Hockey cards, collectibles and culture
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The second day of the Chicago Blackhawks Convention is also the longest, starting at 9 a.m. and going all the way to 7:30 p.m.
One of my “big goals” for this convention was to get as many retired players as possible to sign this book: Continue reading “2013 Blackhawks Convention day 2 recap”
This past weekend, I attended the 6th Annual Chicago Blackhawks Convention. The convention is an opportunity for fans to get autographs from the players, attend panel discussions with players and coaches, buy hockey memorabilia, see all the NHL trophies — including the Stanley Cup — and engage in other activities.
Although every year I tell myself that I am going to focus more on attending the panels, I usually spend most of the show getting autographs. And this year, I got autographs from many current and retired players. Continue reading “2013 Blackhawks Convention day 1 recap”
We all love to make fun of crummy hockey cards, from the awful “updated” photos from the 1970s and 1980s, to the cheesy pictures from the 1990s and 2000s. But the worst disservice to both the player and the fans is when the card doesn’t even show what the player looks like.
You may recall the infamous card of goaltender Bryan Pitton in Score’s 2010-11 set, where we see a sweet photograph of the back of his head. Well, this card may be worse. Back in the 1991-92 season, a short-lived card company called Ultimate pulled the same crap. They made a 90-card set of draft picks, but didn’t even bother to show the face of a San Jose Sharks prospect named Kerry Toporowski. In fact, there’s more of his butt on this card than his head!
If you never heard of Toporowski don’t feel bad. Back in 1991, all anyone was talking about was first overall draft pick Eric Lindros. Toporowski was more of a long shot. He was drafted in the 4th round because of his physical style of play. The Sharks soon traded him, along with a second round pick in next year’s draft, to the Chicago Blackhawks for Doug Wilson, who served as the Sharks’ first team captain and all-star representative.
Toporowski never made it to the NHL, and is perhaps best remembered for the ungodly amount of penalty minutes he racked up in junior and minor league hockey. Some of his highlights include:
Seeing as how he was the 67th overall pick, this set would have been no worse if Ultimate excluded Toporowski. Why even bother making a card when the best photo you have is the player falling on top of another player — and it’s from the back?
What’s even more mind boggling is that the photo on the back of the card also shows Toporowski from behind — as if the photographer was afraid he’d break his lens on Kerry’s mug.
Yep, the head-to-ass ratio is about the same in this picture too.
And here’s the clincher: the cards from this set are from a photo shoot set-up by the card company. Meaning, Ultimate paid the players to scrimmage so that they could be photographed for the cards. Heck, you even see the goalies’ faces on the backs of their cards, but no one bothered to snap a pick of Toporowski while he was tying his skates?
Over two decades later, and I still find it irksome that a company would try to pass this off as a trading card.
In 1995-96, the Playoff Corporation released a 330-card collectible card game (CCG) called One on One Hockey Challenge. The game cards featured the top NHL players at the time, and contained instructions at the top and stats at the bottom that were used for the game. Sometime before the release of the actual game, Playoff released prototype cards that differ from the actual game cards in several interesting ways. Continue reading “1995-96 Playoff One on One Hockey Challenge prototype cards”
1990-91 Pro Set Hockey Series One consisted of 405 cards. Included were cards of Owen Nolan and Petr Nedved, the first overall and second overall picks in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft. However, Pro Set missed out by NOT including fifth overall pick Jaromir Jagr or 20th pick Martin Brodeur. So I decided to make custom “Draft Picks” cards of these two players.
Other companies, such as Upper Deck and Score, included cards of Jaromir Jagr from draft day. The photo used above is actually taken from Jagr’s Upper Deck rookie card. Pro Set put out a card of Jagr, playing with the Penguins, in Pro Set Series Two later that year.
Martin Brodeur, on the other hand, never had a Pro Set card. Other than a five game call-up in 1991-92, Brodeur spent 1990 to 1993 either with his junior team or in the minors. For this custom card, I found this photo, which was taken soon after the New Jersey Devils selected Brodeur 20th overall.
Seeing as how utterly comprehensive Pro Set tried to be, I am surprised that they did not issue “draft day” cards of all 21 first round draft picks. That would have made for a nice snapshot of one of the deepest drafts in NHL history.
Question: Looking back 23 years later, who should have been the first overall pick in the 1990 draft: Jaromir Jagr or Martin Brodeur?
prat·fall • /ˈpratˌfôl / • Noun
This is not a great photo for a hockey card. I mean really — who exactly is flattered by this picture? Defenseman Rob Blake, getting knocked into his own goalie? Or goaltender Kelly Hrudey, about to get his head squished by Blake’s butt? Maybe this photo would make the net-crashing Canuck look cool — if his head was in the frame.
And yet, this is the photo that was used on Rob Blake’s “Sensational Sophomore” insert card in the 1991-92 Pro Set Platinum Hockey set.
Let me rephrase that; a photo of Rob Blake’s ass about to crush Kelly Hrudey’s head was THE photo that Pro Set used for an insert card touting Blake as a “Sensational Sophomore.”
One can only wonder what the REJECTED photographs looked like. The pic might have been better utilized for a goalie mask advertisement: Easton goalie masks – made to withstand being sat on by a 220-pound defenseman.
Blake was a regular in the Kings’ lineup in 1990-91 and 1991-92, so many pictures of him should have been available for Pro Set to choose from that year. Even the picture from the back of the card would have been a better choice for the front, since you can see his face. Oh, and because he doesn’t look like a stooge crushing his own teammate.
This was not the first time a defenseman was made to look like a doofus on his own card. Ten years prior, Topps — for some strange reason — used a photo of New York Islanders defenseman Denis Potvin falling on his own goalie. for his “Super Action” card.
Can you think of any other cards that use a very unflattering picture of a player ON HIS OWN CARD?
It’s a great time to be a hockey fan in Chicago. The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, which is as good as it gets. But fans will be rewarded with a special commemorative hockey card set from Upper Deck.
The special boxed set will contain 30 card — 25 player cards and five cards of season highlights. It will also include an oversized team photo card (pictured above). The set will be released on July 23 and cost around $20.
Personally, I am psyched about this. The Boston Bruins received a commemorative set in 2011 after winning the Stanley Cup. The Los Angeles Kings did not get a full commemorative set in 2012, although a six-card giveaway set was released.
This reminds me of the old Pro Set Superbowl sets, where the company would issue cards of both the winning and losing team, as well as a special card album. I hope that Ben Smith — who played in only one game, but it was in the Finals — gets a card, along with other bit players like Jamal Mayers and Daniel Carcillo. That’s very likely, as 25 player cards would pretty much cover everyone who appeared in the 2013 playoffs for the ‘Hawks. Now, if only they’d make cards of the coaches, too.
Steel City Collectibles is now accepting pre-orders for this set.
Most people in the United States spend the Fourth of July by either barbecuing some hamburgers or blowing up fireworks. My love for explosives ended in my mid-twenties, when I realized that losing a hand while lighting a faulty firework would be a stupid way to end my career as a web designer.
I still love hamburgers, though, and will go to a barbecue if invited. Otherwise, I use the Fourth of July – especially if it is part of a holiday weekend — as an excuse to “hole up” and focus on a dorky, hockey card enjoyment spree.
This started in 2008, when I purchased over 500 packs of 1995-96 Panini stickers, and opened and collated them over Fourth of July weekend. Since then, I’ve tried to have some cheap wax on hand to open and sort, while the idiots outside get drunk and shoot off their M-80s in the 90-degree Chicago heat.
For this go-around, I have on-tap two boxes of 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee stickers (48 packs each) and two boxes of 1990-91 Panini stickers (100 packs each). I actually need a set of 1990-91 Panini stickers, and hopefully will get a set or two out of the deal, considering how amazingly bad Panini hockey stickers collate.
The OPC stickers, once sorted, will end up on my Complete Sets for Trade page, as I already have two complete sets (one in a sticker album, the other in 9-card pages) and surely don’t need any more.
The bad news, if you could really call it that, is that my dork-out hockey card session will be cut short by Anime Midwest — a Japanese cartoon, comic book and video game convention that my friends insisted on going to. I love Japanese comics and cartoons, and would love to get my hands on the Go Ahead comic series (right) if I find it at the con.
That’s one dorky hobby interrupted by another.
The Chicago Blackhawks wasted a lot of draft picks on Eastern European players in the early 1990s. For a time, it seemed like they drafted anyone and everyone from Russia or former Soviet Union countries who even showed a glimmer of promise to perhaps one day become the next Sergei Fedorov or Jaromir Jagr. One such draft pick is Alexander Andrijevski from Belarus, who played a whopping ONE game for the ‘Hawks in the 1992-93 season. Continue reading “One Game Wonder #2: Alexander Andrijevski”