pee-Chee when it came to hockey cards, but I will give them credit for being a very close second banana with their 91-92 insert cards. O-Pee-Chee's Sharks & Russians inserts featured some rad cards of the Central Red Army, Dynamo Moscow, and Khimik teams, as well as players from the expansion San Jose Sharks, while Topps' team scoring leaders featured players people had heard of, as well as a nice design that includes a hockey stick. It's tough to pick a favourite of the two, but O-Pee-Chee is tops again because you can't beat the hammer and sickle on a simple two-colour back.

Hockey Card of the Day #19

2007-12-05T16:13:00.001-08:00

#55 - Jerry Toppazzini
1992 Ultimate Original 6
(back)

There are solutions.

Hockey Card of the Day #18

2007-12-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

No# - Teemu Selanne
96-97 Bicycle NHL Aces Playing Cards
(back)

It's bad enough that the Mighty Ducks were named after a cheesy Disney movie, but they really hit rock bottom in 95-96 when their third jersey was an ABC television logo away from being an ad for the Saturday morning Mighty Ducks cartoon.

The Mighty Ducks cartoon had nothing on Pro-Stars.

Hockey Card of the Day #17

2007-12-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

#90 - Bobby Hull
1992 Ultimate Original 6
(back)

Someday I will have an art show featuring all these awful hockey paintings.

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #7

2007-12-03T17:53:00.000-08:00

Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #7
#66 - Sid Abel
1992 Ultimate Original 6
(back)

Let's be honest, no one wants to look at pictures of old people. Most of the other cards in the set show the players in their prime, but I guess they couldn't find a photo of 'Alzheimer' Abel from his playing days.

Hockey Card of the Day #16

2007-12-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

#299 - Norm Maciver (Team Point Leader)

93-94 Upper Deck

This is the saddest team leader card I've ever seen. I think it would have been nicer if Upper Deck had just listed the team's most inspirational player, or most improved player rather than showing that the team's plus/minus leader was a minus-16 and the team's wins leader had just eight of them.

95-96 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

2007-11-25T01:59:00.000-08:00

The foil lettering and full-bleed photos on 95-96 Upper Deck cards meant that regular Upper Deck was out of my price range, so I collected the second best Upper Deck set. 95-96 Collector's Choice is actually more like the Upper Deck sets of the early-90's than the regular Upper Deck set: it has a simple white and gray border and action photos on both the front and back. The size of the photo of on the back depends on how long the player had been playing in the NHL: since Blaine Lacher had just finished his rookie season, you get to see a nice large photo of him doing the splits in his boxer shorts, but since Gretzky had just finished his 16th NHL season, you only get to see a thumbnail sized photo. For some the cards it is hard to understand why they chose to put the less exciting photo on the front when they have pretty awesome photos on the back.

Since the regular Upper Deck set already included all the World Junior Championship player cards, and you couldn't have a set in the mid-90's without some kind of international junior tournament, Collector's Choice made cards for the European Junior Championships, a tournament that no one in North American had noticed before or has cared about since. The set only includes the Finnish and Swedish teams, but even with two of the stronger European hockey countries, there are very few notable players, with Vesa Toskala probably the best of the bunch. The set finished off with some ugly 'What's Your Game?' cards that explain to the lay-hockey fan the roles of various players such as scorers and grinders.

Five of my favorites:

#8 - Gary Suter - It always looks like Suter's face is melting off.

#168 - Keith Tkachuk - Kirk McLean is obviously making another highlight reel save.

#281 - Brent Gretzky - Tampa Bay was a pretty terrible team for its first few years in the league, but at least they knew how to get some easy publicity: first they put Manon Rheaume in net for a few minutes in a couple of pre-season games, then they drafted Wayne's lesser brother, Brent.

#129 - Brett Lindros - Doesn't this photo just warm your heart?

#326 - Mikko Markkanen - I can't figure out why a player would have a duffel bag on the ice at any time for any reason.

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #6

2007-11-23T21:04:00.000-08:00

#63 - Randy Cunneyworth
89-90 O-Pee-Chee
(back)
Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #6

This will soon be the top Google Image search result for the term "bad airbrushing."

Hockey Sock Rock #2

2007-11-23T16:56:00.000-08:00

Dionne and the Puck-Tones
Please Forgive My Misconduct Last Night (1979)
Listen!
(right click and choose "save link as" to download)

Dionne, Taylor, and Simmer are three of the ugliest dudes you'll ever see on a record cover, but they managed to make one of my favorite songs by professional athletes. That may not seem like it's saying very much, but they get some stiff competition from the Saskatchewan Roughriders' Milk Song, and the song off Shaquille O'Neal's Shaq Fu: The Return where he rhymes "I drive a Suzuki like David Suzuki."

Hockey Blog in Canada posted a sweet song about Bobby Hull here.

93-94 Pinnacle

2007-11-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

It's too bad Pinnacle blew their load on one card. The photo of Grant Fuhr making an airborne kick/glove save is one of the best I've ever seen on a hockey card, but of the other 219 cards in the first series of 93-94 Pinnacle, I counted four action shots. The rest of the set is a write-off; the black border is boring and the Pinnacle logo is ugly, but at least they put that ugly bar on the back of the cards so you can be sure your Ben Hankinson rookie card is not a counterfeit.

Four of my favourites:

#109 - Evgeny Davydov - This wouldn't make my favourites list for most sets, but since it's Pinnacle, it's in.

#163 - Mike McPhee - Gino Odjick better have given McPhee a two-hander across the back of the head for spraying Whitmore like that.

#138 - Kay Whitmore - Speaking of Whitmore, what would you bet that that puck is going in the net?

#207 - Mike Lenarduzzi - I think the most effective way to deter counterfeiting is to make cards for players like this.

Hockey Card of the Day #15

2007-11-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

NNO - Daren Puppa
94-95 Kraft Dinner
(back)

I guess it is better than being called the 'turd burglar'.

Hockey Card of the Day #14

2007-11-14T11:29:00.001-08:00

#112 - Manon Rheaume (Hockey Art)
93-94 Classic Draft Picks
(back)
Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #5

Classic made 26 Manon Rheaume cards between 1992 and 1995. That's one card for every regular season professional and major junior ice hockey game she played (she also played some professional roller hockey games in the RHI), plus a bonus card for the pre-season publicity stunt with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

I'm sure that many of the other Rheaume cards are bad, but nothing tops Classic's hockey art. The only thing this card is missing is a dolphin jumping in the background.

And also, what is that on her left hand-- an oven mitt?

Hockey Card of the Day #13

2007-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

#80 - Tony Esposito

79-80 O-Pee-Chee

Chicago's logo was way tougher in the 70's. Their current logo looks so positive with its nice smile and straight nose. The logo on this card looks way more like someone who would beat you up in a back alley, the way hockey logos should be.

The back of 79-80 O-Pee-Chee cards are the best of any set. They have all the stats perfectly placed in a skate with enough room left over for a fact and illustration.

Hockey Sock Rock #1

2007-11-12T01:20:00.001-08:00

The first of my occasional posts on hockey music!

Phil Esposito & the Ranger Rockers

The Hockey Sock Rock (1979)
Listen!
(right click and choose "save link as" to download)

Not the first or best song ever recorded by NHL players, but thanks to Phil Esposito's name, a B-side by L.A. Kings players Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer, and Dave Taylor, the writing and producing talents of Canadian C-list actor Alan Thicke, and the fact that it was a benefit for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Hockey Sock Rock managed to avoid being the kind of regional novelty song that disappears faster than you can say "killer mustache, Davidson."

Not only was this song released as a single, there was also a music video which I was very disappointed to find out has not been put on YouTube yet. The video can be found on the 1989 VHS, Super Dooper Hockey Bloopers, which you can likely find at your local thrift store or flea market.

In case you are wondering why it says "oops" beside Pat Hickey's name, he was traded to the Colorado Rockies early in the 79-80 season, before the single was released. I guess that means he no longer qualified as a Ranger Rocker.

Phil and the Ranger Rockers' career in music wasn't finished with the Hockey Sock Rock, the group (minus Davidson because he's too ugly and Pat Hickey because his new coach, Don Cherry, would've benched him for the rest of the season) also sang in this Sasson Jeans commercial posted below.

Hockey Card of the Day #12

2007-11-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

#340 - The Goalmouth
90-91 7th Inning Sketch
Worst Hockey Card Set Ever #4

How did this get made without someone pointing out that the back of the card sounds more like a description for a porno than a battle in front of the net?

Hockey Card of the Day #11

2007-11-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

#1S - Link Gaetz
91-92 O-Pee-Chee - Sharks & Russians
(back)

Link Gaetz was a badass. The first time I really remember hearing anything about him was when he was arrested back in the early-90's. Though I couldn't remember exactly what he was arrested for, an old Link Gaetz fan site had this quote:

His low point came in 1993, when he was arrested for breaking into his old roommate's apartment, stealing his television, and urinating on his bed. Said the victim of the crime, "I came home and the television was gone and there was urine in my bed. The mark of Link."

Link played 68 games over three seasons in the NHL, collecting 14 points and 412 penalty minutes before a car accident in 1992 derailed his career. He spent the next seven years fighting his way through the minor-pro leagues, never playing more than 26 games in one season with any one team.

Link's fan site posted updates on his activities from 1998 to 2003. Here are a few of the highlights:

December 1, 1998: . . . he began the 1998-99 season with the Toledo Storm of the East Coast Hockey League. However, after playing only one or two games, he was kicked off the team. Reportedly, team management had problems with his attitude, as well as his speed and conditioning.
January 19, 1999: Link was arrested in Huntsville, Texas on January 10th and charged with public intoxication and resisting arrest. His bond, which was raised from $10,000 to $100,000 after he taunted the arraigning judge and reportedly told him to "f--k of," was later reduced to $5,000, but the last we heard, he was still in jail.
February 2, 1999: The [Madison] Monsters were in town to play the Winston-Salem Icehawks, and Link (a former Monsters player) was in town to try out for the Icehawks. Apparently, Link won't be playing in North Carolina, however, as the commissioner of the United Hockey League has "outlawed" him.
November 23, 1999: . . . he has joined the Eston Ramblers in a senior league, the Saskatchewan Wild Goose League. He received a league record 68 penalty minutes in one shift. . .
December 12, 2000: Link's stint in Eston came to an end last Christmas, as he was kicked off the Ramblers and reportedly banned from all bars within a 35-mile radius of Eston.

A very overweight Link Gaetz made his final appearance in the hockey world as a marquee name in the Battle of the Hockey Enforcers, a boxing-style hockey fight contest where he had obvious trouble staying on his feet and had to withdraw after one fight with concussion-like symptoms.

On a side note, I'd like to point out that O-Pee-Chee made a big mistake in not including gum with their cards in their final year, 92-93. The gum residue on this card makes it even more awesome.

90-91 7th Inning Sketch WHL

2007-11-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

I've already covered part of this set in a previous post, but since I found an unopened box of these cards in the back of a dingy card shop under a pile of old Playboys and New Kids on the Block cards, I decided it was worth another post.

There are more errors in 7th Inning Sketch's WHL set than in a little league baseball tournament. The errors range from spelling mistakes (Brian Sakic's card says "Buan Sakic", Turner Stevenson plays "Ring Wing" and Corey Schwab was drafted in the "nonth round"), to putting the wrong backs on cards (Jeff Calvert's stats and info are on the back of Paul Dyck's card, and Paul Dyck's stats and photo are on the back of Paul Calvert's card), to leaving out cards 121, 150, and 262 (they partially made up for it by having two cards numbered both 149 and 284), to messing up countless players' stats and info (Dean Tiltgen is listed as a goalie even though both photos clearly show him as a skater, and his stats say he scored 117 goals and 202 points, which couldn't be possible since a trivia question on another card asks you to name the only WHL player to score 200+ points in one year (the answer is Rob Brown)).

Skipping over the few hundred other mistakes, here's a sample of the rest of the set:

Awkward photos !
Bad Photos!
Bad Coach Photos (at least cut the bored fans out of the photo)!
Blurry Photos!
Rapists!
The Prince Albert Screaming Jihads!

Hockey Card of the Day #10

2007-11-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

For your convenience, the worst ever hockey cards will now be compiled in one easy to view set. Click on the 'Worst Ever Hockey Card Set' tag to see the two past 'Cards of the Day' that have already been added to the set, and collect along at home!

#24 - Cornelius Rooster
91-92 Score Kellogg's
(back)
Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #3

This is the card I'd have been bummed to get from the Corn Flakes box when I was little. Sure, I could have gotten Trevor Linden or Patrick Roy, but instead I end up with a gimpy drawing of Cornelius Rooster. They couldn't draw him holding a stick properly, but they at least had lots of clever puns on the back of the card.

Hockey Card of the Day #9

2007-11-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

#238 - Paul Baxter (Penalty Minutes Leader)
82-83 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

I don't understand why they don't make penalty minute leader cards anymore. Sure, players don't rack up the minutes like they used to (last year's leader wouldn't have even made it into the top ten on the back of this card), but I'd trade my plus/minus leader or Selke Trophy winner cards for a good goon any day.

Hockey Card of the Day #8

2007-10-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

#83 - Mike Vernon
93-94 Leaf
(front)

Calgary is the ugliest city I've ever seen. The background of this card should have shown the 200 kilometers of urban sprawl surrounding the four tall buildings in downtown Calgary.

Hockey Card of the Day #7

2007-10-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

#35 - Antti Aalto
93-94 Classic Draft Picks
(back)

He won't be remembered for much in his NHL career, but at least he'll have the distinction of being the first player listed in the alumni section in every NHL record book. He better cross his fingers that Vitalij Aab doesn't get signed by an NHL team.

Hockey Card of the Day #6

2007-10-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

#242 - Peter Bondra

96-97 Skybox Impact (back)

Putting advertisements on cards is pretty low. You can't see all of it on this card, but behind Bondra it says "The Official Magazine of the Players and Teams of the National Hockey League." The ad for PowerPlay magazine is nothing compared to their 'NHL on Fox' insert set featuring, for some reason, third-liners like Roman Oksiuta.

Hockey Card of the Day #5

2007-10-26T11:04:00.001-07:00

#42 - Peter Sidorkiewicz

88-89 O-Pee-Chee Stickers

Things were "golden" for Sidorkiewicz back in 88-89. He took over Mike Liut's position as the Whalers' top goaltender and was named to the NHL's all-rookie team. Three seasons later, however, the Ottawa Senators claimed him in the expansion draft and Sidorkiewicz went on to an 8 win, 48 loss season. Although he was the Senators' representative in the '93 all-star game, he was traded at the end of the season to the New Jersey Devils and played just three games in the NHL over the next five seasons which were split between Fort Wayne of the IHL and Albany of the AHL.

If you've ever wondered how you could easily carry 40 of your favourite hockey or baseball cards on your belt, you missed the boat.

Hockey Card of the Day #4

2007-10-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

#203 - Sandis Ozolinsh (Rink Report)
94-95 Topps Stadium Club
Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #2

By 'Rink Report' they mean 'bad caricature of Ozolinsh playing go-cart hockey report'.

Hockey Card of the Day #3

2007-10-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

#323 - Boston Bruins
77-78 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

I think this is the simplest card ever made. It's just a logo on a piece of cardboard; no background, no words, no messing around. Other companies have tried making similar cards, but they just don't have the class of O-Pee-Chee.

Hockey Card of the Day #2

2007-10-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

NNO - Steve Yzerman
90-91 Upper Deck Hologram Stickers
Worst Ever Hockey Card Set #1

Usually when you look at these holograms you just have to take Upper Deck's word that there's a hockey player somewhere in the blur. But today I found out something exciting: if you hold the card at just the right angle, with perfect lighting (indirect light that's not too dark or too bright) and then close one eye and squint with the other, you can not only see the number on the player's arm clearly enough to positively identify him as Steve Yzerman, but you can see another player behind Yzerman who I think may be Brett Hull! And to think that Upper Deck was considering pulling these cards from production for lack of quality!

Hockey Card of the Day #1

2007-10-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

Starting today, I'm switching the format of my blog to one hockey card a day.

#409 - Ronnie Stern

93-94 Score
(larger version)

If I'm ever going to fulfill my dream of being the guy who writes the blurbs on the back of hockey cards, I'm going to have to learn to write the most obviously cheesy things. When I'm able to write a line like "Ronnie issued another stern warning to his opponents. . ." without choking on my own vomit, then I'll know that I'm ready.

Hockey Card of the Week #4

2007-10-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

#32 - Don Burgess
74-75 O-Pee-Chee WHA
(back)

The Blazers were Vancouver's other major-pro hockey team in the 70's. The franchise that became the Vancouver Blazers was originally supposed to be based out of Florida and called the Miami Screaming Eagles, but due to money and arena problems they never played a game in Miami and moved to Philadelphia instead where they lasted one year (72-73) before Vancouver bajillionaire Jim Pattison bought the team and moved them to Vancouver. In need of a star to replace Andre Lacriox, the WHA's all-time leading scorer who left the Blazers for the New York Golden Blades, Pattison apparently offered Phil Esposito $2.5 million to join the Blazers. Even though this was significantly more than Esposito was making in Boston, the offer was rejected and even the Blazer Belles, the team's dance squad that dressed in hot pants, couldn't keep fans interested in the two losing seasons that the team produced. Pattison relocated the team to Calgary for the 75-76 season and renamed them the Cowboys. The Cowboys lasted two years before the Miami Screaming Eagles/Philadelphia Blazers/Vancouver Blazers/Calgary Cowboys franchise finally folded. The WHA itself lasted until the 78-79 season, with the Winnipeg Jets defeating Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers to win the final Avco Cup.

Other Vancouver Blazer cards:
#6 - Bryan Campbell (back)
#19 - Mike Pelyk (back)
#25 - Danny Lawson (back)
#42 - Ron Chipperfield (back)
#48 - Don McLoed (back)
#62 - Claude St. Sauveur (back)

06-07 Upper Deck

2007-10-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

I took my own advice from my post on 06-07 cards and bought the complete set of Upper Deck (both series') for $10. For some reason the rookies aren't counted as base cards even though they are numbered as part of the set, so I received cards 1 to 200 and 250 to 450. Having seen all the cards in the set now, I still think it's the best set of the year, and perhaps the last several years, but it's still far from a perfect set.

One of my biggest problems is the inappropriate use of the word 'score' in the blurbs on the backs of several cards. I'll use Brian Gionta's card as an example: ". . . his 24 power-play scores set a team record." Was that written by a four year old? Do the people at Upper Deck also say that a team won "three scores to two"? Probably not. Scoring is the action, goals are the results.

Other than Upper Deck's poor grammar, the first series is quite amazing. There are more action shots than I've seen in any other set, including net battles, body checks, slapshots, saves and goals. The second series, however, feels a lot more thrown together. Upper Deck would have had to move fast to get all the photos of players on their new teams in time to release the set before the season was over, and the quality suffers for it. Instead of action shots there are a lot more photos of guys just skating around, not doing much and goalies stretching. The lamest thing Upper Deck did was to include two Gretzky cards. It's not like these were special cards celebrating some special achievement, one is a checklist which might not have been too big of a deal, but the other is a regular card just like every other one in the set, except that the last stats shown are for the 98-99 season. Adding a retired superstar like that just so you can put his picture on the box and sell a few extra to people who don't know anything about hockey is the lamest gimmick I've seen since the terrible pre-NHL Eric Lindros cards in 91-92 Score.

Five of my favourites:

#32 - Darren McCarty - Two minutes for stupid facial hair and generally acting like a jackass.

#45 - Nikolai Khabibulin - This is a nice horizontal card with an interesting angle showing a glove save, but the real reason I like it is that it is the closest Anson Carter got to having a card. I know Carter didn't do much in Columbus or Carolina and he's out of a job now, but if his 33 goal season with Vancouver didn't earn him a card, didn't his hair?

#98 - Derek Boogaard - I read in an old Beckett that the NHLPA doesn't allow companies to use photos of players fighting. I think that's stupid. They can show goalies making saves, and players scoring, why can't they show fighters fighting? Look at this card-- they don't even give Boogaard a stick when he plays. He just runs around elbowing guys until someone fights him.

#104 - Andrei Markov - Frank Musil's little brother?

#181 - Mats Sundin - Living in Vancouver, where you can barely afford to sniff the air around GM Place when the Canucks are playing, it's hard to believe that in other NHL cities the seats are as empty as this.

You can watch a guy open a box of 06-07 Upper Deck on an internet show called Rip & Pull. I don't suggest it. It's just a chubby nerd opening packs of cards, but I wanted to point that out so I could post the video of a later episode where he gets a stripper named Dejah Vu to help him open a box of basketball cards. It's as embarrassing as it is depressing.

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Hockey Card of the Week #3

2007-10-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

#210 - Ryan Loxam
92-93 BCJHL

How did I get cards like this in my collection? It's the most random player from a very random set. As far as I can tell, Ryan Loxam didn't go on to a professional hockey career and the Vernon Lakers folded after the '93 season (another team from Vernon called the Vipers joined the league a few years later (three other Vernon teams have also played in the BCJHL: the Canadians, Vikings, and Essos)).

This card is one of a surprisingly ambitious 246 cards in the league-issued BCJHL set. Of those, I counted four players who went on to play in the NHL for any amount of time: three were drafted by the Canucks (Bill Muckalt, Dieter Kochan, Robb Gordon) and the other is a current Canuck (Brendan Morrison). I'd like to see the rest of the set to find out if the photos got any better than this cellphone quality picture.

Other than the ugly maple leaves, I like the back in a sweet-budget-set kind of way. I realize they only put the Lakers logo so prominently on the back so that they wouldn't have to put another picture and drive up printing costs, but it's a nice touch. On top of that they have some stats, a couple sentences about the guy who probably now is an assistant manager at Mr. Lube, and a pretty cool BCJHL logo. This card gets an 'A' for effort.

91-92 Future Trends '72 Hockey Canada

2007-10-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

Future Trends released this poorly named '72 Hockey Canada set partly to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Canada/Russia Summit Series, but mostly to commemorate some easy cash at the height of the early 90's hockey card craze. Before I talk about the set, I want to point at that the company's full name is Future Trends Experience Ltd., which is by far the worst name I have ever seen associated with hockey cards. It sounds like a company that would manufacture the shitty Transformer knock-off toys that you find at dollar stores.

I could forgive all of the set's shortcomings-- the cluttered and out of focus cards, the shots of players' backs, the ugly blue logo, the boring training camp cards (did they have to name a card with a bunch of guys bending over 'coming out party'?), to name a few-- if only they had a card of John Ferguson giving the Russians the one-finger salute after the Canadians rescued Alan Eagleson from the Russian police in game eight of the series (you can watch it in this youtube video). The incident is mentioned on one card, but the photo and quote on the back don't really provide any detail about what happened. It's disappointing that they didn't think the second most amazing moment of the series (next to Henderson's goal) deserved a photo. And while I'm on the subject of things the set is missing, why not a card for Alan Eagleson or the totem pole that Team Canada gave to the Russians before game eight? Eagleson was a lot more important than Dale Tallon or Ed Johnston, who didn't even play in any games but get cards in the set, and the totem pole was just awesome.

Even though there are many things lacking in this set, there are a few redeeming qualities as well. The story of the series is told fairly effectively through quotes on the backs of the cards. Some of the cards may seem like they'd be better left to a book, but it makes for a more interesting read than the backs of most card. The best quote is on the back of Phil Esposito's card: "And when he scored, I mean. . . that's the closest I ever came to really loving another guy." And for all that I said about blurry photography, there are a few pretty exciting and funny shots.

Five of my favourites:

#20 - Alexander Maltsev - The editorial quote on the back is only slightly more flattering than the photo on the front.

#50 - Alexander Martynuk - This could just as easily be a card for the guy in the tie sitting behind the fence.

#61 - Stan Mikita - His pants on the back of the card are pretty mind-blowing.

#70 - Series Stars - Yakushev was the highest scoring Russian in the series and this is how he is shown in the set.

#83 - Yuri Liapkin - "Liapkin will always be remembered as the defenseman who gave up the puck in his own zone with 34 seconds left in the series allowing Paul Henderson to score." Beside the quote is the photo of a shocked Liapkin moments after Henderson scored the series winning goal.

92-93 Score Canadian

2007-10-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

Even though it's missing the Crunch Crew and has no horizontal player cards at all, 92-93 Score is considerably better than the previous year's set (though still far behind the excellent 90-91 set). There isn't a ton of action on these cards, but there are a few good goalie and slapshot cards that keep things interesting. The set also includes season leaders, franchise players, 91-92 highlights, prospects (this prospect appeared in all of 21 NHL games and won just two of them), the pimply rookie dream team, the regular dream team (I still prefer bad paintings), award winners, and a few oddball extras like the Memorial Cup Champion Kamloops Blazers, 50-goal scorer Maurice Richard, father and son Kevin and Bill Dineen, '92 Stanley Cup Champions (this is the happiest I've seen Kevin Stevens and Bryan Trottier since they called Brian Bellows a "tit-fucker"), and Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning expansion team cards that show their sad-sack rosters on the backs.

It's nice that Score went back to a small simple border more like the one they had in 90-91, rather than the big red, blue, or purple borders they had in 91-92. Score also released an 92-93 American set that has the same numbering as the Canadian set (except that Jay Wells and Mick Vukota replace the two Maurice Richard cards that the Canadian set has), but different photos and an uglier design.

Five of my favourites:

#17 - Gary Suter - Another nice slapshot.

#25 - Kevin Stevens - Some snow spraying can also make for a nice card.

#182 - Dave Snuggerud - I have a soft spot for bad players on bad teams, but not as much as the guy who runs this blog. He's collected autographs from some of the most unknown and unappreciated hockey players ever, such as Troy Gamble, Derek Laxdal, and Per Djoos, to name a few.

#304 - Kay Whitmore - I'm surprised he doesn't have any of Kay Whitmore as well.

#417 - Kirk Mclean/Tim Cheveldae Season Leader - Putting two goalies on a card is always a good idea.

Also, I fixed my original post called "Hockey Cards Rule." For some reason blogger deleted a bunch of it, but it's all back now.

Hockey Card of the Week #2

2007-10-06T01:07:00.000-07:00

#135 - California Golden Seals Checklist
76-77 O-Pee-Chee
(back)

It's pretty common to see cards that say "now with. . ." when a player has been traded or has signed with a new team, but it's not too often you get to see the same kind of note for an entire team. If you look closely at the card, it looks like it has been painted, or maybe it's another tinted black and white photo like the Don Cherry card I wrote about last week. I only wish that O-Pee-Chee had painted Cleveland Barons jerseys on the players à la 89-90 O-Pee-Chee.

90-91 Panini Hockey Stickers

2007-10-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

I didn't really collect hockey stickers as a kid. They were so flimsy, there were no stats on the back, and you had to stick them in a book which totally ruined their value (joke's on me, none of they cards from when I was a kid are worth anything!). But sticker collector or not, I hit the jackpot when I found this 90-91 Panini sticker album complete with every sticker for $1.99. I've seen other sticker albums around on occasion that had a handful of stickers, but never before had I seen a complete album. I wonder how many full sticker albums even exist-- collectors wouldn't put their stickers in a book, and most kids don't have the patience to collect 351 stickers and carefully place them into an album. Besides, by '91 all the kids I knew got hooked on Blades of Steel and forgot about hockey cards altogether.

At least one kid persevered, and I am very grateful to him because this album is great. By themselves, the stickers are nothing to write home about. Like too many other sets there are lots of guys standing around, but somehow the book makes the difference. I guess I can compare it to hearing one song from the middle of a great record; if you don't know the context you may think that the song is boring, that there's nothing going on. Then later when you hear the album the way it's meant to be played it all makes sense. So it is with Panini's 90-91 sticker album.

Each team page is perfectly laid-out with an exciting action or goal photo placed nicely beside the shiny silver team card on the right side of the page. The left side is headed by the team name and one of the team's star players. The 14 players' stickers all fall into place below that. There isn't a single wasted page in the whole book. Even the table of contents is awesome with its Wales, Campbell, and Stanley Cup stickers. Apart from the table of contents and the 21 NHL teams, the book also includes a recap 1990 playoffs with a two page spread for the Stanley Cup finals, all-stars and awards.

This set requires more than my usual five favourite cards, so here are my three favourite team pages:

Philadelphia Flyers - All you Keith Acton fans will be happy. Including this one, Acton is in four of the team photos.

Washington Capitals - This one makes it mostly because of Mike Liut's sticker.

Minnesota North Stars - I'm a sucker for the old North Star logo. Apparently it took a while for the kid who collected these stickers to figure out that you're supposed to put the sticker right over top of the name in the box, so there's a bunch of stickers that are overlapping.

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92-93 O-Pee-Chee

2007-10-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

After 24 great years, O-Pee-Chee's final set proved that they could no longer cut it. The set gets off to a bad start with a blurry Kevin Todd and hardly improves from there. I know that it's tough to make a set with 396 mind-blowing cards, but it seems to me that you should at least try to bury the blurry ones somewhere in the back, instead of presenting them as the first card. And besides, it's Kevin Todd! I always wonder why companies like to put some random second or third liner in such a prominent spot.

Blurry cards aren't the only problem, cluttered shots are also frequent in the set. And let's not forget about the back of the card: O-Pee-Chee has always thrived on simple two or three colour backs, so why after 24 years of success did they decide to change the winning formula? Did those little holograms on the back of the Upper Deck cards scare them into thinking that what people wanted was a colour gradient?

Luckily, the set isn't a totally write-off. As it was O-Pee-Chee's 25th anniversary, they commemorated their rich history with 25 rookie reprints. With one card for each of their regular sets from 68-69 to 91-92, plus Bure 's card from 91-92 O-Pee-Chee Premier, you get a pretty good look at what O-Pee-Chee once was. Each card has an alternate photo not used on the original card. In some cases the new photo is an obvious improvement over the original, in others, not so much. Calling it a rookie reprint sub-set is a little misleading. In two cases (72-73 and 77-78) they don't use rookies from the original set. I guess that because the options for those two years were so weak (would you prefer Doug Palazzari or Jerry Korab's rookie?) they decided people would rather see the established stars. Seeing Cheevers in his badass stitch mask while playing for the WHA's Cleveland Crusaders makes me think that I agree.

Five of my favourites:

#16 - Jon Casey - The only action in this set is on the goalie cards.

#247 - Mike Vernon - Like this one.

#120 - Trevor Linden - You can tell the Canucks are losing by the way Linden is half-assedly celebrating the goal while he looks at the clock. He's doing the math to see if they still have a chance.

#385 - Thomas Steen - I think O-Pee-Chee got a deal on bulk photos of the Jets practicing. There are six practice photos in this set-- five are Jets, the other is this good-looking guy.

#194 - Tony Esposito - Goalies looked way tougher in the 70's.

91-92 Score Young Superstars

2007-09-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

I guess finding 40 young stars is a harder task than it seems. Score's Young Superstar set does have a few legitimate superstars, but it also includes players who are either not young (John Cullen, 27 in 1991), or not stars (I'll bet you all my Pro-Set cards that that was only time Murray Baron was ever called a superstar), or neither (Chris Terreri). This is a pretty average set all-around.

Three of my favourites:

#17 - Bob Essensa - If I can see one goalie stack the pads in a shootout this season, I'll be happy.

#30 - Eric Lindros - Score had made more than 20 Eric Lindros cards before he had even played a single game in the NHL. They finally went too far when they started sticking him in the background of other people's cards.

#34 - Pat Elynuik - What arena would the Jets be playing in that has clear boards?

92-93 Score Young Superstars

It's like the time I handed in the same essay for two classes. Pretty lazy.

Hockey Card of the Week #1

2007-09-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

#161 - Don Cherry
74-75 Topps

I know I usually go on about how hockey cards need to have action shots and all that, well here's the exception. I have never seen a more badass card than this one. Cherry's glare is so intense, and his mustache is so tough that he even makes Charles Bronson look like a pansy! I bet he had beaten up the photographer and insulted every minority in Canada by the time the photo shoot was done.

I'd love to have the full set of 74-75 O-Pee-Chee (I know this card is Topps, but only because I couldn't afford the O-Pee-Chee version). The design of this cards beats everything produced from the late-80's and onward (though 90-91 O-Pee-Chee comes pretty close). Putting a hockey stick in the border always looks so good that it should be a no-brainer for the card manufacturers of today.

92-93 Upper Deck

2007-09-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

With 640 cards between the high and low series', Upper Deck didn't leave anything out if it's 92-93 set. On top of the base cards that cover everyone from Wayne Gretzky to Grigori Panteleev, the set includes painted team checklists (though they aren't as striking as the ones in the 90-91 set), brothers (this time the Linden's are on roller blades instead of the Bure's), the '92 Finnish World Junior team, Russian stars, '92 World Hockey and '93 World Junior Championship cards, trophy winners, young guns, lethal lines, and more.

Of all the sub-sets, my favorite is the Rookie Report where hockey experts predict that Pat Falloon "has many 50-goal seasons ahead of him (he only managed two 50-point seasons in his disappointing career)," and that Tom Draper will be Buffalo's goalie of the future, while Dominik Hasek is merely "unpredictable" and "fun to watch (Hasek took Draper's spot in Buffalo in the 92-93 season)." An honorable mention goes to the player profiles that fill-out the last twenty cards of the set. There's nothing like reading boring answers to generic questions and looking at the sweet shoes that Jaromir Jagr wears, or Doug Gilmour trying to be a badass and talking about riding his "hawg." What a dink. I only wish that on Brian Bellows' profile they would have shown him holding his own hockey card.

With all those sub-sets, Upper Deck could have easily done a half-assed job of the base cards, but once again they made a classy design. The borders are simple and much smaller than the previous year leaving more room for exciting action shots-- and there are lots of them. For many sets it's tough to pick five cards that stand-out from the rest of the pack, but for this set I had to cut it down from at least 25 very good cards.

So here they are, five of my favourites:

#181 - Bob Bassen - There is so much to take in on this card. The crowd's reaction is an interesting as the defender's.

#177 - Brian Propp - Getting tripped on the front, and getting tripped on the back.

#338 - Igor Korolev - The guy with the mustache isn't allowed to sign autographs for kids under 18.

#263 - Petr Nedved - Upper Deck's photographer in Los Angeles loves that fisheye lens.

#497 - Tomas Jelinek - You need to see the back of this card to fully appreciate why Tomas Jelinek is the Lanny McDonald of unibrows.

05-06 Sunkist

2007-09-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

Sets this bad don't get released every day. I'd expect that most ideas that are as terrible as this get nixed long before they find themselves being bent and creased in five-pound bags of oranges. But somehow, this Sunkist/Upper Deck NHL alumni set managed to squeak through to production without anyone stopping and saying, "these cards blow."

I don't even know where to begin with this set. Maybe I'll start by pointing out that the ugly orange border on the front of the card is actually the outside of an orange, and the back of the card has the inside of an orange as the background; the logos are all photoshopped out (which is always lame), and in the case of the Richard Brodeur card, you can still see the outline of the 'V' from the Canucks 80's 'flying V' logo; only four of the six players featured in the set could really be called stars-- as good as Wendel Clark and Richard Brodeur were at times in their career, they are far from hall-of-fame quality; the back of the card has more information about fruits and vegetables than it does about the player on the card; the cards are included in a bag of oranges!

I'd have to say the one redeeming thing about this set is the sweet Sunkist logo in the bottom right corner. If Sunkist made a set that was just fruits and vegetables playing hockey I'd be so stoked I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Here are the three remaining cards from the set that I haven't already posted:

#3 - Yvan Cournoyer
#4 - Doug Gilmour - The only player not shown in the colours of a Canadian hockey team.
#5 - Dale Hawerchuk

06-07 Sunkist

If I gave an award for most improved set, Upper Deck/Sunkist would get it for their follow-up to the worst set ever produced. The back of the cards still has that ugly orange background, and more information about fruits and vegetables than the players, and the cards are still horribly cut, but other than that, the cards look pretty good. Of course, it helps that for '07, Sunkist shelled out for licensing from both the NHL and NHLPA so they could show current players and not have to photoshop out the team's logo. It's also helps that they decided against putting the same orange border on the front of the cards that they did the previous year because the ice background is actually appropriate. Unfortunately, the cards are still included in five-pound bags of oranges, so the chances of finding one that isn't bent in six different directions are slim.

Here are all ten 06-07 Sunkist cards:

#1 - Alex Kovalev
#2 - Jason Spezza
#3 - Mats Sundin
#4 - Jarome Iginla
#5 - Ryan Smyth
#6 - Marcus Naslund
#7 - Alexander Ovechkin
#8 - Vincent Lecavalier
#9 - Joe Thornton
#10 - Miikka Kiprusoff

90-91 Bowman

2007-09-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

I made a mistake in my post on 91-92 Topps Stadium Club when I said that Stadium Club was the first set Topps made without the help of O-Pee-Chee since the 67-68 season-- I forgot that Bowman, which put out its first set in 90-91, was owned by Topps.

As far as 90-91 cards go, Pro-Set is the only company that comes anywhere close to challenging Bowman for the unenviable title of worst set of the year. Just like Topps' regular set, Bowman's cards are dark and grainy, but where Topps was able to just slap its name on cards designed by O-Pee-Chee, Bowman had to think of its own design-- and it is ugly! I'd like to know who thought the Jamaican rainbow border was a good idea.

The one thing that always made Bowman stand out from the other hockey card companies in the early-90's (apart from the rainbow border) was their unique way of showing each player's stats. Instead of showing the player's single season or career stats, Bowman broke down the player stats from the previous season so you could see exactly how many goals, assists and points the player got against each NHL team. In some cases this is kind of interesting; you get to see which teams players played especially well against, but in a lot of cases (like with marginal players who only get a handful of points) it is just too much information for the back of a hockey card.

I don't have the full set of 90-91 Bowman, but of the 50 or so cards I do have, it's impossible to find any that stand out enough to make my list of favorites. But here's the three least-worst cards I can find:

#18 of 22 - Tony Granato - I don't know if you got one of these 'Hat Trick' cards per pack, or if they were randomly inserted, but they are definitely higher quality than the base set-- they have a clear photograph, nicer border, and a cool Dick Tracy hat.

#264 - Checklist - I don't usually put checklists on my site, but in this case it probably is the best looking card in the set.

#36 - Dave Poulin - This is about as much action as you'll see in this set.

91-92 Bowman

Hockey is a fast sport. A good game has lots of action: shots, goals, hits, fights, end-to-end rushes. What I don't understand is why so many hockey card companies fill their sets with photos of guys standing around. Close-up, non-action shots are fine for sports like baseball and golf where there isn't much going on, but hockey is supposed to be about action and hockey cards should show that. As much as Bowman improved in their second year producing hockey cards, they still failed when it comes to action shots; there's just nothing going on in so many of these cards.

But like I said, Bowman did make two significant improvements with their 91-92 set:

Clear photographs - These cards aren't grainy at all! It took Topps a long time to figure it out, but finally in 91-92 they released a set that doesn't look like it's printed on flattened out rolls of toilet paper.
No 'Rasta rainbow' border - Not like 91-92 Bowman's border is particularly great, but sometimes boring is better than awful.

Again, it's hard to pick favorites from this set, but here's five stand-outs-- good or bad:

#268 - Rick Wamsley - Were there no other photos of Wamsley without someone's ass in the way?

#176 - Wayne Gretzky - I wonder if companies had to pay more to include photos of Gretzky actually playing a real game. Bowman has this practice photo, and Stadium Club has a bad dressing room photo.

#337 - Andre Racicot - The stats are interesting for 'Red Light' Racicot. He played really well against the Rangers and Oilers but got shellacked by several other teams.

#111 - Grant Fuhr - This one is actually pretty cool for a Bowman card.

#420 - Stanley Cup Finals Game 2 - Bowman included cards for each 90-91 playoff series, plus one for each of the six games in the finals. These are the best cards in the set.

91-92 Red Ace Russian Stars in NHL

2007-09-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

I don't want to use the word shoddy because I really do like this set, but it definitely is one of the more. . . minimal sets I've seen. The Red Ace company made sure not to waste any effort while throwing these cards together. Once they had pictures of their 17 Russians stars, all they needed to do was type the player's name somewhere on the front, cram a big pile of hard to understand stats on the back, and boom-- it's a set. What about numbering the cards, you ask? Unnecessary. What about making sure all the cards are cut to the same width, you wonder? What's a half inch difference between cards of friends?

Other questions you may want to ask about Red Ace's Russian Stars in NHL:
- Why are the cards so thin and flimsy? To save paper.

- Who is Ravil Khaidarov, and why is he the only player who didn't play in the NHL? I don't know how he was the only player in the set that didn't make the NHL, but apparently he was actually a Russian star. He was featured in sets by Upper Deck and O-Pee-Chee in the early-90's. He was one of only four players in the set who wasn't either already an NHL'er or drafted by an NHL team when this set was released. The other players, Sergei Nemchinov, Igor Kravchuk and Vladimir Konstantinov all did pretty well for themselves in the NHL. According to hockeydb.com, he stopped playing for a few years after the 91-92 season. So maybe he was injured and had to retire. He returned in 95-96 and has been playing mostly in German leagues ever since.

I don't usually do this, but for your hockey card viewing pleasure, here are all 17 Russian Stars in the NHL:
Pavel Bure
Evengy Davydov
Sergei Fedorov
Viacheslav Fetisov
Alexei Gusarov
Valeri Kamensky
Alexei Kasatonov
Ravil Khaidarov
Vladimir Konstantinov
Igor Kravchuk
Igor Larionov
Andrei Lomakin
Sergei Makarov
Alexander Mogilny
Sergei Nemchinov
Anatoli Semenov
Mikhail Tatarinov

06-07 Hockey Card Round-Up

2007-09-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

By my count, Upper Deck released 30 different sets for the 06-07 season. Since I don't have the time or money to buy and write about each set, I am only going to cover the four affordable sets that I could find.

Upper Deck
Cost: $4/8 card pack

Easily the best set of the year. A nice simple, classy design plus lots of horizontal cards (five in my pack of eight cards) and lots of action shots. Probably my favorite set in the last ten years. Of course, like everything Upper Deck releases now, there are more subsets, inserts and game worn memorabilia cards than there are base cards. While that does make collecting the complete set from the pack difficult, it seems that there are lots of people who don't even want the base cards-- meaning you can buy the complete set off of eBay for about $10.

Best card from my pack: #143 - Robert Esche (back)

Fleer
Cost: $2/10 card pack

The more I look at and feel these cards, the more I like them. Fleer has that great rough cardboardy texture that I thought was extinct from hockey cards. While the photography in this set isn't particularly exciting, the cards aren't boring to look at either, and the fact that this set reminds me more of O-Pee-Chee than Upper Deck's O-Pee-Chee set earns it several bonus points. This is the closest anyone has gotten to the budget cards of the early-90's in a long time. Add five more cards to the packs, get rid of most of the inserts and drop the price of the full case to around $30, and this is a ten out of ten in my books.

Best card from my pack: #56 - Sergei Fedorov (back)

O-Pee-Chee
Cost: $1.50-2/6 card pack

Upper Deck really messed this one up. They took the most important brand in hockey card history, and instead of giving it a classic design deserving of its name, they farted out an ugly brown border and stamped the O-Pee-Chee logo on it five times bigger than it needed to be. I know that O-Pee-Chee's last set (92-93) was bad, but why did Upper Deck have to try to up the ante on ugly? The photography does manage to follow in the tradition of O-Pee-Chee cards: lots of close-up non-action shots. It's just too bad that that was the only point that they could get right. I suppose they did also make a simple, two colour back, but it's simple to the point of laziness. I can't think of any sets with backs that are more boring than this brown quadruple-spaced turd. They couldn't even be bothered to put in the right headings for the goalie stats. Pretty lame!

Best card from my packs: #419 - Vesa Toskala (back)

Victory
Cost: $2/6 card pack

I guess Upper Deck put all their effort into thinking of thousands of uncollectable subsets, so their actual sets were just thrown together when they needed something to package with their inserts. Victory is an uninspired set that looks like a second rate Score. Everything about these cards is unspectacular. Why is it necessary to have the big Victory logo behind the player when the logo is in the top left corner anyway?

Best card from my pack: #91 - Alexander Frolov (back)

91-92 Topps Stadium Club

2007-09-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

You know, for their first try at hockey cards without O-Pee-Chee's help since the '67-68 season, Topps' Stadium Club is a pretty good effort. It's half way in between a premium set (it has a glossy finish and gold foil trim) and the regular meat and potato sets that the Topps/O-Pee-Chee brands were known for (there were no inserts or sub-sets, just 400 pictures of hockey players).

The thing that I always liked about the few 91-92 Stadium Club cards I had as a kid was that each one had a picture of the player's rookie card on the back; it kind of felt like I was getting two cards in one. What I didn't realize until I bought the set a few weeks ago is that they only show each player's Topps rookie card. And since Topps always released smaller sets than O-Pee-Chee, it meant that a lot of players didn't have their Topps rookie card until several years after their O-Pee-Chee rookie. Mark Messier was an NHL All-Star and Conn Smythe trophy winner before he got his Topps rookie in 1986-- six years after his O-Pee-Chee rookie. Many of the other lesser players in this set either have their regular 91-92 Topps card shown on the back, or in some cases, their Stadium Club card-- meaning the same card on the front and back.

Overall, the photography in this set is pretty good. Topps made an effort to include a decent amount of action shots, which I appreciate even when it's hard to tell who is supposed to be the main focus. There are a few cards which are slightly dark or spotty, and there are some awkward dressing room photos, and my favorite, Tim Kerr looking like a casino owner, but compared to most early-90's cards, it's hard to complain.

Five of my favorites:
#306 - David Shaw - Other than action shots, my favorite thing to see on cards is fans going nuts. The guy with the glasses is cheering because that player knocked down that other player.

#318 - Garry Valk - I know I always talk about horizontal cards, but you can fit so much cool stuff onto a horizontal card if you do it right.

#381 - Ray Sheppard - Or you can leave it empty.

#391 - Stephane Matteau - Another card where it's not totally obvious who is supposed to be the main focus right away. But it's a pretty cool angle.

#249 - Bill Ranford - This one is perfect. There is lots going on, but you know exactly who is the center of attention.