Hockey cards, collectibles and culture
This Chris Chelios “Ultimate Journey” jersey card card is an enigma. It has two swatches of jerseys worn by my favorite player of all time. The left side of the card shows him with the Chicago Blackhawks; the right side, with the Detroit Red Wings.
As a lifelong Blackhawks fan, you can see why I have some problems with this card. Continue reading “Chris Chelios Ultimate Journey Card”
During the sports card boom in the 1990s, you could find hockey cards almost anywhere in Chicago and the suburbs. I went to a lot of card shops back then; there were more of them 20 years ago. But what stands out two decades later is when I found hockey cards off the beaten path.This is one such story. Continue reading “Buying Cards in the 1990s, Memory #1: The Suburban Convenience Store”
This simplistic, two-color sell sheet was used to solicit orders for 1981-82 Topps Hockey cards. It measures 8.5″ x 11″ and features a monochromatic photo of New York Rangers goalie Continue reading “1981-82 Topps Hockey Sell Sheet”
If you gaze at a minor league team photo long enough, you won’t see a sailboat, but you will probably find a few guys who went on to play in the NHL. It’s like watching a Burger King commercial from ten years ago starring your favorite television actor before they were famous. Only in this case, it’s a hockey player who was riding buses to far-flung midsize American towns, such as Cleveland.
Les Cunningham had a brief NHL career, totaling just 60 games over two seasons. But he was such a prolific scorer in the American Hockey League that the league named their MVP trophy after him. Continue reading “Card of the Week: Trophy Boy”
Steve Galvao is a good old Canadian kid who grew up loving hockey and collecting hockey cards. To see more of Steve’s work, visit his website, the Shoebox Collection. You can view his earlier blog posts here. Follow Steve on Twitter @galvaost. ■
So many stories about minor league hockey are of sad-sack franchises — the teams that can’t pay their players on time, have little support from the community, and end up folding or relocating in a few years. This is not one of those stories, because the Columbus Chill were not one of those teams. “Chill Factor: How a Minor-League Hockey Team Changed a City Forever” recounts the history of the Columbus Chill, one of the most successful minor-pro teams in hockey.
Just how successful was this team? The franchise got to go out on their own terms, turn a tidy profit and help build the city of Columbus into a serious contender for — and eventual winner of — an NHL franchise. Like any good story, there were setbacks along the way, but for once, the little guy comes out on top.
Hello Sports Fans and welcome to another installment of, “Why God, Why Would You Give Me THIS Pack of Cards?” A few months ago I celebrated my birthday by buying too many hobby boxes of hockey cards because…
A) it’s fun, and
B) it’s my birthday and my wife can’t say anything. (Love you, honey!)
Plus that gives me plenty of fodder to write blog posts about!
One of the boxes I got was Panini’s 2012-13 Rookie Anthology,
It’s simple math but I’ll spell it out in different terms. You could throw down $20 for that CD of Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits! And you know it’s packed with awesome tunes like Mandy, and Copacabana, and that song about writing songs…it’s pretty much gold! But $20, that’s a lot of clams for 15 songs (Hey, he’s gotta save something for Greatest Hits 4, right?) So you look in the dust bin and find a cassette of Wang Chung’s Greatest Hits for 99 cents! Wang Chung had TWO good songs — that’s less than 50 cents per awesome song! Your mom’s Cavalier still has its tape deck after all; it’s hipster-relevant! So, that’s why I buy those Wang Chung Hobby Boxes.
Where were we…Oh right, Panini’s Rookie Anthology ’12-13. According to the box, you get “One Rookie Treasure Autograph Jersey Per Box.” And my draw from this box was THIS card of a hot up and comer named (drum roll, please)… Continue reading “The Ballad of Shawn Hunwick”
I recently purchased 16 Jeremy Roenick Upper Deck rookie cards, which are from the 1990-91 season. Coincidentally, the card holders, now yellowed with age, are from 1990 too. And so are the price tags, which are marked $6.00. I paid 50 cents per card, but once upon a time a UD JR RC was a solid $6 card.
Upon closer inspection of these price tags, you will notice something cool. Continue reading “Hockey Card Price Tag Sticker”
This is one of my all-time favorite hockey card photographs. On the front of his 1991-92 Upper Deck “Star Rookies” card, Felix Potvin is shown hoisting the trophy he won as the MVP of the 1991 QMJHL playoffs. Everything about this photo is excellent, from the elated look on Potvin’s face as he proudly hoists the trophy, to the crowd of cheering people who have flooded onto the ice behind him.This picture successfully captures a moment in time.
It also succeeds in explaining why Potvin is a “Star Rookie” without saying a word. We don’t even need to read the text on the back of the card. Using this picture was a great choice by Upper Deck, and says more about Potvin than a staid draft day photo or a shot from Maple Leafs’ training camp. But Upper Deck wasn’t the first company to use this picture on a hockey card.