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.
10 comments:
Great call on the stickers feeling a bit lacking without the book. I've got a couple of sticker sets from the 89-90 season (Panini and OPC) but not the albums. I was never blown away by the stickers, but maybe it's time to hunt around for the books...
i would take the stickers over blades of steel any day.
the 89-90 OPC stickers are actually pretty rad. i might do a post on them in the future
I collect the books, and put them in the books. I even set in my doubles to get the ones I needed back....I must still have them somewhere at Mom's place.
Way back then, I was a nine year old living in the middle of South America. My brother and I were sent sticker books and hockey cards by our relatives back home. I had that sticker book, it was the source of 90% of my information about the NHL until mid-1992. Thanks for posting it online, I never thought I'd see those pages again.
Just looking at that cover reminds me of lunchtime in elementary school, trading and trying to scam other kids for stickers you wanted. I used to carry that book around with me everywhere, but definitely never had it completely filled!
That Mike Luit sticker is even more awsome because there are 2 pucks in the net. I would have expected you to have a good comment on that!!!
My favorite player as a kid was Al MacInnis, and ironically enough that was the one sticker I never got for that sticker book. I did have at least a dozen Ray Ferraros though. Eventually I cut the border off of a Mike Vernon sticker, erased his name, wrote Al MacInnis, and then stuck it on the Al MacInnis all-star sticker from the set.
Ah memories.
Loving this site, keep it up.
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The "sticker" or "stamp" book I had as a kid you had to glue the "stickers" in. The book was titled 'NHL Action Players', came out for the 1974-75 season and you got so many rows of stickers for X$ amount of money spent on groceries at Loblaws.
I acquired one in the past few years as my original copy had pages missing, many stickers in bad shape and was heavily crayoned with the team logos also cut out. I salvaged what i could and bought whatever stickers I was missing on ebay - now I have a complete set.
Besides the stickers the 96 page album also gives some history of the teams, of the previous season and playoffs, and has some nice photos.
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