Author: Jim Howard

Hockey enthusiast who pays the bills as a traveling geologist. More of a lover than a fighter, he's a fairly cheap date; just ask his wife. He'd prefer to be outside in the rain that stuck in the office on a beautiful day.

Eddie Lack Loves Tacos

Hockey players are people, too!

Eddie Lack loves tacosRemember when you were in elementary school and you saw your first grade teacher at the grocery store for the first time, and exclaimed, “Mrs. Dethnoll, what are you doing here?”

“I’m shopping for groceries, just like you!”

“You are? I thought you just lived at the school!”

juiceEven though we’re all grown-ass adults hacking away at our 9-to-5 jobs and drinking kale smoothies (ugh, seriously this stuff is gross!),  we sometimes forget that those of us on this earth living the dream of playing hockey for a living exist outside of the rink as well. Pro athletes have lives, likes and dislikes, clothes they enjoy wearing that don’t have an itchy fight strap, pets that need walking or scooping after, and, most importantly, food they love eating!

Continue reading “Eddie Lack Loves Tacos”

Best of the Worst: 2015-16 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey

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Upper Deck Series One Hockey came out earlier this month, so it’s time once again to see which of these hot dogs come off looking like weenies — thanks to some intrepid hockey photographers and Upper Deck’s editors!

Continue reading “Best of the Worst: 2015-16 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey”

Panini Presents: Another Confusing Card of Purported Value

headerPanini, my old foe…we meet again!

You know what grinds my gears in the card collecting world? Absolute laziness fortified with an attitude that no one will notice. On Friday evening, I’m sitting back in my dapper, leather high-back Georgian wing chair, enjoying a freshly poured adult beverage consisting of Scotch old enough legally buy itself and nothing more, when my phone pinged with a message.

“PiiiiiiiiNG!”

It was an email from an online sport card retailer that I frequent, directing my attention to a sale. I adjusted my pashmina afghan, tipped my yachting cap back on my brow, and dove in to see what wares awaited my eyes.

Shortly into the list, and much to my surprise, I saw a Ryan Miller card that looked familiar…eerily familiar. Continue reading “Panini Presents: Another Confusing Card of Purported Value”

The one you wish you could throw back

YashinWe all have regrets in life. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault but our own; sometimes fate just has a funny sense of humor. It could be a job we took that quickly turned sour; it could be that person you woke up next to the morning after a night on the town, celebrating your team winning the Stanley Cup. Or it could be great hit in a pack of cards that lights up your face…until you read the name. Continue reading “The one you wish you could throw back”

The Ballad of Shawn Hunwick

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[Credit: NBC / YouTube]

Hello Sports Fans and welcome to another installment of, “Why God, Why Would You Give Me THIS Pack of Cards?” A few months ago I celebrated my birthday by buying too many hobby boxes of hockey cards because…

A) it’s fun, and

B) it’s my birthday and my wife can’t say anything. (Love you, honey!)

Plus that gives me plenty of fodder to write blog posts about!

One of the boxes I got was Panini’s 2012-13 Rookie Anthology, and when I buy hobby boxes, I play the numbers: what’s the price versus how many (and how good) are the hits!

It’s simple math but I’ll spell it out in different terms. You could throw down $20 for that CD of Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits! And you know it’s packed with awesome tunes like Mandy, and Copacabana, and that song about writing songs…it’s pretty much gold! But $20, that’s a lot of clams for 15 songs (Hey, he’s gotta save something for Greatest Hits 4, right?) So you look in the dust bin and find a cassette of Wang Chung’s Greatest Hits for 99 cents! Wang Chung had TWO good songs — that’s less than 50 cents per awesome song! Your mom’s Cavalier still has its tape deck after all; it’s hipster-relevant! So, that’s why I buy those Wang Chung Hobby Boxes.

Where were we…Oh right, Panini’s Rookie Anthology ’12-13. According to the box, you get “One Rookie Treasure Autograph Jersey Per Box.” And my draw from this box was THIS card of a hot up and comer named (drum roll, please)… Continue reading “The Ballad of Shawn Hunwick”

Best of the Worst: 2014-15 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey

2014-15 Upper Deck Series 1: Best of the WorstUpper Deck, unarguably, hands down, without a doubt, has the BEST picture for their Series 1 and 2 sets over any other card company. I always look forward to buying a hobby box or two when they come out just for the photograph and candid shots they somehow get. Seriously, I marvel at the angles and wonder how many pictures are shot and how many must end up on the cutting room floor/recycling bin of the computer.

So I was super excited to get my hands on this new box that came out! And while there were some great ones there….I noticed a lot of stinkers too! From the box I bought here’s my list of my Top Ten Best of the Worst: Continue reading “Best of the Worst: 2014-15 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey”

Franken-Cards

RoenickJERSEY CARDS! Love ‘em or Hate ‘em, you’re bound to come across them if you spend any appreciable time (and money) opening packs. Sometimes you luck out and score the star player of your favorite team! YAY! And sometimes you pull some dude you don’t know on a team you dislike. BOO! But hang on to him anyways, because you never know when Nathan Gerbe will get picked up by the Carolina Hurricanes.

Then there are the jersey cards that make you scratch you head when the swatch of jersey does not match the picture on the card. Like, not even close. Continue reading “Franken-Cards”

Card of the Week: Wrong City Lights

not_raleigh_smallEditor’s Note: Jim Howard is a new Puck Junk contributor.Show him some love and leave him a comment below.

A few years ago, Panini released a cool, relatively inexpensive hockey series called Pinnacle. One of the nicer points was that it didn’t dole out the same stats that you found on every card that year, but rather told you a story about that player featured on the cards.

Pinnacle’s autograph and jersey swatch cards were labeled as “City Lights” and went further by showing a player, gargantuan size, floating in front of their team’s city sky-line as if they’re in the process of receiving a pass from Godzilla and about to put it past King Kong — all the while informing of some special fact about the city or a historical event loosely related to that franchise. Neat; and I like jersey cards because they are good for collecting autographs!

Now, I know some collectors dislike jersey cards, especially cards that feature a swatch from the player’s previous team. But the Hurricanes card for the City Lights series sent me right over the edge! Since Jeff Skinner has only played for us, Panini couldn’t mess the jersey up. Instead they picture the wrong city. And not just any city, but Charlotte — Raleigh’s cross-state rival. Continue reading “Card of the Week: Wrong City Lights”