Hockey cards, collectibles and culture
Eric Lindros will have his number 88 retired by the Philadelphia Flyers tonight in a pregame ceremony. He made the double-eight famous during his eight seasons with the Flyers. Lindros had a lot of hockey cards made during his career — many even before he even skated in an NHL game. I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of his more offbeat cards. So, here are 10 Eric Lindros hockey cards that are strange, odd or just downright ridiculous.
It took 13 years for goaltender Jeff Glass to finally play in an NHL game. Thirteen hours later, he had a rookie card.
Welcome to another sporadic installment of “Deja Vu Tuesday,” where we take a look at a hockey card and say “Hey, haven’t I seen that picture somewhere else?” Today, we will examine two hockey cards picturing Hall of Fame goaltender Tony Esposito.
Now that Puck Junk has been a part of the online hockey community for 10 years, I feel that it gives me little street cred when it comes to hockey cards. So today, I would like to announce the creation of The Puck Junk Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame.
Literally close to one million hockey cards have been produced over the past 105 years. Some were truly great, most were just OK, and many were bad. But some were really bad. The Puck Junk Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame plans to immortalize the worst of the very worst.
In order to be considered for the PJ BHC HOF (rolls of the tongue, eh?) I have only one criteria: the card in question has to transcend its category and be exemplar — gee, just like a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame supposedly does, too.
For example, not every O-Pee-Chee card with a poorly repainted photograph will qualify for inclusion. Many cards from the 1960s to the early 1990s used doctored photos; to make the cut, it’s gotta be a cut above.
That said, say hello to The Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame’s inaugural class.
Continue reading “The Puck Junk Bad Hockey Card Hall of Fame: Class of 2017”
Each NHL coach followed his own unique path to get to where he is today. Some were accomplished NHL players who were immediately given a shot as an assistant coach upon retirement. Others were career minor leaguers, toiling in some of hockey’s most obscure ranks, before working their way up those ranks later on in life to finally appear in the NHL from behind the bench. Still, some never even played minor pro, hanging ’em up after junior and starting their coaching careers young.
For the start of the 2017-18 season, I thought it would be fun to take a look at each NHL head coach’s rookie card. Continue reading “Rookie Cards of Every NHL Head Coach for the 2017-18 Season”
For the first four years of his professional career, it looked like Carter Hutton was doomed to the minors. During a three-year span, Hutton was called-up from the minors and appeared as a backup for a handful of games; first for the Philadelphia Flyers in 2009-10, then the San Jose Sharks in 2010-11 and then the Chicago Blackhawks in 2011-12. But Hutton never actually played in any of those games.
The same seemed destined to happen in 2012-13, when the Blackhawks called up Hutton a few times during the lockout-shortened season to ride the pine. Finally, in their last regular season game of 2012-13, the Blackhawks started Hutton in his first NHL game — a 3-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues. After that, he grew into a dependable backup netminder; first for the Nashville Predators, and then last season for the Blues.
During two of his years in the minors, Hutton had two trading cards that used the exact same photo — which was weird because they were cards for different teams.
“Jim, I need you to write a Puck Junk post about a card I found,” Sal said to me recently. “And you’re the only one who can do it.”
“Uh, OK,” I replied.
So he sends me the Gordie Howe card you see above, and my first reaction was not good. (WARNING: It really was not good at all.)
When I was able to put my nose back on with bond and duct tape, I had so many questions about why this card exists in the first place. Continue reading “Card of the Week: Howe Awful!”
The Chicago Blackhawks are one of the NHL’s oldest team. A wealth of great players have donned the iconic sweater during the team’s 90-year history. Anyone who collects cards and considers themselves a ‘Hawks fan should really track down rookie cards of these 10 all-time great players. Some cost $1, others $10 and some well over $100, but if you get them all they will form the foundation of an impressive Blackhawks collection. Continue reading “10 Must-Own Blackhawks Rookie Cards”
The Chicago Blackhawks may have been eliminated in the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but that doesn’t mean Chicago is without a championship hockey team. Back in May, the Chicago Steel won the Clark Cup as the best team in the United States Hockey League. The USHL is the premier Junior A league in the U.S. The Steel took the best-of-five series three games to two over the Sioux City Musketeers. The Steel won Game Five 2-1 in overtime — while on the road, no less.
This Chicago Steel “Clark Cup Champions 2017” card was given away by the Steel at the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, Continue reading “Chicago Steel 2017 Clark Cup Champions Trading Card”
The exact same photograph of Patrick Kane was used on two different hockey cards during the 2011-12 season. At first, I thought this could have been an honest mistake. But then my research led to an unusual conclusion: what if one card company deliberately decided to use the same photograph to troll their competitor?