Worst Ever Hockey Cards #17

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

#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

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

Now that's a million dollar smile!

Hockey Card of the Day #28

#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

#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

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

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

04-05 Upper Deck All-World

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

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

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.