Sal Barry

1988-89 O-Pee-Chee card #221 – Mike Krushelnyski

When Wayne Gretzky was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings, other players were also involved in that deal. We tend to forget that sometimes, as “The Trade” was really, more or less, a Gretzky-for-$15 million dollars swap. But several more guys changed teams too. One such player was Mike Krushelnyski, who went with Gretzky – along with Marty McSorley – from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings. Martin Gelinas and Jimmy Carson – along with some draft picks and mad amounts of cash – in turn went to the Oilers. The trade rocked the sports world, and to a lesser extent a few hockey cards. Continue reading “Color Me Krushelnyski”

1988-89 Topps #120 – Wayne Gretzky

Wayne Gretzky lucked out on two counts after his trade to the Los Angeles Kings. First off, while Gretzky was sent to the team with arguably the worst uniforms at the time, he never had to wear them. Up until then, the Kings wore those god-awful purple and yellow uniforms. After “The Trade,” the team changed their uniforms to that stylish silver and black getup we all loved in the 1990s. No giant “Imperial Margarine crown” for Wayne.

The other lucky break for The Great One was that he was exempted from the time-honored tradition of the “airbrushed” hockey card. Continue reading “The King’s New Clothes”

1980 Kellogg’s Olympic Stick’r Trading Cards

Kellogg’s–the makers of cereals such as Corn Flakes–issued a set of smaller-sized, Olympic-themed trading cards. The cards could be peeled away from their cardboard backing and “stuck” to a flat surface-hence calling it a “stick’r trading card”. Released in 1980, these were most likely packed in boxes of cereal. One such card deals with our favorite sport: ice hockey! Here we see some sweet but random hockey action on the front. I’m not sure what teams these are, as the logos have been airbrushed off of the jerseys, but I guess we could assume that the players in white are from Team USA. Adoring the lower left corner of this card is a large and distracting Winter Olympics logo. Continue reading “Miracle on Cardboard”