What I took home from the National

well..... nothing. That's because I didn't go. I'm not one of the cool kids that gets to travel across the country for a card show.

However, I do know several people who did go. One of them, not to mention names (but he might be a certain Trevor Linden collector with blogger name of bamlinden) said he wouldn't mind doing me a favour........ and he hooked me up with a great piece for my collection.

a beauty of an 8x10 of former Habs 'tender, Andre Racicot. In their Stanley Cup winning year, Andre had a record of 17 wins, 5 losses and a tie while backing up Patrick Roy.
Andre was signing autographs at the show on Saturday.

A great photo with a cool inscription. Funny story about the inscription.... but it's one of those, you had to be there kinda things.

This autographed 8x10 brings me to 10 different current and former goalies who have worn the bleu, blanc, et rouge.

Only 67 more to go.

Some of those dead guys from the 1920's are going to be tough.

Thanks Brett!!!

Who are those Masked Men?

There was a trade night at one of the local shops last night. Not a lot of trading due to the lack of new product... as I've said, a lot of collectors around here don't recognize or want cards more than 3 weeks old.
I need to write a book called "The Life, Trials and Tribulations of a Set Collector." Woe is me.

Anyways... despite the lack of trading, I did make a purchase.

The shop had 9 of the 2013 Masked Men inserts from In the Game's Between the Pipes.

I scooped up all 9, plus an autograph, for $20. That's $2 per card for you English majors.

Let's gawk at the shiny goodness.

Gary 'The Cobra" Simmons. LOVE IT!

Dan Bouchard. I wish ITG could find a pic of Bouchard's teammate Yves Belanger. Another awesome mask. A huge replica hangs on the side of the Saddledome here in Big C.

Gerry Cheevers. His mask necessitates inclusion in every mask set, every year. Or so it seems.

Marc-Andre Fleury. Again we see the ITG card on the side of his mask.

Domink Hasek. The Dominator... this time with Ottawa.

Jimmy Howard. Nice Mustang Jimmy.

Manny Legace. Wait. Manny Legace???

Gilles Meloche. One of my all time faves.

and Semyon Varlamov. I wonder if he misses Washington?

the final card to round out the purchase was this auto of Oilers goalie, Eddie Mio.

Eddie came over to the Oil in the Gretzky swap. He was also Wayne's BFF and best man at his wedding.


Thanks for looking... I now have 12 of the 50 Masked Men 5 insert set. If you have any to help me out, let me know. I'm always looking to swap.

Playoffs? Playoffs?? Playoffs!!!

The best time of the year is upon us. It's the playoffs. And if you have to ask, "Playoffs for what??" You're not Canadian. Nor have you ever been within 500 miles of Canada.

On a quiet night, you can go outside and hear the snow melt it's so peaceful. Until the overtime goal is scored. And then it's mayhem. Seriously. I can stand outside my house in Calgary and hear when the Leafs score in Toronto. Granted, the prairie provinces don't have anything geographically to stop the soundwaves, but still.

So to celebrate the Drive for 25* I'd thought to show off a few recent additions to my collection.

 

What you're looking at here, is either a Stanley Cup parade, or a first round exit. In a team game, it's all on this guy. Good thing he has broad shoulders. Cowboy up Carey.

Leading scorer and potential Norris trophy winner, PK Subban. He was one point from leading the team in scoring... had to settle for leading all NHL defencemen. Not bad after missing the first 8 games in a 48 game season.

Montreal doesn't start until thursday due to Bettman doing whatever american tv tells him to do. Idiot.

The first two games of the playoffs last night both went into overtime. Yeah. It's going to be like that.

I'll be interested to see what reasons are said that Subban doesn't win the Norris. He was by far the best defencman in the league hands down. But he's not well liked. We all know trophies are not always won by the deserved. But Ryan Suter???? Really???

Just for fun, Frenchie LaBouche. Well, Lars Eller. That's what he's referred to around here. If he really did have a french sounding name, he'd be the Habs first line center. But he doesn't. So he's not. And the team suffers for it.

Thanks for looking.

Is your team in it? And who do you think can stop the Habs Drive for 25?

*The Canadiens are going for their 25th Stanley Cup Championship. That's right. 25th. How many you got?

the things I do for $1600....

Casey from Drop the Gloves is having a contest. The winner gets $1600 to spend on ebay*. But before he gives out the cash, he needs to make sure you're worthy, so he wants to see how you'll spend it.

Here's one way....

I debated for a few days on this... I'm a set collector, so that's how I wanted to go originally. But $1600 doesn't go far in vintage sets, and since entertainment is the goal around here, rather than post one picture of a 300 card set, we'll go with a bunch of pictures of cards with writing on them.

That's right, autographs. The rules are simple... they have to be autos that I don't already have. So no Dryden, Lafleur, Beliveau... no Chipper or Murphy.

You may disagree, but then you can get your own $1600. From the top, in no particular order....

That's right, it says it all. Mr Hockey. Possibly the greatest to ever play the sport .. although Joe Malone might have something to say about it. Spent $99

Wayne Gretzky. One of the best modern day players. We don't like Edmonton, and trying to find autos of him in a Blues sweater is tough. So we went for Team Canada. Something we can all cheer for. Spent $199

 

One of the greatest, if not the best, pure goal scorer in history. The Rocket. Maurice Richard. Spent $99

 

Here's a guy, were it not for all those damn injuries, would've made people forget all about #99... Mario Lemieux. What could've been... Spent $119

An all time great, and the face of the WHA, Bobby Hull. His kid almost made the cut for this exeercise... almost. Spent $ 75

One of the best d men of all time. I wanted the best, Doug Harvey as well, but could not find one, so Bobby is by himself on the blue line. Spent $75

This one pains me a little.... but you can't argue stats. He managed to hang around long enough, and was lucky enough to play with some great players to become one of the top point getters in hockey. Mark Messier. Spent $65

Switching over to current players... I needed to grab a Crosby. Spent $105

and no Crosby is complete without an Ovechkin. If only this dude wanted to play every night. Spent $49

Now onto baseball... baseball autos are a lot cheaper than hockey ones. Probably because the card companies have printed millions of them.....

no explanation needed... Hank Aaron. Spent $150 .

The greatest lefty ever. End of story. $35 Why don't I have this already???

The Braves greatest 3rd baseman, and one of the few 3rd basemen in the Hall, Eddie Mathews.
Hmmm... maybe Chipper is now the greatest? We'll see how time remembers him...
Spent $30

Now we get a little funky.

One of my favourite quarterbacks, Mr Don Meredith. Spent $245

I know Don is popular, as well as a Cowboy, but $245? Ouch.

Turn out the lights...... the party's over.......

Now for my final card.... a little back story. I've been following this card since it hit ebay, what? 8 years ago? Yeah, around that long. Sometimes it disappears, but it always comes back. The owner, well, he's a douchebag. No beating around the bush here....
He refuses to be reasonable about the price, or even listen to serious offers. I'm pretty sure he's now doing it out of spite.
In fact, I'm fairly sure the card is long gone, and he just keeps the picture up to torment me and a couple of other guys.
One of the many reasons we hate the french.

Anyways... my white whale as it were.... a dual auto fo Chris Nilan and Lyle Odelein
Spent $250

$250????? Douche is too nice of a word for him....

I think that's $1593.... if I could just get the rest on a gift certificate, that would be great.







*I think that's what he said.... but I haven't confirmed it. I should probably re-read his post, but I'm too lazy for that... so we'll just go with it.

2012-13 In the Game Between the Pipes box break review... with pictures!

It's everybody's favourite day, release date for In the Game's Between the Pipes.

What? It's not your favourite day? Well, it should be. Plus, it's Thursday, so only one more day until the weekend.

This year's box artwork borders on epic.

Alright, forget the borders... it is epic. Look at those masks!

Unfortunately, in my box, I didn't get any cards with any of theose masks on them. Is it my bad luck, or are they not in the set?
Hopefully, it's my bad luck. I have no other kind.

This product has a 200 card base set. Like past issues, the first section is for the CHL Prospects.

These aren't really the focus of the set. At least, in the buyer's eye. At past Cross Canada Redemption Tour* rip parties, collectors basically ignored these cards save for putting together their base sets. They're fun to look back on after a draft or two to see where they end up.... but that's about it.
Nice, colourful photos with colour matching borders... a slight peek into the background, but not too much. A little busy on the full page, but individually, each card really pops.

*Cross Canada Redemption Tours are when certain card shops host a BTP box breaking frenzy where you can redeem your box tops for special 1/1 BTP cards. There's another one coming up here in Calgary on May 11th. To check out if your area has one coming, go to ITG's website. LINK

The next section is for our current favourites. What I like about these is that for the most part, all of the Stars have their current mask on display. No old photography from last year etc... found here.

Everyone you'd expect to be here is here, except for Marty Brodeur. Licencing issues rear their ugly head into our hobby once more. But I think once he retires in a year or so, Marty will be back in ITG.

I'll show off this particular card on it's own.... Marc-Andre Fleury's current mask, complete with a rendition of last year's ITG BTP card of himself on the side. Hockey cards featuring masks featured ON a mask!

Nice!

Then, my favourite part of the set. The Decades section... featuring goalies from past decades...

Some really great shots on some of these...

some of the pics are a wee blurry, but trying to track down quality photos for some of these is next to impossible.

The last part of the base set is devoted to record breakers and International Stars.

a few random cards to give you the feel of it...

although I would not call Grant Fuhr an international star..... talk about getting the job because of who you know, and not on your abilities.... wow.
Other than that, some great names from International competition. Again, an obvious name missing from the checklist is Ken Dryden. But Mr Dryden isn't about to sign with any card company. Just not his thing.

Another cool part is the older Decades cards... guys from the 30's and 40's.

Some of you may recognize some of the names. For those that you don't, read the cards! Hop on to google and type in their names. The stories you find are fascinating. These guys built the game we all love. If it weren't for them, we'd all be watching cricket right now.
So give them some love and appreciation.

For you hit chasers, autographs are found 1:7 packs. With 18 packs per box, you'll get two. With four of every seven boxes getting an extra.

Mine weren't overly thrilling.... with young Etienne here in dire need of some penmanship lessons.

I hope card companies put clauses into their autograph contracts about lousy autos. The dude's sweater number takes up more room than his name.

Next we have current Dallas Stars starter, Kari Lehtonen.

I have no idea how you get Kari, or Lehtonen out of that.... but at least it takes up the space.

Relic cards are 1:8 packs. So every other box will get a third.

I got a nice dual of Jordan Binnington and Curtis Joseph. Cujo is retired now and Jordan was drafted by St Louis in 2011.

my other relic was from the Big League Debut subset, featuring Tim Cheveldae.

Did you know Tim led the NHL in wins in 1991-92 with 38? And he was second in wins over the years 1990-1993. He also played in the '92 All Star Game.

While I didn't get any of the really cool hits available in BTP ( I never do), I was lucky enough to get a three auto box.... and a really sweet third auto it was.

Gary Inness. Awesome. Mr Inness is a principal for a school in Ontario right now. I wrote him a year or two back for an auto and got a really nice letter back from him.

Also this year is the return of the Decoy/Puzzle pieces. These should be fun to build again this year.
He's 1/3 of Bernie Parent.

But I know some of you are screaming, "What about the MASKS!??!?!"

Okay... you've waited long enough. Found at 3 per box, here are the three I was lucky enough to get.

Cory Crawford (almost called him Carl)

These are awesome. Flat out Epic. Waaaaaay better in person than scanned.

Mike Palmateer... I normally trade away any silver of gold versions I get of these.... but having seen a gold one in person, I must acquire one or two for myself. They are very impressive this year.

Oh. Have you met Rogie?

Rogie, say hi to everyone.

Effing sweet. They really upped their game with the 10th anniversary diecuts last year. Since a diecut 11 wouldn't work well, I really like what they've done.

Looks like I'm chasing this set of 50 again this year.

I still need 4 more for last year.... *sigh*....