This is wrong... utterly and completely wrong.

You know when you see something and you know, you just know, that something is very wrong. You might not be able to put your finger on it, but it's there, nagging at you. This. Is. Wrong.

Yeah. It happens. And it happened again last night.

there are so many examples of it.

mistakes that should never have been made.

oh the humanity...

please stop.

ugh.

it's just ....... wrong.

Mr. Jean Beliveau 1931-2014

A sad and tragic day as Mr. Jean Beliveau passed away late Tuesday night at the age of 83. I wasn't ready for this. It hit me. Hard. Harder than I thought possible. Hockey will never be the same.

 

The greatest captain in NHL history is gone forever.

 

He didn't have the most goals, or the most points. But he still was the greatest hockey player ever.

 

I don't want to get too caught up in his career numbers, as that isn't what made the man... but for you younger readers...

When he retired he was the leading scorer of the Montreal Canadiens. He currently ranks second. He has the most points scored in the playoffs. Still. By a very large margin.

507 goals, 712 assists for 1219 points in 1125 games.

10 All Star games

2 Hart Trophies

1 Art Ross trophy

1 Conn Smythe trophy

oh.... and 17 Stanley Cup Rings. 17. What's in your jewelry box?

 

But that's not what will be missed. It's him. His presence. It cannot ever be replaced.

 

The greatest Canadien ever, and an even greater Canadian.

 

The only thing that ever transcended his greatness on the ice, was his greatness off of it.

 

Mr. Jean Beliveau. August 31, 1931 - December 2, 2014

so you wanna be a goalie...

You're sitting there, thinking about a career change... maybe you're in school and are trying to figure out what to do with your life.. whichever, maybe cross NHL Goalie off of your list.

 

Some of you may know and remember friend of the blog, Brian Elliott.

He recently sent out a pic via twitter that made my, and everyone else that had ever played between the pipes, blood turn cold.

There are no words.

a Zistle swap with LatentMoths

I've made a couple of Zistle trades recently. It's a great site and I need to get my cards updated on there soon so I can trade some more and finish off some of these sets...

 

user LatentMoths, a Bruins fan in Texas if you can believe it, sent me some cards I wanted in exchange for some cards I didn't want.

 

awesome.

 

I'll show off a few of them here to give you a sampling...

 

First up some random OPC cards from various years...

and a couple more....

but the key card for me was this

a '95/96 UD Collector's Choice card of Lyle Odelein.

I've had the Platinum parallel for awhile now, but could never track down the base. And now I'm one card closer to having all of his cards.

if any of you feel like swapping, check out my want list page or on Zistle.

It's Opening Night!

Ahhh.... it's good to have hockey back. With only football on tv right now, it's great to have another sport going on week nights.
Of course we also have a new tv deal in place. Which means the dreaded "exclusivity" word is going to be talked about ad nauseam.
From what I can tell, in true Canadian tv spirit, what we were told six months ago when the deal was signed and what is actually happening are quite different.
We were told, ``NO MORE BLACKOUTS!``
What we have is.... a LOT of blackouts.

ugh.

So to celebrate... uh... oh yeah, the season starting, I`ll show off a few recent card pickups.

first, a little P.K. to start the day.
this is a mini tall boy card, only available via the OPC wrapper redemption. You send in 50 hobby wrappers and you get a pack of 6 cards. Five are red bordered parallels and one is a mini tall boy.

 I managed to get Mr Subban here at the last card show in a larger deal for $2.

Also from the current set is the black bordered foil parallel /100
I overpaid at $4, but I don`t mind. That`s what you get when you buy the day after the product comes out.

The foil parallel of Carey Price set me back $1. A no brainer.

Here`s a card that I traded for at the last trade night. I hardly ever see relics or autos of Bob Gainey so when I saw it, I knew I had to trade for it. Thankfully the previous owner is an easy trade partner and a deal was soon struck.

The rest of `em are all Mask cards.
A Brian Hayward from 12/13... I now only need two to finish my set. Irbe and Quick.

And a set I`ve really just started on, the 13/14 Masked Men 6 set.

I picked these up for between $1 and $1.50 each over the last two shows, plus trade night.

I`ve said it before, and I`ll say it again... I don`t like junior goalies in my Mask set.

But Mr Grahame here gets bonus points... Boobs!

another newish feature are the goalies with their International masks. I don`t think I like this either..

 but it is more acceptable than having the juniors included

Thanks for taking a peek.

In the heat of the night..

In the heat of the night, people flock to places with air conditioning. And that's one of the main reasons I went to the last trade night at one of the local shops. The weather has broken a little over the last day or two... but for the last couple of months, wow. It's been hot. Too hot.

So of course we're going to talk about hockey.

And.... AND... for the first time in months, I made a couple of trades. Gotta like when new people come out. They are under the impression that trade night is about trading. Unlike the regulars who, well, let's just say trading is an afterthought.

Let's get to the pictures.

2013-14 SPx PK Subban dual jersey. I always like it when the colours of the swatches match the picture.

2013-14 Black Diamond Carey Price dual jersey.

Another dual jersey card, but this one with different players. 2013-14 ITG Between the Pipes Carey Price and Eric Comrie. Eric was a second round pick of the Jets last year and might have the longest neck I've ever seen. Check out his pic in GOOGLE.

A PK insert from 2013-14 Select. It looks good in person. In a scan, not so much.

A 2013-14 Prizm Blue Pulsar Brendan Gallagher rookie. It's hard to figure out what's a rookie card nowadays with only one small RC logo and the word ROOKIE in 45 pt font across the front.
I wish they could make them stand out more.

I traded five Jarome Iginla OPC and Upper Deck inserts from their last two years flagship sets for Brendan, and got the following two cards thrown in for free as they were "only dollar cards" according to their owner.
He and I are now friends.

Gilles Meloche auto, and yes, that is a crack in his mask above his left eye.

Pat Riggin auto. Pat Riggin? Yes. Pat Riggin. Sans mask.

looks like with all the new hockey product released last week and over the next three weeks, the season is now in full swing.
Now if only I could find a way to escape this heat.... I now know what Coyotes' fans feel like.

Where were you?

 

Twenty six years ago.

 

 

 

It changed the game forever. Not sure for the better or not.

 

 

Oh, and the OPC version for posterity.

seems awfully dark and lonely there....

2014 Hockey Hall of Fame class inductees...

Before the draft on Friday and completely lost in amongst World Cup coverage, the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame announced it's new inductees this afternoon.

You'd think this would be a big deal... but it's World Cup EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE ALL THE TIME 24/7 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! FOOTY!!!!!!!!!

 

so it became kind of a footnote like everything else in "the other sports" lately... It was three days before I found out that some pitcher threw a no hitter awhile back. That never even made it onto the sports pages here... the actual or the digital... I saw it on one of the blogs that blogger decided to let me read.

(btw, is blogger pissing everyone else off as much as me lately? I mean, more than usual?)

 

Anyways.... while Brazil hammers Cameroon, here are the newest Hall of Famers, rookie card style. Posted in order of merit.

 

Pat Burns - head coach. 1988-2004 (posthumously)

 

 It's about frakking time. A huge kudos to new Hall director John Davidson, who brought in David Poile, Bobby Clarke and Luc Robitaille to replace Jim Gregory and his band of idiots.
Pat Burns damn well should've been elected 4-5 years ago. While he was alive to see it.
14 years for four teams and he missed the playoffs once. 501W 353L 151T and a Stanley Cup.


Mike Modano 1989-2011

Mike played 20 seasons for two franchises. The first overall pick of the '88 draft joined the Minnesota North Stars and went with them to Dallas where he remained until his last forgettable half season for Detroit in 2011.
1499 games 561 goals 813 assists 1374 points +139  7 All Star games  1 Stanley Cup


Dominik Hasek 1991-2008

 Dominik played 735 games over 16 seasons for four clubs. 389 W 223 L 95 T
6 Vezina trophies, 3 Jennings trophies (shared) 2 Hart trophies and 2 Ted Lindsey awards.
He won Stanley Cups in 2002 and 2008, both with Detroit.


Peter Forsberg 1995-2011

 this Nashville Predator great played for three other clubs over his 13 year career.
708 games  249 goals  636 assists for 885 points  +238
a Calder, Art Ross, and Hart trophy along with two Stanley Cups on his mantle.

meh. Were there any more deserving players that did not get elected? Yes.

Rob Blake 1989-2010

Rob played 20 seasons for three teams winning a Norris trophy and a Stanley Cup.
He scored 240 goals and 537 assists in 1270 games.
um... I've heard he's a nice guy. Likes animals. Good with kids.... does charity work. Pays his taxes.

yeah... I got nuthin'... but he's the "B" wing of the Hall with Glen Anderson, Clark Gillies, Grant Fuhr, Bernie Federko, and a couple of others... congrats I guess.

Oh look! Brazil just scored again! GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!!

Boy, these cards sure are tall...

See what I did there?

What? They can't all be gems.

Hmpf.

At the card show last weekend, I was rummaging through a box that had the most mixed bag of cards in it. No top loaders or sleeves. Just card board. There was '60's through to today. No danger of cutting myself on the corners. Condition was not at a premium.

But above the rest, were four cards. Standing tall as it were. (*ahem*)

I picked out this beauty with an eye towards sending it off for an autograph request.

It's a little rough... but it's perfect for what I want it for. I asked him how much and he replied that he didn't care, whatever I thought was fair. So I offered $1 and he couldn't say deal fast enough.

I reached in my pocket and all I had was a toonie. ($2 coin for you Yanks...) He said, you want the change, or you could take the other three and use them for more autographs?

I took the other three cards for $1. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Mr Provost had passed away 30 years ago....

still a great card though.

Claude Provost has the most Stanley Cup wins of any player who is NOT in the Hall of Fame.
Nine.
The man has nine Stanley Cups, and isn't in the Hall. Go figure.
He also won the Bill Masterton trophy in 1968.

Also included were a couple of the currently hated Rangers.

Rod Gilbert was the first Ranger to have his number retired. He is also in the Hall.
With no Cups. none.

and good ole George Sullivan. We'll call him Red.

 He played from '49-'61 then became a coach.
After coaching the Rangers for 4 seasons, he became the first ever coach of the new Pittsburgh Penguins, lasting two seasons, before being one of three head coaches for the first year Washington Capitals.
That was enough to make him retire.

I love these'64/65 OPC Tall Boys... I'll send out the Talbot. Keep the Provost. And probably send the Rangers to commishbob.
If he wants them.

Not bad for $2.

Killing them slowly...

or is that softly? Whatever.

This past weekend saw Calgary host their version of a huge card show. It's not really that big. But everything's relative. And around here, we'll take what we can get.

It's always good to see new sellers. After seeing the same group lug around the same stuff for a year, anything different is extremely appreciated.

I managed to spend a little bit of cash with almost all the sellers. I try to support them for coming out, some of them a long way.

One of the nice surprises was being able to jump on some cards that have been on my want list for quite some time. In the age of the latest and greatest 17 colour autographed game used patch mojo sickz L@@K! cards that are all the rage with the kids nowadays,  I was really pleased to knock off some older set needs.

My NRMT 1979-80 OPC set is almost complete.

 

 I have a couple of EX condition sets, but now after adding this Flames TC, I only need the Winnipeg Jets TC and my nice one is done. Finished. So close and yet.....

Speaking of upgrading.... I found a stack of NRMT-MT 1977-78 OPC glossy inserts (rounded corners). I've been needing to upgrade two of them and now I have.

Mr Dionne

 and Mr MacLeish.

 These are pack fresh. Really sweet. You can get complete sets of these online cheap, but I enjoy the chase, and was happy to finally cross these off my list.

And talk about the chase... after what seems like years, I found someone selling 2010-11 OPC black bordered retro inserts /100.
He had about 40 of them in a binder on his table. I didn't need any of those, but I asked if he had any more. He said he had a bunch more, but not with him. He'd bring them in on Sunday. So back on Sunday I went, and snagged five more cards towards completion.

 Not exactly big names....

 but to a set collector, one is as important as another.

I was thrilled with finding these.

All cards seen here cost a total of $15. A very cheap high to be able to cross off so many cards off of my old, worn out list.