In The Game released their inaugural Enforcers trading card set during the 2011-12 season. Amid the silly controversy over the “blood-and-bandages” design was a pretty good set. Those who like fighting and the enforcer role in hockey no doubt enjoyed the first Enforcers set, which was chock full of hits (no pun intended); each box contained five autographs and two jersey cards featuring hockey’s unsung heroes.
Knowing a good thing when they see it, In The Game released Enforcers II last week. Like their first set, a 12-card box costs around $65. However, Enforcers II includes three jersey cards, but reduced the amount of autographed cards from five to four per box.
Puck Junk celebrated its 6th anniversary this weekend. And by “celebrated,” what I really mean is “did not get updated for over two weeks.”
Yeah. That said, I’m still “all-in” when it comes to the hobby of collecting hockey cards. A few things have kept me away from this bliggity-blog, including playing in a low-level recreational hockey league, writing for Beckett Hockey and teaching college once again.
But another, more important “Junk” celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The album “Love Junk” by Canadian rock band The Pursuit of Happiness was released in 1988. It was TPOH’s first LP, and it went Platinum in Canada.
“Love Junk” is one of my favorite albums of all time. It was a big part of my college years. Good memories. I’ve lost count of how many times I listened to that CD. In fact, I drew inspiration from that album’s title when I decided to name my hockey card website “Puck Junk.”
And now you know.
TPOH is perhaps best known for their debut single, “I’m an Adult Now,” which was released in 1986 (as a self-produced single) then was re-recorded for “Love Junk” in 1988. Here’s their self-produced video for the 1986 version of the song. WARNING: contains 80’s hair!
If you’ve never listened to this album before — or it’s been a long time — you can hear it online on Groove Shark.
Anyway, thank you to everyone who has continued to read this blog throughout the past six years, despite my random bouts of inactivity here and there. I appreciate being a part of this small-but-passionate online hockey card-collecting community.
As always, I’ve got lots of cool stuff to share over the next few days. Stay tuned, and happy 2013-14 hockey season!
Fleer Retro Hockey is meant to appeal to collectors who fondly remember the 1990s: a time where gold and silver foil, holograms and chromium ruled the day. Each box contains six autographed cards and tons of 1990s-themed insert cards. A 20 pack box (5 cards per pack) costs around $115. Here are the results of the box I opened:
Brandon Saad (red) and Duncan Keith battle for the puck in Monday night’s Red-White Scrimmage. (Photo by Puck Junk)
So successful are the Chicago Blackhawks that they will sell their fans everything and anything they can. All the games sell out, as does the annual summertime Fan Convention. Three years ago, the team started holding an annual Training Camp Festival, which includes a 5K run and dealers selling hockey memorabilia, and culminates in a scrimmage. The Fest, at $5 a ticket, sells out too. Blackhawks fans will pay to see the team practice!
This year’s scrimmage was pretty epic. The last time I went to a Training Camp Fest — in 2010 — the team had the players work on drills, then play three casual scrimmages, where players skated on more than one team throughout the day. But this year, the team went super-oldschool, and played what fans have called “The Red-White Game.”
(FYI, my first “Red-White Game” was way back in 1990. Read about it here.)
The players weren’t wearing practice jerseys; they were decked out in full Blackhawks uniforms, with one team wearing the red home jerseys and the other team wearing white road jerseys. Where else but in a video game can you see two full teams of Blackhawks going at it?
The 2012-13 SP Authentic Hockey set was released just as the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals were getting underway. A 24-pack box (5 cards per pack) currently sells for around $125 online. SP Authentic boasts “3 Autograph Cards” per box. Even better, there are no silly jersey cards. Another draw is that “update cards” for 2012-13 Upper Deck Series One are found in SP Authentic. Come for the autographs, stay for the update cards. Or something. Anyway, onto the box break. Continue reading “2012-13 SP Authentic Hockey Box Break”
It was summer of 1989. I just finished 8th grade and got my first pair of hockey skates as a graduation present. Every Friday that summer, my mom took me to ice skating lessons. Afterward, she’d take me to a local card shop. One day, I spotted something awesome in the display case: a 1981-82 Topps Hockey card of Tony Esposito.
Even though I had only been a hockey fan for a half a year at that point, I was no stranger to Esposito’s career accomplishments: Calder Trophy winner in 1970, record for most shutouts in one season, member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and one of only four Blackhawks at the time to have his number retired.
And here, in this display case, sat a card of Tony-O, clad in red ‘Hawks sweater and his plain, workmanlike mask, glove hand outstretched as he goes to make one of the countless saves he made throughout his career. It was one of the coolest cards I had ever seen. But there was a catch: it was part of a stack of cards, wrapped in clear plastic and labeled “50 Topps Hockey Cards for $2.50.”
Well, I was too smart to fall for that game: obviously, the card on top is nice, while the other 49 are dogs. I didn’t want to spend a whole $2.50 for one card that I wanted and 49 I didn’t. Keep in mind that it was 1989, when 50 cents could get you a pack of new cards, and that I was only 14 and with no job. I decided to spend my money on five packs of newer cards that could help me finish off a set.
I regretted my decision as soon as I got home. The more I thought about that 1981-82 Topps Hockey card of Tony Esposito, the more I wish I had bought it. But my mom wouldn’t take me back to the shop; I would have to wait until next week after my ice skating lesson. (In all fairness to my mom, though, I probably spent all my money anyway.)
And so I thought about that card all week. I probably lost some sleep over it too, dreaming that some other kid would get that awesome Tony-O card and that I’d be left wishing for it.
Finally, the next Friday rolled around. After class, we stopped at the card shop. I remember hurrying through the store – the glass case with the hockey cards was all the way in the back – and being both excited and relieved that the stack of “50 Topps Cards for $2.50” was still available. I even remember removing the clear plastic wrap on the car ride home to look at the cards I just bought.
The cards under the Esposito were also from the 1981-82 Topps set – basically, the entire “National” set (1 to 66) minus Wayne Gretzky, Jarri Kurri and a few others. Guy Lafleur was in the stack; I recall my mother, who was a huge fan of The Flower back in the 1970s, correcting my botched attempt at pronouncing his name. Marcel Dionne was in there too, though that card had a crease along the bottom.
Match print photo used for Tony Espostio’s 1981-82 Topps (and O-Pee-Chee) cards.
But all that didn’t matter. I had the card that I wanted – that my 14-year old mind fixated on all week.
Like any good collecting story, things came full circle. Last year — more than 20 years since I purchased this card — I worked out a trade with a collector named Shane, who has a blog called Shoebox Legends.
He offered to trade me a very unique item that he purchased from the Topps Vault: the match print photo used for the 1981-82 Topps Tony Esposito card. It is bigger than the card, measuring 3.5″ by 5″. It is also uncropped, meaning that we see Tony-O’s full glove hand, and there are no borders or text interfering with the picture.
Of course, I really wanted this picture, given my obsession with this card two decades ago. But this time, there was no week-long wait on pins and needles. After hearing my tale, Shane was more than willing to trade the Esposito photo to me, telling me that it belonged in my collection.
One point of interest about the photo: it’s been touched up.
On the surface, someone sprayed a little black paint between the top of Esposito’s stick and his left shoulder. This was to cover up the face of a spectator. Topps did that sort of thing a lot in the 1970s and 1980s. You don’t really notice it on the card so much because the painted area looks dark green.
And now you know more about this card than you thought possible.
Do you remember wearing flannel shirts? Can you still sing all the words to Ice Ice Baby? Do you dream about the days when hockey cards were 50 cents a pack? Then Decades The 1990s — released today by In The Game — just might be the card set you crave.
If you are around my age, then you probably have fond memories of the hockey card explosion, playing NHL ’94 on your Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis and watching the “glow puck” on FOX (unless you are in Canada, where the pucks don’t glow). Ah yes, the nineties were a great decade for hockey, and worthy of their own set.
Like In The Game’s previous “era” releases — 1972 The Year in Hockey and Decades 1980s — Decades The 90s focuses on a specific time in the sport: 1990 to 1999. There are 14 cards in the box. Considering that a “box” is really a “pack,” 14 cards feels like the right amount, as many packs of the early 1990s contained 12 to 15 cards each.
The 2005-06 Beehive Hockey set is one that I’ve long wanted to build. So when I found a sealed box at the National earlier this month for $50, I snapped it up. The set contains 180 standard-sized cards and 70 oversized cards — the latter resembling the old “Beehive Photos” kids collected during the Original Six Era. Each pack has four regular cards and one large card, and the box has 15 packs. Here’s what I got: Continue reading “2005-06 Beehive Hockey Box Break”
When Bryan Bickell and Dave Bolland scored 17 seconds apart in Game 6 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals, the Blackhawks clinched the Stanley Cup. That victory also earned them a special boxed set of hockey cards from Upper Deck, commemorating the team’s second Stanley Cup in four seasons. Released at the end of July, the set contains 31 cards that no die-hard ‘Hawks fan should be without. Continue reading “Review: 2013 Upper Deck Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup Box Set”
Truth be told, I did not enjoy the 2013 National as much as I enjoyed the 2011 National.This was because I had less money to spend this time around. However, there was far less hockey this time around too. So, I had less to spend — and less to spend it on. I couldn’t be impulsive and had to carefully weight anybig purchases, but I dug around and still found a few treasures for bargain prices. Continue reading “Cards I purchased at the 2013 National”
In The Game released their inaugural Enforcers trading card set during the 2011-12 season. Amid the silly controversy over the “blood-and-bandages” design was a pretty good set. Those who like fighting and the enforcer role in hockey no doubt enjoyed the first Enforcers set, which was chock full of hits (no pun intended); each box contained five autographs and two jersey cards featuring hockey’s unsung heroes.
