“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.
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 StarTrek 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.
As I mentioned last month, I have been reorganizing my hockey card collection. One task that has thrown me for a bit of a loop is what to do with “small sets” that don’t fill up an entire three-ring binder.
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.
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?
Last November, I purchased a complete 1970-71 O-Pee-Chee hockey card set at the Fall 2024 Sport Card Expo in Toronto. I then proceeded to ignore this set for over a year.
Why?
Because it was another “project” that was going to take time. Many of the cards in this complete set had flaws, and I already had about 80 or so cards from the 1970-71 OPC set.
So, I would need to compare the cards that I already had with the cards in the complete set, keep the better cards, and note any cards that I felt needed upgrading.
Earlier this month, I was writing an article about goalie-themed hockey card sets and mentioned the Between the Pipes sets that came out in the 2000s and 2010s. I went into my closet and found my 2013-14 Between the Pipes set so I could scan a few of its cards.
Or, rather, I should say I found my near-complete set of 2013-14 Between the Pipes, as it is missing 14 cards. That means that, in over 10 years, I’ve never bothered to finish the set. I opened one box, put the cards in order, then promptly forgot about it for a decade.
I was then reminded that I made a Collecting Resolution for 2025 that I was going to try and complete as many sets as possible this year. Heck, I even wrote about it back in January, thinking that by making this proclamation public, I would follow through on it.
Puck Junk Podcast hosts Tim Parish, Clemente Lisi, and Sal Barry.
About six weeks ago, I was disappointed to learn that my usual booth space at the National Sports Collectors Convention would no longer be available. With the show only weeks away, there was zero chance for me to get a booth for the 2025 convention.
So, once I got over the initial disappointment, I decided that I would go to the National as a fan. I purchased a 5-Day VIP pass and updated my want list.
And boy, did I have fun!
This year, I had time to hang out with friends at the show, including Puck Junk Podcast co-hosts Tim Parish and Clemente Lisi, who have a knack for helping me find things I am looking for. I got to talk with many listeners of the podcast, as well as readers of the Puck Junk newsletter and blog.
I also had tons of time to look around and find new treasures for my personal collection. This is pretty much impossible to do when I am tied (figuratively speaking) to a booth at the National. Instead, I got to roam freely around, get a few autographs, and buy some great hockey cards.
Earlier this week, I was a guest on the XM Radio talk show NHL Morning Skate LIVE, talking about hockey cards, as well as the upcoming National Sports Collectors Convention. Host Mick Kern asked me an interesting question – one that I do not get asked too often.
Another NHL season has come to an end, some players won awards – and some players who should have won awards were overlooked.
Hence, the foundation of the annual Puck Junk Awards in 2018. Now in its 8th year, the Puck Junk Awards honor the unsung heroes – such as the best scorer who can fight, the player who came out of nowhere and wowed everyone, and the least-likely goalie to tend the twine.
So, without further delay, here are the Puck Junk Award Winners for 2025.
