New Collection

I've started collecting cards from the 1974-75 O-Pee-Chee WHA set.

This is what I've bought so far:

Bryan Campbell
That's actually the Vancouver Blazers, that is where Philadelphia transferred to after the 1972-73 season.

Danny Lawson

Real Cloutier
Gotta love those original Nordiques jerseys.

Marc Tardif
The 18 year-old, photographed in his letterman jacket.

Serge Bernier
Why can't hockey players pose for cards like this anymore?

Andre Lacroix
And finally, the greatest WHA palyer in it's 7 seasons. He's in a nice light blue Blazers jersey (airbrushed), yet I don't know why. Maybe there was speculation that the Mariners jersey wouldn't look like this.courtesy of whauniforms.com

There will be more to come on this subject.

2011 All-Star Game in Raleigh

The All-Star Game is coming up this weekend. I will watch it, as I have every year (post-lockout). What I'm looking forward to most is the Skills Competition tomorrow and the Guardian Project during the second intermission on Sunday.

Here's a few facts about this ASG:
-Chicago and Vancouver each have 3 forwards in the game, CHI also has 1 D-man (the most among individuals represented).
-Buffalo, Edmonton, Florida, and NYI have only 1 rookie participating this weekend.
-Calgary, with Iginla's withdrawl, have no players represented in Raleigh.
-Peter Laviolette will not coach former coachee Eric Staal, Ward still a possibilty.
-Chara has won the Hardest Shot three years in a row (MacInnis holds 4 in-a-row record).
-The last ASG two brothers played in at the same time; 2000 (Pavel, Valeri Bure).
-Two former ASG MVPs are playing in this years game, Briere and Eric Staal.
-Just five goalies and two defenseman have been named MVP since it's 1962 inception.
-Philadelphia has had one MVP; 1980, Reggie Leach.
-Panini will release Score redemption cards at the game; the cards have special ASG2011 logos on them.

A Few Random Packs

First off, two score retails packs.

Pack 1:
450-Mike Komisarek
422-Barrett Jackman
39-Saku Koivu
370-Scottie Upshall
1-Joe Sakic Season Highlights
508-Justin Mercier
458-Alexandre Burrows Glossy


A rookie and a really nice card of Sakic's '19' being lifted to the rafters, plus a former Flyer.


Pack 2:
445-Kris Versteeg
483-Karl Alzner
345-Sergei Gonchar
229-Tomas Vokoun
285-Shea Weber
501-Nazem Kadri
367-Shane Doan Glossy


One down, one to go. The Kadri and the Subban 'Hot Rookies' are the ones to get.


2008-09 Upper Deck Series 1:
99-Andrei Kostitsyn

15-Pavel Kubina

30-Erik Johnson

79-Brendan Witt

197-Francois Beauchemin

186-Chuck Kobasew

170-Dion Phaneuf

HT8-Vincent Lecavalier Hat Trick Heroes


I didn't really collect this set so these cards are all 'new' to me. Plus the Phaneuf picture rocks.

2009-10 UD Victory Pack 1:
37-Eric Staal
68-Johan Franzen
219-Riku Helenius Rookie
109-Max Pacioretty
20-Clarke MacArthur
196-Alexander Semin

Pacioretty is the only new card I pulled from this pack. I already had two Helenius'.

Pack 2:
13-David Krejci
114-Shea Weber
GB36-Shane Doan Game Breakers
21-Derek Roy
160-#87
198-Sergei Fedorov

Roy and Doan are new, the rest are doubles.





P.S. Does anyone know if Score is gonna have a series 2 update?

The pictures will all appear in a period of days.

Pack Breakin' for the Holidays

I have enough shirts to last me through two weeks.
I have enough pants.
I even own a drawer full of underwear.
So when Christmas comes around and people ask me "Hey. What do you want for Christmas?" I think of all the great cards out there, like Bobrovsky's Young Guns and vintage parallel or maybe Bobrovsky's OPC and OPC vintage parallel. All together I received 418 cards and I still have some junk wax era cards coming from Dave and Adam's Card World. Altogether, it's been a great holiday.


(My new laptop is okay too.)

2010-11 Black Diamond Pack Breaks

The first cards I will be sharing with you are the six packs of Black Diamond I opened. I have never been a huge fan of the set, due to it being more high end than the sets I ussually look to buy. I would scan every card but they are way too shiny and it looks awful.

Pack 1:
83-T.J. Oshie
47-Jamie Langenbrunner
81-Scott Hartnell
7-Ville Leino
34-Blake Wheeler

Two Flyers in a pack is the best I've done in a while. I usually have a hell of a time trying to pull a Flyer. A good pack. Okay, mediocre pack. No. Good pack.

Pack 2:
52-J.S. Giguere
72-Jakub Voracek
107-Ilya Bryzgalov Double Diamond
62-Rene Bourque
68-Joe Pavelski

Sweet, a double diamond.

Pack 3:
88-Saku Koivu
73-Alex Burrows
20-Nik Antropov
76-Rick Dipietro
64-Victor Hedman

Another okay pack.

Pack 4:
65-Tomas Kaberle
67-Mike Fisher
209-Oliver Ekman-Larsson Rookie Gems Quad Diamond
46-Tim Gleason
42-Brendan Morrow

Three olympians, and a pretty awesome rookie card.

Pack 5:
14-Dustin Brown
44-Kari Lehtonen
82-Ryan Malone
8-Marty Turco
37-Jonas Hiller

A native Ithacan, and three goalies.

Pack 6:
5-Olli Jokinen
86-Vaclav Vinny Prospal
150-Marc-Andre Fleury Triple Diamond
69-Guillaume Latendresse
21-Patrick Sharp

Two former Flyers and a dude I hate on a pretty good card.


Not bad... stay tuned for more breaks...

Trading Cards

Trading is always a fun thing to be a part of. I started this trading season off with a 9 for 9 card swap with Sal over at Puck Junk. He's a wicked cool guy and everything went smoothly.

I Traded:
2008-09:
O-Pee-Chee-checklists of the Kings and Senators
Upper Deck-Salmela (rookie)

2009-10:
Fleer Ultra-Whitney
MVP-Pat Kane
Victory-Kane, Niemi (rookie), Kane and Toews Game Breakers


I Received:
2003-04:
Upper Deck-All-Star Game Pronger and Lecavalier

2006-07:
Fleer-Stillman, Bourque, Gionta, Yashin, Hunter, Richards, Collins (rookie)

It's hard to give away cards you open, especially the ones you remember and, when seen, you know it's in your collection. But thanks to Sal, I now have completed 91.5% of 06-07 Fleer, the base set that is. Rookies came one in every six and there were four insert sets so it's hard to get a good hold on those from just one tin and a few retail packs.

This reminds me...

All of the trades I've been making lately have reminded of the ultimate trade. This trade got my collection off to a huge start. A few years back I had but a few hundred cards, made a couple trades with my brother and sister (mainly for Flyers). One day I went to my friend Dave's house and he offered me a deal that would've been just plain stupid not to take. I had two autographed Dom Hasek cards, "The Dominator" is Dave's favorite player, and he wanted them so bad. Me, being the awesome person I am, said I would trade the 2003-04 Honor Roll to him. Dave, without even seeing what my deal was said "I'll give you this whole box." I was baffled. He gave me a box full of cards from 1989-2004 and I felt weird taking all of those cards for one 'graph. He said that he didn't care and just wanted the sig. Over 500 cards were in that box and that was the day I became a true collector. Thanks Dave, thank you for your generosity. I can't look through my cards without thinking about that wonderful night.

2010-11 Victory Fat Pack Break 2, part 2

#32 - Rene Bourque
#28 - Eric Staal
#164 - Devin Setoguchi
#83 - Stephen Weiss
#159 - Dan Boyle
#22 - Derek Roy
#137 - Milan Michalek, I ripped a red parallel of him in my last fat pack.
#69 - Niklas Lidstrom
#222 - Richard Clune
#GB-KA - Patrick Kane, I really like this subset
#231 - Nick Spaling Red Parallel, nice, two rookies
#53 - T.J. Galiardi
#95 - Martin Havlat
#13 - David Krejci
#25 - Erik Cole, Local boy from Oswego, New York
#91 - Niklas Backstrom
#166 - David Backes
#140 - Jeff Carter


It's about freakin' time I got a Flyer. Sometimes this phan just can't catch a break and get three without breakin' 20 packs.

2010-11 Victory Fat Pack Break 2, part 1

Don't you just love the smell of a newly opened pack of cards, ahhhh.

#199 - Ryan Miller Cheklist
#116 - Zach Parise, starting out pretty bad...
#85 - Drew Doughty, the pack has been redeemed
#162 - Patrick Marleau
#157 - Jordan Staal, and it's bad again
#173 - Victor Hedman
#93 - Brent Burns
#51 - Craig Anderson
#243 - Alexander Pechurski
#SOG-PD - Pavel Datsyuk
#51 - Craig Anderson Red Parallel, what? another Anderson... interesting
#73 - Sam Gagner
#178 - Tyler Bozak, gonna be a big star once Toronto takes off
#154 - Tyler Kennedy, fart-head
#44 - Kris Versteeg
#18 - Tim Connolly
#193 - Tomas Fleischmann
#94 - Cal Clutterbuck


The Flyers won in the shootout last night thanks to Richy and his moves.

2010-11 Victory Fat Pack Break!, Part 2

Here's the second half of my new rack pack:

#40 - Duncan Keith
#138 - Jason Spezza
#111 - Shea Weber
#39 - Patrick Kane
#17 - Blake Wheeler
#124 - John Tavares
#46 - Kristian Huselius
#155 - kris letang
#219 - Alex Plante
#GB-SC - sidney crosby
#90 - Ryan Smyth Red Parallel
#27 - Joni Pitkanen
#72 - Andrew Cogliano
#103 - Tomas Plekanec
#12 - Zdeno Chara
#61 - Brendan Morrow
#30 - Cam Ward
#112 - martin brodeur

2010-11 Victory Fat Pack Break!, Part 1

I finally got a pack of this upcoming season's Victory, a fat pack from Wal-Mart. Hopefully I'll be getting more tonight. Here we go!

#70 - Brian Rafalski
#113 - Patrik Elias
#8 - Evander Kane
#163 - Joe Pavelski
#100 - Brian Gionta
#37 - Matt Stajan
#165 - Joe Thornton, the best playmaker since the lock-out
#181 - Phil Kessel
#207 - Jamie McBain
#SOG-SW - Shea Weber, nice subset, but please more color or none.
#137 - Milan Michalek Red Parralel
#189 - Mason Raymond
#63 - Mike Ribeiro
#175 - Ryan Malone
#115 - Jamie Langenbrunner
#41 - Brent Seabrook
#94 - Dustin Brown
#23 - Drew Stafford

AHL Cards

I've been to a couple AHL games, mostly Amerks when they were Buffalo's farm team. In 2004, I got a team set of the Americans, I have always liked the cards. The 2003-04 Choice set consists of:
#01-Doug Houda, Assistant Coach who retired the year before and took an immediate job
#02-Tom Askey, goalie who has not played in NHL in over 10 years
#03-Milan Bartovic, I remember him, he played a little with Buffalo and Chicago
#04-Jason Botterill, I know a guy who looks just like him
#05-Brian Chapman, drafted by Whalers in 86 (never played a minute in the NHL)
#06-David Cullen, unknown defenseman
#07-Randy Cunneyworth, former NHLer of 16 seasons
#08-Pete Gardiner, ECHLer who signed PTO
#09-Paul Gaustad, finally, an actual NHLer, been with the Sabres since the lockout
#10-Doug Janik, has been up with Dallas, Montreal, and Tampa in recent years
#11-Ryan Jorde, another wasted draft pick
#12-Steve Lingren, probably in Europe
#13-Sean McMorrow, I was on the British League's site and that's where this guy is
#14-Ryan Miller, won Vezina this year
#15-Jason Dawe, played with Buffalo in the 90s but found his way to the AHL
#16-Norm Milley, skilled player... in the AHL
#17-Karel Mosovsky, Buffalo played him for a couple games in '07 or some year
#18-Rick Mrozik, I don't know what to say here, played a little for Calgary
#19-Jiri Novotny, no wait... Buffalo played this guy in '07... I think, also with Columbus in recent years
#20-Nathan Paetsch, in Buffalo now
#21-Geoff Peters, Awwwwww Yeah! I don't know, cool name (instead of Jeff (snore))
#22-Domenic Pittis, played just under 100 NHL games
#23-Jason Pominville, another Sabres 'star'
#24-Scott Ricci, not even an AHLer!
#25-Derek Roy, Buffalo's starting center
#26-Derek Roy, What!?! strange, looks like a parrallel, different picture though
#27-Michael Ryan, with Carolina, awesome picture, love the blood
#28-The Moose, each AHL set I got came with a card of the Mascot
#29-Chris Thorburn, Atlanta enforcer along with former Sabre Eric Boultan who once gave me a towel after a charity game
And the 30th card is an unnumbered checklist
A good looking set, but the second Roy confuses me. He's not even wearing a red jersey to correspond with the border (like the 2005-06 Victory set with Luongo's blue or Columbus' different backgrounds). It's a head-scratcher. The whole set might be worth something to a buffalo fan. The Miller, Pominville, Roy, and... Roy might be worth two bucks to an idiot, I don't know maybe they're worth a lot ($3.00!) to someone. Some idiot is selling the set for 12 bucks on eBay, idiot.