A One Horse Open Skate

1990 7th Inning Sketch OHL Promotional Christmas Card

Crashing through the snow…
In a one horse open skate…

In December of 1990, I received a different kind of Christmas card. This card measured 2 1/2″ by 3 1/2″, and showed Santa Claus abandoning his familiar red sleigh in lieu of a giant hockey skate. (Could you call it an ice skleight?)

This card was sent to me by 7th Inning Sketch, a company that made hockey card sets of the three Canadian Major Junior leagues during the early nineties. Earlier that year, I had sent 7th Inning Sketch a defective card to be replaced; apparently, this was good enough to be on their “Christmas card list” the following winter.

The flip side of the card (below) has a photo of OHL Commissioner David Branch and states “Happy Holidays from David Branch, OHL Commissioner”. I’m guessing that the OHL sent this out as their own Christmas card too.

These Santa cards were also made for the Western League and Quebec League–the front side is generally the same, while the back side of the WHL card has a Christmas tree and states “Season’s Greetings”. The back of the QMJHL card has a smiling snowman and wishes us “Joyeux Noel”

Also worth noting is that each of these three cards come in two versions – the white bordered type you see here, as well as a silver foil bordered version. I guess it would not be 1990 unless you had a “foil version”, right?

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Author: Sal Barry

Sal Barry is the editor and webmaster of Puck Junk. He is a freelance hockey writer, college professor and terrible hockey player. Follow him on Twitter @puckjunk

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