Sal Barry, Author at Puck Junk

Pittsburgh Penguins car commercial

I saw this commercial on G4TV’s Attack of the Show, where they count down their top five best (worst?) short internet videos. Coming in at number one was this car commercial for local Pittsburgh auto dealer A & L Motor Sales. It “stars” Penguins players Colby Armstrong, Maxime Talbot, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeny Malkin. In typical “local auto dealer” commercial fashion, this commercial is awesomely bad.

“You? Who are you? I thought they only took care of sup-pear-stars like me” I don’t know what got into Talbot, but he’s almost as funny as Ilya Bryzgalov.

I also like the way that Malkin doesn’t get any speaking lines, but still gets to show off his good hands with that key catch.

Gotta love The Onion

For those of you who don’t know, The Onion is the premier weekly satirical newspaper here in the U.S. of A.–sort of like Mad Magazine, but more sophisticated…and yet not pretentious. They poke fun at all things, like politics, current events and sports. Once in a while, they even dis’ on hockey, as evidenced by this photo:

The Onion also poked fun about the recent NHL All-Star Game in Atlanta.

Hockey Might-Have-Been

1992 Pinnacle Baseball card #594 – Tom Glavine

This week’s Card of the Week is actually a baseball card – with a twist!

The 1992 Pinnacle Baseball set had a card of ace Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavineskating on ice, stick in hand. You see, in high school, Glavine was talented at baseball and hockey. Upon graduation in 1984, he was chosen in both the NHL and MLB drafts, Continue reading “Hockey Might-Have-Been”

NHL Series 20 lineup announced

McFarlane Toys recently announced the upcoming lineup of hockey figures that will comprise NHL Series 20:

– Daniel Briere (Philadelphia Flyers)

– Jarome Iginla 3 (Calgary Flames)

– Jonathan Cheechoo (San Jose Sharks)

– Nicklas Lindstrom 2 (Detroit Red Wings)

– Vesa Toskala (Toronto Maple Leafs)

– Daniel Sedin 2 (Vancouver Canucks)

You can read the full article on the McFarlane Toys website here.

2007-2008 MVP Rookie Pack Breakdown

Last week, I received my 12 MVP Rookie Redemption Packs from Upper Deck. Each pack had three cards, for a total of 36 cards. Unfortunately, I did not get all 30 cards that I needed; I go 27 of the 30, plus 9 duplicates. Here are the cards I got in my 12 packs:

351 Johnathan Toews x 2
352 Carey Price
353 Bobby Ryan x 2
354 Sam Gagner
355 Patrick Kane
356 Nicklas Bergfors x 2
357 Eric Johnson
358 Nicklas Backstrom x 2
359 Anton Stralman
360 Jonathan Bernier
361 Bryan Little x 2
362 Kris Russell x 2
363 Andrew Cogliano x 2
364 Marc Staal
366 Peter Mueller
367 Ondrej Pavelec
368 Martin Hanzal
369 Matt Smaby
370 Brian Elliot
372 Matt Niskanen
374 James Sheppard
375 Kyle Chipcura x 2
376 Tyler Kennedy
377 Jiri Tlusty
378 Mason Raymond
379 David Perron x 2
380 Milan Lucic

It’s nice that I got a spare Jonathan Toews card (yay!), I am sorry that I didn’t get a spare card of Patrick Kane. I’ve heard of Bobby Ryan and Niklas Backstrom, so having spares of them can’t be a bad thing…but I’m drawing a blank at Bryan Little or Andrew Cogliano.

The three “update rookies” that I still need are:

365 Nick Foligno
371 Brett Sterling
373 Devin Setoguchi

Overall, I need those three update rookies, 26 other rookie cards and one base card, and then I’ll have the entire MVP set. I am planning on adding my want lists and trade lists to this site soon. In the meantime, if anyone has that Folingo, Sterling or Setoguchi cards for trade, drop me a line.

Review: 1992-93 Team Pinnacle

6 cards, 12 illustrations of 90s greats

Inserted in packs of 1992-93 Pinnacle hockey trading cards, Team Pinnacle featured twelve of the greatest men to lace up skates in the 1990s. Two centers, two left wingers, two right wingers, two goalies and four defensemen are depicted in these action-oriented illustrations. While you’d think these dudes were starters in the NHL All-Star Game, or named to the NHL All-Star Team (as selected by the sports writers), that is not the case here. These guys are “Team Pinnacle”, as selected by Pinnacle (a.k.a. Score) Trading Card Company. Continue reading “Review: 1992-93 Team Pinnacle”

Black ‘n’ Belushi

1991-92 Pro Set Platinum Card #300 – James Belushi, Celebrity Captain

In 1991, the National Hockey League celebrated its 75th Anniversary. The Original Six teams wore throwback jerseys, harkening back to the 1920s. Another part of this celebration was that each of the 22 teams had its own “Celebrity Captain”. Some teams named former players as their Celebrity Captain – such as Terry O’ Reilly (Boston) and Maurice Richard (Montreal). Other teams chose instead to name a personality or actor as their captain. For the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago-born actor and Second City alum James Belushi served as the team’s Celebrity Captain. Continue reading “Black ‘n’ Belushi”

2007-08 MVP Rookie Packs

Awesome! Today I got my 2007-2008 MVP Rookie Packs. If you redeemed your MVP redemption cards, then watch your mailbox–you should be getting your Rookie Packs soon.

I redeemed my redemption cards online on November 7. Two months later, I have these packs. There are 30 different rookie cards (numbered 351-380), and I have 12 packs (each contains 3 cards). It would be highly unlikely that I’d get all 30 cards that I need, and only 6 doubles. But if I get a lot of doubles, hopefully they will be of Patrick Kane and Johnathan Toews.

Review: 1987-88 O-Pee-Chee Hockey

Overlooked set has many good rookie cards

Like the previous year, this season’s O-Pee-Chee set contained 264 cards. The first 198 cards were identical to the 1987-88 Topps Hockey set – both Topps and O-Pee-Chee use the same photographs. Cards of players traded in the off-season differ slightly in this set. Players who got traded have a short text blurb mentioning the player’s new whereabouts (“Now with Black Hawks”, “Now with Maple Leafs”, and so forth). The team name on the front of the card is also changed to reflect the player’s new digs. Continue reading “Review: 1987-88 O-Pee-Chee Hockey”

Card of the Week: Kodak Moment

1987-88 OPC Leaders #14 – Glen Hanlon

We’ve all had to live down an embarrassing photo at least once in our lifetime. These “Kodak moments” we’ve had to endure were usually the byproduct of too much alcohol or a lousy haircut. My eight grade class photo was forever ruined by a bad case of “bed head.” Later on in college, a friend and I got drunk one night, and stumbled around my dorm room, knocking into things, while my roommate got photos of our buffoonery. Not much you can do about that, just laugh it off. Besides, it’s not like our own embarrassing photographs get printed in the thousands, and distributed in packs of hockey cards like this little gem of Red Wings goalie Glen Hanlon. Continue reading “Card of the Week: Kodak Moment”