Hockey Card of the Day #37

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

What a douche!

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #19

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

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

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #18

Worst Ever Hockey Cards #18

#CXVIII - Wendell Young
1994 Signature Rookies Tetrad Autographs

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

The Goon Collection (SOLD)

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

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

Hockey Pins

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

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

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

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

Wish List #3

#442 - Pavel Bure
95-96 DEL

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

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

79-80 O-Pee-Chee

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

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

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

Five of my favourites:

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

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

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

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

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

Hockey Card of the Day #36

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

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

Hockey Card of the Day #35

#440 - Doug Gilmour Checklist
93-94 Leaf

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