Panini America and My Long-Lost Redemption Card

How long is too long when waiting for a redemption card to arrive? Six months? A year? Two years? More? My most recent redemption took nearly four years of waiting, followed by four weeks of nagging, but it finally arrived.

Recently, in my never-ending request to clear the piles of cards off of my desk, I found a redemption card that I had redeemed long ago. This was supposed to get me an autographed Akim Aliu rookie card from the 2012-13 Panini Limited Hockey set. I opened a box of these cards way back in mid-2013, registered the redemption number via Panini’s website, and then forgot about it. So did Panini.

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Book Review: A Guy Like Me

Scott’s “storybook ending” gets a book

All-Star. Author. MVP. Enforcer. John Scott may be the only one who can claim to be all of the above. In his new autobiography, “A Guy Like Me: Fighting to Make the Cut,” Scott takes us through his journey on how he went from a fourth-line enforcer to All-Star MVP. Anyone who wanted a tell-all about last year’s drama surrounding Scott’s controversial inclusion in the NHL All-Star Game will get that here — and more.

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The Inside Story on the Eric Semborski Hockey Card

Emergency backup goalies are a celebrated story-of-the-day that happen usually once per season, when a seemingly Average Joe gets to be an NHL player for a game. Who could forget the Washington Capitals web producer who got to be the Caps’ emergency backup in 2008 and again in 2013? Or when Jim Schoenfeld’s son, Nathan, backed up the Arizona Coyotes for a game last season? Most recently, Philadelphia native Eric Semborski was an emergency backup for the Chicago Blackhawks when they played the Flyers in Philly on Saturday. But Semborski got something his predecessors didn’t: he got his own hockey card.

Two, in fact.

In the Topps Skate digital trading card app, Semborski was the subject of two hockey cards, released just four days after he suited up for the ‘Hawks.

“It all came together pretty quickly,” said Mike Salerno, App Producer of Topps Skate. Continue reading “The Inside Story on the Eric Semborski Hockey Card”

Review: 1998 Blackhawks Legends

Pizza Hut restaurants in Chicago offered a five-card set of Blackhawks Legends during the start of the 1998-99 season. I don’t remember the specifics, but I think you had to buy a pizza to get one of these cards. I also think that they gave out a different card each week for a five-week period. I vaguely recall clipping an ad about this offer out of a newspaper.

I also recall that I was two blocks shy of our nearest Pizza Hut’s delivery range. I was living at my college’s dormitory, located in downtown Chicago, and didn’t have a car. I wanted these cards bad enough that I even offered to meet the Pizza Hut delivery driver at the corner of their delivery boundary, but NOOOOO, they’d only deliver to a street address, and not to the corner of Congress and Dearborn.

Fast forward to 2016, and I finally tracked down all of these Blackhawks Legends cards. They weren’t particularly expensive, and a nice collector even gave me the last card that I needed — Bobby Hull — for free. But in all of my years of collecting, I don’t see these pop up too often online or at shows. That said, here is a review 17 years in the making.

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Making of “Youngblood” article on THN

Earlier this month, The Hockey News published an article that I worked diligently on writing: “Blood, Guts & Glory – The Making of Youngblood: An Oral History.” For those who subscribe to the magazine, it is in the current issue. However, THN also put my “Youngblood” article on their website for everyone to read.

For those who don’t know, “Youngblood” is a hockey movie that came out in 1986. The film starred Rob Lowe as an aspiring hockey player from the U.S. who joins a junior team in Hamilton, Ontario. The film co-stars Patrick Swayze (who sadly passed away in 2009) as the Mustangs’ team captain.

While Lowe, through his agent, refused to talk with me about “Youngblood,” I still spoke with many awesome sources: director and writer Peter Markle, cinematographer Mark Irwin, hockey coordinator Eric Nesterenko (a veteran of 20 NHL seasons) and former OHL player George Finn, who played the bad guy. I also interviewed a stunt double and two background hockey players, including Steve Thomas.

You can read the article at The Hockey News’ website here. ■

Puck Junk Podcast #12 – July 12, 2016

…with your hosts, Sal Barry and Tim Parish.

Player not working? Listen to the podcast on Soundcloud.

In Puck Junk Podcast #12, Sal Barry and Tim Parish discuss the Subban-Weber trade, some of the Blackhawks’ free agent signings, the upcoming Chicago Blackhawks Convention and the problem with Case Breaks.

Total Time is 1 hour 6 minutes, so get comfy before you hit play!

Podcast Intro and Ending Music Credits

“Motherlode” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

No Stanley Cup, But Still a Great 2015-16 Season for the Chicago Blackhawks

kane_1 — Patrick Kane won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leading scorer in 2015-16. This was the first time in 48 years that a Blackhawks player has won the trophy. [Photo by Lisa Gansky Photography]

The shock of the Chicago Blackhawks losing to the St. Louis Blues on Monday night has not quote worn off yet — at least not among the die-hard fans who didn’t want to even think about baseball until June. Surely, weren’t the Blackhawks supposed to win the Stanley Cup this year, becoming the first team in almost two decades to win back-to-back championships? Alas, it was not meant to be. Game 7 was close. The entire Blackhawks-Blues first round series was close. But being close isn’t good enough when you are down a goal on the losing end.

Still, let us not forget that the 2015-16 season was nothing to frown upon. From on the ice, to behind the bench, to the front office, it was a great season overall for the Chicago Blackhawks. Here are the top six highlights from the year that was.

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G.I. Joe-inspired file cards of NHL players

Like many kids growing up in the 1980s, I played with G.I. Joe action figures. Each figure had an interesting code name like Snake-Eyes, Shipwreck, Roadblock or Cobra Commander, had a ton of poseability — including swivel-arm battle grip! — and came with some pretty cool weapons.

Flint_cardback — The back of each G.I. Joe figure’s toy packaging had a file card. Flint here has a degree in English literature.

Another great thing about G.I. Joe action figures was that each one came with its own file card on the back of the toy packaging — a small profile about the character that you were supposed to cut out and save for future reference. Believe it or not, these file cards many times became a factor when deciding which figure to buy. As a nine-year old, standing in the toy aisle of K-Mart, with only enough scratch in my Ghostbusters wallet to get one figure, I had to make a tough choice each week. All the figures looked awesome, so the file cards told you what kind of character the toy was supposed to be, which made picking one easier.

So this got me thinking, what if NHL players had file cards that summed up what you needed to know about them? It would quickly get you up to speed if you haven’t been following their career, and help you decide if you were going to like them or not.

I imagine they’d look something like these.

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Tag: Chicago Blackhawks