Hockey Card of the Day #40

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

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

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

79-80 O-Pee-Chee

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

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

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

Five of my favourites:

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

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

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

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

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

Hockey Card of the Day #36

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

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

Spotlight: Mike Liut

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

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

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

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #6

#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 Card of the Day #9

#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 #5

#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.

89-90 O-Pee-Chee

O-Pee-Chee's ability to make very simple, yet totally awesome cards was uncanny. I can't think of a single set from the company's first season in 68-69 to their 91-92 set that I don't like (I'll get to the 92-93 set in a later post). 89-90 was the end of O-Pee-Chee's monopoly on NHL hockey cards and they finished their reign with a simple, if unspectacular, set that still rules as hard as just about any set released since.

I think it is probably safe to assume that the same people involved with this set were involved with the other sets I've already covered on this blog (90-91 and 91-92), so you get the same problems that those sets faced: too many close-ups and not enough actions shots. I guess whoever was in charge of photography for O-Pee-Chee liked to get all his photographs out of the way during the warm-up so he could sit back and enjoy the games. As a result you get a lot of shots of guys standing around and unfortunately few shots of guys in action.

Like the other O-Pee-Chee sets before it, 89-90 O-Pee-Chee has a simple two-colour back (or does that count as three?) with each player's NHL (and, where applicable, WHA) stats. O-Pee-Chee didn't need to bother with holograms, extra pictures or even full colour backs; they knew they had the formula down, so why mess with it? As an extra courtesy, O-Pee-Chee crudely painted over the jerseys of some of the players who were traded or signed away from their teams in the off-season so you don't have imagine what they would look like in their new team's jersey.

Five of my favorites:
#17 - Patrick Roy - A classic.

#63 - Randy Cunneyworth - More from the collection of horribly painted jerseys. I guess Randy Moller was traded too late to get a paint job.

#299 - Buffalo Sabres - The Sabres team card features Dave Andreychuk tripping a Boston Bruin.

#51 - Glen Wesley - Wesley looks like a father you'd see yelling at his kids when you're at a fast food restaurant in some small town in the middle of nowhere.

#285 - Steve Weeks - When Steve Weeks wants to look back on his hockey career, all he has to do is pull out his O-Pee-Chee cards to see he spent a lot of time on the bench.