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

Every 2018-19 Upper Deck Hockey Card Arena Giveaway

Get Free Upper Deck Cards at NHL Games

During the 2018-19 season, 17 different NHL teams, as well as three American Hockey League teams, will give away Upper Deck hockey cards. While these giveaway cards look similar to 2018-19 Upper Deck Series One Hockey cards, there are some differences that make these cards unique enough that they will appeal to player collectors, team collectors, or completest nuts like me. 

The Andrew Shaw card on the left is from 2018-19 Upper Deck Series One. The Andrew Shaw card on the right is from the Montreal Canadiens team set, which will be given away on December 15.

For example, the silver foil is removed and replaced with standard ink. So, all team logos are in full color instead of silver, while the silver “swirlies” at either side of the logo are replaced with a dominant color from the team’s uniform. The Upper Deck logo is also de-silvered, and printed in color. However, the most interesting change is that some of these cards use different photos than what was used on the standard 2018-19 Upper Deck Series One Hockey card. 

The first arena giveaway will be at the Anaheim Ducks game on Friday, November 23. The promotion will visit seven other NHL teams — and possibly several others — plus two AHL teams. Here is information on every team that is giving away these unique hockey cards, and how to get them.  Continue reading “Every 2018-19 Upper Deck Hockey Card Arena Giveaway”

The 10 Best Hockey Cards from 1988-89

Thirty years ago, the 1988-89 hockey season was winding down. Wayne Gretzky was in his first season with the Los Angeles Kings, while the Calgary Flames would go on to win their first Stanley Cup Championship. Hockey legends Marcel Dionne and Lanny McDonald retired at the end of the season, while Guy Lafleur successfully started his three-year comeback.

It was also a simpler time for hockey card collectors. There were only two mainstream hockey sets to collect — Topps and O-Pee-Chee — and there were not yet any Eric Lindros cards for speculators to hoard. In fact, the word “hockey cards” and “investments” weren’t even uttered in the same sentence back then.

The 1988-89 season was also when I first discovered hockey — and thus started collecting hockey cards. So, here is a look at the 10 best hockey cards from the 1988-89 season. These are not necessarily the most valuable or most-rare hockey cards from that year; rather, these are cards that have significance and should be in any serious hockey card collection.

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Seven Blackhawks Goalies Who Played in Only One NHL Game

One year ago today, emergency backup goaltender Scott Foster stepped in between the pipes for the Blackhawks after both Hawks goalies went down with injuries. Foster was perfect, stopping all seven shots that he faced.

Coincidentally, there have been exactly seven Chicago Blackhawks goalies who played in only one NHL game — Foster and six others. Here is a rundown of all seven Blackhawks goalies who had just one NHL game in their hockey careers. 

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Road to the Cup Hockey ’94: An Unreleased Hockey Video Game

A look at NHL ’94‘s long-lost cousin

Puck Junk photo illustration.

Hockey video games were far and few between in the 1980s, but that changed in the early 1990s. From 1990 to 1992, hockey games released for home video game consoles included Wayne Gretzky Hockey, Mario Lemieux Hockey, TV Sports Hockey, Hit the Ice, NHL Hockey and NHLPA Hockey ’93. By the fall of 1993, four more hockey video games came out: Pro Sport Hockey, Brett Hull Hockey, NHL Stanley Cup, and most notably, NHL ’94. 

A fifth hockey video game was supposed to be released in fall of 1993, but it didn’t make the cut. Entitled Road to the Cup Hockey ’94, the game was going to feature an elaborate artificial intelligence system, full season mode and playoff brackets — and it might have even challenged NHL ’94 as history’s best hockey video game from the classic gaming era. 

Up until this point, very little was known about Road to the Cup Hockey ’94. But not anymore. Continue reading “Road to the Cup Hockey ’94: An Unreleased Hockey Video Game”

National Hockey Card Day Has Become a Family Tradition for Many

“Daddy! It’s National Hockey Card Day!” exclaimed Tom Poray’s two young daughters on the morning of February 23. Such youthful exuberance would normally be reserved for a holiday like Christmas or Halloween. Yet since 2009 in Canada and 2012 in the United States, Upper Deck’s National Hockey Card Day has slowly and steadily transformed into an event that families look forward to each year.

Throughout the day, anyone who visited a participating card shop in Canada or the U.S. was given a free, five-card pack of hockey cards. Like every year, the Canadian and American sets differ, and each set has 16 cards. Cards 1-15 were available in the free foil packs, while the last card was given to a customer if they made a $10 purchase. This year, the bonus cards were of John Tavares in the Canadian set and Alexander Ovechkin in the American set.

Fans in both countries could also hope to pull an insert or autographed card. Some big box stores, such as Toys R Us in Canada and Dick’s Sporting Goods in several eastern U.S. states, also gave away perforated, nine-card sheets of hockey cards.

Poray, who is from Guelph, Ontario, looks forward to National Hockey Card Day each year, as do his two daughters, ages 7 and 5. This year, he took them to four different shops so that they could get enough packs to each build a set.

“To me, this is phenomenal,” he said. “This isn’t something that I’m pushing on my girls. It’s nice to see that level of enthusiasm not directed at a video game or a screen.”

Read the full article at Sports Collectors Digest

Follow Sal Barry on Twitter @PuckJunk. 

Romo + Modano = Romodano

2009 Upper Deck Heroes #488: 
Hometown Heroes Tony Romo / Mike Modano

I had no idea that this card existed. It features an illustration of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and Dallas Stars center Mike Modano. If the two of them combined into a giant super monster, it would be called ROMODANO, play two sports, make $30 million per year…and breathe fire! 

Finding unknown gems like this is the reason why I love rummaging through quarter boxes at card shows. Although honestly, this could have been from a dollar box — and it was a dollar well-spent. 

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Get Canucks Hockey Cards at Subway

Free 14-Card Set at Subway Restaurants in BC

If you like hockey cards, live in British Columbia and enjoy eating sandwiches, then you’ll definitely want to eat at your local Subway restaurant a bit more often over the next few weeks. 

Starting on February 25 at some locations, and March 4 at the rest, participating Subway sandwich shops will be giving away packs of exclusive Vancouver Canucks cards made by Upper Deck. The promotion runs until March 29, 2019. 

Purchase a “Canucks Meal Deal,” which is a sub/chips/drink combo, and get a free pack of Canucks hockey cards. 

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A Closer Look at 10 Hockey Card Blunders

In the 100-plus years that companies have made hockey cards, countless mistakes have been made – from spelling a player’s name wrong, to getting a stat incorrect, to picturing the wrong guy. But every now and then, a card company gaffed so egregiously that you wonder if anyone was even paying attention. Here are the ten biggest hockey card blunders. Read the full article at Sports Collectors Digest.

Follow Sal Barry on Twitter @PuckJunk. 

Review: 2016 Leaf Jack Eichel Collection

Not long after being drafted second overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 2015, Jack Eichel signed an exclusive deal with Leaf Trading Cards. As a part of that deal, only Leaf products could include cards autographed by Eichel. In late 2016, Leaf released the “Jack Eichel Collection,” a 30-card boxed set that showcases the Sabres’ young superstar. The big draw to the set is that it includes a hockey card autographed by Eichel. Unfortunately, that’s really the only upside to this otherwise mundane set. 

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Interview: Tom DuBois, Blades of Steel Box Cover Artist

If you grew up playing video games in the 1980s and 1990s, you definitely have seen artwork by Tom DuBois. He is an illustrator from Chicago who created many of the iconic covers that graced video game boxes. Remember Bayou Billy and Castlevania III for Nintendo, Lethal Enforcers for Sega Genesis, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time for Super Nintendo? All of those games, and dozens more, featured DuBois’ art on the covers. But most importantly for hockey fans, he illustrated the cover art for Blades of Steel, which came out for Nintendo in 1988. Recently, DuBois spoke with me about how he got his start in creating video game artwork, including Blades of Steel – and how working on that game got him in trouble.

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