Goalie Fight!

Few things said can turn a crowd of grown men into giddy twelve year old boys faster than the phrase, "Goalie Fight!"

And that's just what we have here. Last night in an AHL matchup, the St John's Icecaps visit the Syracuse Crunch.

2nd period, Syracuse down 3-2 when all heck breaks loose. As all 10 skaters on the ice break out their dance partners, Dustin Tokarski leaves his crease, skates to center ice to call out Icecaps 'tender Eddie Pasquale.



Turns out it was just the spark the Crunch needed as after the melee they came back with 4 unanswered goals to win, 6-3.

TTM Success! Jonathan Bernier

Let's knock off another success due to the lockout. Kings goalie, Jonathan Bernier,  who after 485 days, decided to return my request.

I see a few other returns from him posted around the interwebs, so he must've got bored during the lockout and cleaned house. Or rather, cleaned beachfront condo.

Either way, I'm not complaining because LOOK!!!!!!!!

One of the best damn uniforms in all of sport. The Awesomeness knows no bounds.

Jonathan also signed two cards for me, although they got smunched in the post.

Thanks for the return Jonathan. Glad you found the time.

Card Shop Hockey Pool

One of my local card shops has a pool going for the upcoming "season".

Buy 5 packs of 2012-13 Score Hockey for $5.

From the base cards pulled from your packs (no inserts allowed) choose a goalie, 2 defencemen, and 3 forwards.

Whomever wins at the end gets a box of Upper Deck Series 2.

Sweet. I'm in.

Let's see who I got.

In goal, #32 Jonathan Quick - Can't complain on this one. Plus it was either him or Brian Boucher.

Manning the blue line we have Dustin Byfuglien......

and Ryan Callahan. Meh. Could be worse.

Speaking of worse, we have my forwards....

Marian Gaborik

SKINNER!

and Milan Lucic. No, you are not see things. My packs were desolate.

maybe if I'm lucky, 'Cheap Shots' will be a scoring catagory in which case Lucic will carry me to victory!

But probably not.

I don't think you'll be witnessing me opening my prize with that lineup. But for $5, it's a fun effort.

Glorious. For it is, The Subban

If the lockout was good for anything, I'll admit it was a lot easier tracking down bigger name players for ttm attempts.
Since they didn't have a lot of playing/practicing/travelling to do, they tended to stay in one spot long enough to receive mail.

Which brings me to the reason for that epic post title.

I sent a couple of 8x10's to P.K. Subban. And being the great guy that he is, he signed them and returned them to me in only a week.

P.K. spent the entire lockout playing in and organizing charity games with other unemployed NHL'ers.

This one with Carey Price has already been sent off to Carey in hopes of a dual auto.

*fingers crossed*

No one worked harder or did more to try and keep the fans morale up during the lockout. Thanks for that P.K.

 

Now sign a damn contract and get back on the ice. Games start Saturday. We need you.

King of Trivia

In November, Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains decided to have a contest. And he was giving away cards! I know!

Vintage cards!

AND!!!!

It was a trivia contest!

I know!

Okay. Enough exclamation points. But I get excited when I have a chance to use this vast wealth of completely useless sports knowledge I have in my cranium.

Onto the contest. Which I won on the first clue. What can I say?

But in the end, joke's on me, I won a Bruin. Say hello to a '62/63 OPC Murray Oliver.

Cool sweater though.

So Diamonds and Wax Stains decided to have another trivia contest. For more vintage. (It was really hard not to use exclamtion points there)

This time I won on the second clue.

I won a rookie card of a defenceman named Robert from the '66/67 OPC set!!!

Wrong Robert. This one played for Detroit.

Also in the prize pack was this beauty.

a '61/62 Norm Ullman. I hope Norm did toothpaste commercials.

That was the end of the trivia contests.

*sigh*

But.

In the prize envelope, I also found a 71/72 OPC Harper,

and a pair of Marc Tardiffs. Or is plural of Tardiff, Tardives? I never did understand French.

These are perfect as I was scouring my collection for Tardiff cards in a Habs sweater for a ttm request. Now I don't have to use my WHA cards of him.

 

Lastly, we have a '70/71 of the Little 'M', Peter Mahovlich.

Thanks for the cards! and the trivia contests!!!!


oh. One last thing. Awhile ago I posted on Waxaholic about some baseball cards that $30 a Week sent me. Well in that package was one hockey card....

 

Thanks for Pernell Robert!

Fantasy Hockey Anyone?

It's the unofficial official blogger fantasy hockey league. We're going into our 4th year. 3rd year? 4th?
I dunno. And it doesn't matter.

So far we have 10 teams, but it looks like 3-4 teams from last year are out. So if you want in, now's your chance.

Just think, one email and you can be part of the cool kids club.



Past members have gone on to great things... here's one with his trophy. Because he kept it and won't give it back, this year's winner will receive a picture of a trophy emailed to them!


little known fact, the infamous Kessel trade was actually supposed to be a swap done here in the league, but he got his laptops mixed up ..... the rest is NHL history.

Which leads me to tip #7,


never drink and trade in fantasy hockey. Seriously.


So who's in? Leave a comment with a way for me to get a hold of you. (ie: email)
The draft is Sunday, late afternoon so you can watch football and do this at the same time.

1981-82 OPC Bob Bonanza

I want to send a big warm hug to reader Bob P. who in response to my plea for help with the 'missing' '81/82 OPC set, came through BIG time.

He sent me an email out of the blue in early December asking for my address. This from a person I'd never spoken to before, and, to my knowledge, had never even left a comment on my blog before.

I love this hobby and the outstanding people in it.

Let's get to the cards Bob sent over.

A Goals Against Average leader card featuring Vezina winner Richard Sevigny.

I love leader cards, but this one leaves a lot to be desired. Pretty craptastic design. I may have to try and come up with a better design for this one. I'll add it to my list of things to do. Look for it here in 2017.

Richard Sevigny was the man responsible for replacing Ken Dryden. No pressure.

 

 

One of my all time faves, Pierre Larouche.

Pierre was coming off of a disappointing 25 goal season, having potted 50 the year before.

 

Big Bird Larry Robinson.

Larry was 8th on the team that year in scoring with 50 points, 2nd in +/- with +46

 

Ahh.... Guy. How we miss thee. Watching Subban go end to end is great, but it's just not the same.

 

If you're saying to yourself that this is a lot of Montreal cards... well, I'm a Montreal fan. If you want to see Leafs, go elsewhere.

 

Oh all right. But no Leafs.

 

How about Gilbert Perrault?

Gil is coming off his worst season ever with only 59 points in 56 games. Damn those injuries.

 

Now Dave Taylor here is coming off of his best season ever.

47 goals 65 assists and the Republican side of the Triple Crown line. (I have no idea of Mr Taylor's political beliefs. He played right wing. Don't email me. I mean it.)

 

And for the sake of brevity (too late) I'll just package up the rest in one scan.

 

By the way... Mark Napier there? 35 goals, 2nd on the Canadiens in scoring. Mike Rogers, 88 goals in two seasons. Two very under rated players.

 

There you have it.... if any of you are as awesome as Bob and can help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again Bob!

Two dollars..... TWO DOLLARS.....

For those of you who remember early John Cusack movies, that title is for you. An internet cookie is your prize if you remember the title.

 

At the last card show of the year, uh... of last year, I went there armed with my list and a lot of focus. I did pretty good. I was tempted by some cool stuff, but I held firm and stuck to my list.

 

I'll show off two of the cards here now. And like the title suggests, they became mine for $2 apiece.

 

The first is a Phil Myre auto from the 2012 ITG Between the Pipes set.

 Phil has two autos in the set. I acquired the other one earlier in the year.

 Phil had a really interesting blog for awhile, but he had to stop posting at the end of last hockey season as he accepted a job with the Montreal Canadiens and they have a rule about employees blogging.
However, there was a regime change shortly after followed by the lockout. Now I can't find any evidence whether Phil still works there or not.
If anybody can shed some light on that, please do.

The other card I picked up was a game used jersey piece /99 of Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne.

 From last year's Dominion, it's a great piece of the King's yellow. It also sits quite nicely beside a card I picked up at an earlier show....

Now I have 2/3 of the Triple Crown line. I REALLY wish Panini would use colour photos of players who played in the late '80's.
I'm waaaaay too lazy to find out if Dave Taylor, the other member of the line, has a card like this or not. I'll ask my buddy who is a Dominion collecting fool.
I hope so. Those three would look pretty sweet sitting next to each other once more.

Now the next monthly show is this Saturday... and I'm plumb broke from xmas. Hoefully I won't find anything I want.

(Yeah right)