Opinions

Hughes “Golden Goal” Signed Card at Auction

Card That Mysteriously Appeared Hits Over $100K

Remember back in February, when Jack Hughes scored the “Golden Goal” in the gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics. His overtime heroics gave the U.S. a 2-1 win over Canada – and the country’s first gold medal in men’s Olympic ice hockey since 1980. 

Later that day, Topps was selling cards of Hughes celebrating his goal as a part of its “Topps Now” print-on-demand card set. The card was available for a short period of time for $11.99 each. However, one lucky buyer would receive the card with Hughes’ autograph on it, along with the inscription “Golden Goal 2/22/26 Go USA!”

Well, that card has recently surfaced, and it is currently up for bid at the Fanatics Collect auctions website. The card currently has 26 bids and is at $110,000 – and it still has 7 days to go!

Could it top the $200K mark? It probably will.

Continue reading “Hughes “Golden Goal” Signed Card at Auction”

Random Thoughts on the 2026 National

It was the best of shows – but not without its flaws

Last month, I set up to sell at the 2026 National Sports Collectors Convention. I previously set up at this show from 2021 to 2024. For the 2025 National, I could not get a table, so it was nice to be back this year as a seller of hockey cards and hockey memorabilia.

I already spent a lot of time talking about the 2026 NSCC on our most-recent podcast, but I wanted to use this editorial to share some random thoughts about the convention.  Continue reading “Random Thoughts on the 2026 National”

Conquering the Card Closet

The Closet of Chaos is Now the Closet of Calm

Back in December, I wrote about how I did not have a good way to store my extra card supplies. I had half-full boxes of card pages, in all different sizes, that were just stuffed on a shelf in a closet. Other supplies like toploaders and soft sleeves were stashed wherever I could find room. It made locating and retrieving supplies difficult.

Heck, sometimes I even bought supplies that I already had enough of because I could not find them in the first place. 

Well, little by little, I kept figuring out what to do with my “Card Closet of Chaos.” Continue reading “Conquering the Card Closet”

The 9th Annual Puck Junk Awards

This year, the NHL skipped its annual awards show, instead announcing its annual trophy winners throughout the end of the season. That’s a bit of a letdown, as the NHL Awards Show – as cringy as it is sometimes – is a nice way to bookend the season. 

Show or no show, players still got their awards for being the best goalie, the best defenseman, the league MVP, and such. 

But sadly, there are no awards for the player with the most punchable face, the goalie least likely to play in an NHL game who got to play in an NHL game, or the guy who changed teams the most during the season. 

That is something I rectified in 2018 when I launched the Puck Junk Awards, for the true unsung heroes of hockey. 

So, let’s take a look at the Puck Junk Award Winners for 2026. 

Continue reading “The 9th Annual Puck Junk Awards”

Digital, Fractional, or Physical?

It’s Crazy That These are Now Hobby Terms

“Let’s get physical! Physic – I mean, digital! Digital!”

In the latest episode of the Puck Junk Podcast, we talked at length about the 2025-26 Fleer Ultra Hockey card set, and how it is the first time in a long time that Fleer Ultra is back as a “physical card product.”

A physical card product. That just sounds WEIRD, doesn’t it? Like, what else would trading cards be…right? 

We now live in the day and age of where we have to sometimes state specifically if the cards we are talking about are PHYSICAL or DIGITAL.

Continue reading “Digital, Fractional, or Physical?”

Olympic Ice Hockey is Like Star Trek Movies

It’s the Whole Even-Odd Thing,
If You Know What I Mean

I am excited about the 2026 Winter Olympics so far. We will see USA and Canada battle it out for the gold medal in the Women’s tournament. And for the first time in a long time, we may see a USA-Canada showdown in the men’s tournament, too. 

This is the first time in 12 years that the NHL shut down two weeks to allow its players to participate in the Olympics. This is the first Olympics that headlined Auston Matthews for Team USA and Connor McDavid for Team Canada.  

But as awesome as having Olympic rosters stuffed with top-level NHL talent, the men’s ice hockey tournament at the Olympics isn’t always great…for North American fans, anyway. 

In fact, men’s Olympic ice hockey reminds me of the old Star Trek movies from the 1980s and 1990s, where the odd-numbered films were bad, while the even-numbered films were great. The same pattern applies to men’s Olympic ice hockey since 1998. 

Continue reading “Olympic Ice Hockey is Like Star Trek Movies”

Is 2026 the Year I Finally Get Organized?

Not a New Year’s Resolution But a New Collecting Mindset

The past two years, I boldly gave my Collecting Resolutions as editorials for this newsletter. In 2024, I said I was going to organize my hockey action figure collection. And for 2025, I claimed that I was going to try to finish as many sets as possible.

So, how did I do on those resolutions? Continue reading “Is 2026 the Year I Finally Get Organized?”

Taming the Card Closet of Chaos

Getting a Grip on My Memorabilia Supplies 

Last week, I wrote about how vintage cards usually look better in 9-pocket pages because pages tend to hide some of the flaws that would otherwise be visible. But this also brought back to light something that has always bothered me: how should I store my unused card pages? 

I know this sounds like a silly question, but for over 20 years, I never knew what to do with the pages I wasn’t using. Like, you buy a box of 100 pages and only use 50 of them, you could stash the rest almost anywhere because they won’t take up much space. And a normal collector could do just that. 

But what if you are a freak like me who has ALL the different sizes of card pages?

In addition to several hundred 9-pocket pages, I also have: Continue reading “Taming the Card Closet of Chaos”