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.

Hockey Card of the Day #2

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!

90-91 Panini Hockey Stickers

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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