My Fourth of July Hockey Card Ritual

opc_sticker_boxMost 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.

go_ahead_coverThe 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.

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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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