News & Views Archives - Page 11 of 95

No Stanley for Old Men: 2023 Edition

Every year, many new players make their NHL debut. Some play in only a handful of NHL games, while a few are good enough to stick around for over a decade. Eventually, the fresh-faced rookies of yesteryear become the grizzled old veterans of today, who toiled season after season in the hopes of winning the Stanley Cup one day. And that day might be soon.

With the 2023 NHL Playoffs starting tonight, here is a list of the oldest player from each team in the postseason — and why we should be rooting for each of them.

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Clemente’s Corner: Alexis Lafreniere Needs Time to Be a Hockey Hobby Star

I am a New York Rangers fan. I don’t hide that fact from readers. It’s also the reason why I feel like I have to defend Alexis Lafreniere.

Chosen first overall in the 2020 NHL Draft, Lafreniere has been a topic of conversation even before ever skating a shift for the Rangers. That’s because he came into the league during the pandemic at a time when interest in the overall hobby skyrocketed. Sal and Tim tackled this very topic on the Puck Junk Podcast back in March 2021, during Lafreniere’s rookie season.

Three years later, there’s still debate over whether Lafreniere is a bust or has yet to come into his own. I choose to argue the latter. Let me explain.

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Clemente’s Corner: 5 “Patricks” You Should Start Collecting in March

It’s March! That means a great many things. There’s the start of March Madness, followed by spring. For hockey fans, it is the end of an anxious time following the NHL trade deadline.

It’s also the month where many celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. In fact, there’s a hockey connection.

The name Patrick and hockey have a very long history. There was once a Patrick Division. It was formed in 1974, then a part of the Campbell Conference. The division moved to the Wales Conference in 1981 and existed for 19 seasons until 1993. It was originally named in honor of former New York Rangers defenseman Lester Patrick. It has been known as the Metropolitan Division since 2013.

There’s also the Lester Patrick Trophy presented each year by the NHL and USA Hockey since 1966. Since the award takes into consideration of the recipient’s contribution to the sport in the United States, it is not considered an NHL trophy because it can be awarded to players, coaches and officials outside the NHL.

There have been a great many NHL players named Patrick. Maybe you are considering becoming a player collector. If so, here are five players named Patrick you should consider collecting:

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Clemente’s Corner: Hockey Cards I Love

February is a month devoted to love. The shortest month of the year features as its centerpiece Valentine’s Day every February 14. It’s a day devoted to buying flowers and greeting cards for that special guy or girl in your life.

For those of us who collect hockey cards, Valentine’s Day could also be a day to reflect on what cards we love the most. Whether you’re a set collector or you just buy up singles (or both!), everyone has cards they love most.

A major part of the hobby for those of us who have been around for a while is nostalgia. It isn’t unusual to associate a card or set with a special moment from our past, especially if your collecting days date back to childhood. I can still tell you 30 years later where I was when I purchased or pulled a certain card.

Yes, loving little pieces of cardboard featuring photos of men in hockey gear isn’t for everyone. Having said that, this hobby is a lot more than that. It’s about love of a sport, fandom around a certain team and a connection to the people and places of our past. In other words, it’s more than cardboard.

Here are three cards from my collection that I love most and why:

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Goodbye and Thank You, Bobby Hull

Chicago Blackhawks legend Bobby Hull — nicknamed “The Golden Jet” — passed away on Monday at the age of 84. I had heard rumors late last year that Hull was in poor health, but I was still surprised when the news broke of his passing.

There are two camps of writers who have eulogized Bobby Hull over the past few days.

There are those who want to stick to his myriad of accomplishments, only touching on Hull’s history of domestic abuse and racist comments.

And there are those who really just want to demonize him, but will begrudgingly acknowledge that Hull was one of hockey’s all-time greats.

I am going to take a third approach. Continue reading “Goodbye and Thank You, Bobby Hull”

Finding the Right Pages to Store Your Odd-Sized Trading Card Collection

If you are like me, you enjoy putting your trading cards in pages and albums, so you can protect your collection in a way that also lets you easily look at it. But one point of frustration for collectors is when they come across cards that are not the standard 2-1/2” by 3-1/2” size. What’s a card collector supposed to do with postcards, odd-sized team-issued cards, or even cards that are just a touch larger than normal size? Fortunately, BCW has you – and your cards – covered, as it has archival-safe pages that will fit almost any collectible.

The goal of putting your cards in pages is to protect them with as little “wiggle” room as possible, because you do not want the card to shift around or slide out of the pockets when you are flipping through a binder. Here’s a breakdown of the different pages that BCW has available to store your collection of odd-sized cards. Read the rest of the story at the BCW Supplies Blog.

Puck Junk’s Top Articles of 2022

Hello Puck Junk readers, and Happy New Year! Before getting into new content for 2023, I wanted to give my annual list of the previous year’s top stories, as well as a recap of what’s going on with the Puck Junk website and podcast.

In October 2022, PuckJunk.com celebrated its 15th Anniversary. Thank you. all for your support! This site has come a long way — from a fun little blog that had zero traffic, to the blog and podcast that it is today. If I did not have readers like you, reading this right now, I probably would have quit doing this a long time ago.

Speaking of support, readership was pretty even from 2021 to 2022. Even though card collecting cooled off a bit, die-hard collectors were still coming here in 2022 to read about hockey cards, collectibles, and culture.

I guess we can add conventions to that list, too, since a lot of our articles and podcasts have been about the National Sports Collectors Convention and the Toronto Sport Card Expo.

Surprisingly, it isn’t just Americans and Canadians who visit this site. Readers from 139 different countries visited Puck Junk in 2022. Most of our visitors comes from (in order) Canada, followed closely by the United States, with Finland, Sweden, and Czechia rounding out the top five.

Listenership of the Puck Junk Podcast grew a bit in 2022. Most of our podcast listeners are from the United States, then Canada, Germany, Finland and — checks notes — Australia? Yep, we have listeners from “Down Under.”

Although I fell short of my goal of releasing a new podcast episode every week, we still put out 31 episodes during the 2022 calendar year. That’s five more than the 26 podcasts we released in 2021, so that’s improvement I can live with. Our most-popular podcast episode for 2022 was about the 2021-22 Upper Deck Series Two Hockey cards, followed by our ’90-91 Retrospective about the groundbreaking 1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey card set.

Even though I love podcasting, my number one passion is writing. Fortunately, Puck Junk has several contributors who are willing to share their own perspectives on hockey cards, collectibles, and culture. Below is the list of Puck Junk’s most-read articles that were published in 2022.

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Clemente’s Corner: Card Shows You Must Attend in 2023

What makes collecting cards most fun is meeting others who share the same interests. There’s no better way to do that than attending card shows. It’s also a great place to meet other hockey collectors.

I got to attend a good number of shows in 2022. I went to my first National Sports Collectors Convention last summer in Atlantic City, N.J. A few weeks prior to that, I attended my first Sport Card Expo in Toronto.

Sure, buying hockey cards on eBay or other platforms is easy, but card shows bring people together, spark debates about the hobby and help create friendships. As a result, I hope to get to more shows in the new year.

So many shows, both local and regional, have popped up just as the hobby has grown in popularity since the pandemic. There’s more demand for such get-togethers and that’s a great thing. The explosion in “Trade Nights” is another example of how the demand for get-togethers (as well as the chance to buy and sell cards) has also gone up in popularity.

There’s yet a date for the 2023 Toronto Sport Expo (typically held in the spring and fall), but here are five other shows you should circle on your calendar scheduled for the first half of this year.

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The Islanders at 50: How to Own a Piece of Team History

The New York Islanders are celebrating a milestone this season. The other hockey team from New York is turning 50 and even a Rangers fan such as myself can pause to pay homage to a rival franchise.

Founded in 1972, the Islanders immediately made an impact at the time when the NHL was looking to grow. After just two years of existence, the Isles would go on to secure 14 consecutive playoff berths. It was during that impressive run that the Islanders captured four straight Stanley Cups, dominating the league between 1980 and 1983.

The team’s 19 straight playoff series victories – spanning a time between 1980 and 1984 – remain a feat that is the envy of any North American sports team. The Islanders remain the last team of any major U.S. sport to win four consecutive championships.

The team’s heyday, however, was followed by an era plagued by scandal, mismanagement and low attendance. The team has failed to win a division title since 1988 and went a staggering 22 seasons without winning a playoff series, a negative streak that finally ended in 2016. The team moved into a new arena last season, trading the famed Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum for the new UBS Center.

Collectors interested in Islanders memorabilia and collectables, both past and present, will focus their energies on the eight former members of the team inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, seven of whom (Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith, Bryan Trottier, coach Al Arbour and general manager Bill Torrey) were all key members of that early ‘80s dynasty.

From trading cards and autographs to more whimsical items such as music albums and bobbleheads, here are a series of collectibles you may want to add to your wish list (especially now as the holidays draw closer) to commemorate the Islanders’ milestone season.

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Clemente’s Corner: Collecting Hockey Autographs Through-the-Mail

How the Pandemic Turned Me Into a TTM Nut

It was two years ago that the pandemic forced all of us to stay home. Like many of you, I used much of my downtime to do things around the house. It also forced me to organize my card collection.

I can’t say it’s quite as organized as I would like it to be. It was during that process, however, that I refocused some of my hobby energy. I didn’t know what to do with the many junk wax base cards that I had amassed over the decades. Some I gave to charity. Others were given away to trick-or-treaters. Even with that, I had tons left over.

That’s when I discovered TTM – short for Through-the-Mail – autograph collecting. My kids and I decided why not mail cards to former NHL players to see if we could get them back signed. In doing some research online, I realized that there was an entire community out there who have been doing the same thing for years – and with much success. I watched YouTube videos and read blogs where collectors bragged about their returns. I was hooked.

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