your Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2015 inductees.

Today was the announcement of the new inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Or at least, the Hockey Hall of Very Good. The past few years, well, let's say the bar has been lowered to a more pc level. Or maybe little league level. You know, everyone gets a turn and a participation trophy at the end.....

 

But enough about that. Let's see who got in.

 

Nicklas Lidstrom - Defence  - Detroit Red Wings

 

Nick played his entire 20 year career with the Wings. A slam dunk no brainer for the Hall, he finished with 1564 GP  264 G  878 A  1142 PTS  +450.  Four Stanley Cups, seven Norris trophies, 1 Conn Smythe trophy and thirteen All Star teams.

The best defenceman since Larry Robinson retired. Period.

 

 

Sergei Fedorov - Right Wing  - Detroit Red Wings

(also played for Anaheim, Columbus and Washington) 

 Sergei played 18 years and 908 GP. He had 400 G  554 A  954 PTS and a +276   Add in three Stanley Cups, six All Stars, two Selke, one Hart and one Ted Lindsay award.
Another no brainer.



Phil Housley - Defence  -Buffalo Sabres
(he also played for the Flames, Jets, Black Hawks, Capitals, Devils, Blues and of course, Toronto)

 here is where the water gets murky.
Phil played 21 seasons, 1495 GP  338 G  894 A  1232 PTS  and a -53. Two All star games.
No Cups. No Norris. No trophies of any kind.
Not really sure why he got voted in.


Chris Pronger - St Louis Blues
(also played for the Whalers, Oilers, Ducks, Flyers, Coyotes???)

 Chris has played 18 years and counting. I say counting, because he is still an active player. Who by the way got traded to the Arizona Coyotes yesterday. And he's now in the Hall of Fame.
Nice.
This is everything that is wrong with the NHL all wrapped up into one. An active, but injured player who hasn't laced up the skates in three years gets traded on Sunday and elected to the Hall of Fame on Monday.
But I've said it before. If you want to be elected to the Hall, just go work for the NHL head office. The good ole boys club will put you in.


Angela Ruggiero - U.S.A. National team.

I can't find any of Angela's cards in any of my boxes right now, let alone here rookie, so settle for a promo shot instead. I think her RC is from '01/02.... but I could be wrong.
Click on her name to go to her website and learn more about her.

So there you have it.
Thumbs Up - Lidstrom, Fedorov, Ruggiero
Thumbs Down - Housley
The Big Raspberry - Pronger

What say you?

The man, the myth, the legend.

Apparently the NHL awards ceremony was last night or the night before. I say apparently because I have no idea. Did anybody actually watch it on tv???? Seriously.

 

The awards went exactly as predicted, save one.

 

Devan Dubnyk won the comeback player of the year award. No surprise. good for him.

 

Aaron Ekblad won the rookie of the year award. I called that one months ago, although no one believed me.

 

Local player Jiri Hudler won the Lady Bing trophy as most gentlemanly player.

 

the shocker of the evening is that Erik Karlsson won the Norris trophy as best defenceman. Wow. Apparently the voters didn't watch anyone else play. Drew Doughty should be pissed right about now. So should PK Subban and Duncan Keith. And Mark Giordano. And.............

 

Carey Price won everything else.

 

That's the Jennings, Vezina, Hart, and Ted Lindsay trophies in front of him.

Unfortunately, in order to win the Stanley Cup, Carey will have to work on his goal scoring in the off season. Without improvement there, he has no chance.

Denis says, "Trade me right now!"

Well, okay. He says a bit more than that as most of us know. Forgive the poetic license, kids are reading this.
Let them ask their parents what Denis really says....

Today marks a new feature here on the old blogs. I say plural, because I'll also be doing this on Waxaholic, only with baseball cards. If you're here, and not there, you probably like hockey cards.
Nice how life evens out like that.

I need to start to do more trading. (Don't we all?) Busting wax is great, but the products out right now are, well, sub par at best.
Okay, they blow.
Rather than focus on a negative, I'll focus on a positive. Something new I'm trying.

I saw on another blog among the hundreds out there where someone posts a card, and asks you to trade for that card. If no one does, he adds another card , and another, etc... until someone bites and claims the pile.
I like that. I'm going to gank that. Only to avoid copyright issues from whomever is doing it that way, I'll add my own spin.

So here we go. The first additions to the Trade me right now pile.

 a 1964-65 Parkie Tall Boy Paul Henderson. Settle down though.... it's from the 94/95 reprint set.

 Wayne Gretzky from National Hockey Card Day packs a few years ago.

and of course a 2008/09 Artifacts Vesa Toscala


three cards. (see? nothing like that other blog)

THE RULES.

okay, they're not rules per se.... just what I'd like to happen.
Claim the pile in the comment section, then email me letting me know you want to swap.

WHAT I WANT IN RETURN

cards. Duh. Preferably off of my want list. The link is on the right hand side of the blog. You can send me one card (okay) or you can send me twenty cards (YAY!). But let's try to keep this at a PWE level.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU HAVE NOTHING I WANT?

if you really want the cards but do not have anything off of my lists, I'm always looking for cards for my player binders. Carey Price, PK Subban, Adam LaRoche, ..... wait. Adam LaRoche? Yes. I will take baseball cards in exchange for hockey, and I will take hockey in exchange for baseball. Mix and match folks. We're all friends here.
Send me an email, we'll work something out easy peasy.

Diving into the deep end...

Stuck at home, sick like you wouldn't believe. Sinus congestion like a submarine that's gone too deep. Of course, I still had to get up early, drive across the city, and mow the front and back lawns of my wife's grandmother before it rained today.
She just had surgery last Thursday... fighting cancer. For the second time.
Yeah, she wins. I'll take the cold.

In between that and napping, I thought I might put up a couple of cards I purchased at the last card show I attended in Edmonton.
While the show was smaller and more focused than I would have liked, I still managed to come home with a nice haul.

This was my first purchase. I had barely walked in the hall when a buddy of mine flagged me over. He never sells at the local shows, but wanted to give it a go at this one.

Here's what he had for me...

that's a beauty right there. Numbered to his jersey number, good, clean auto. He wanted $20 for it. So I caved. Now that the whole world finally agrees with me that Carey is the best goalie around, his cards are doing up in price faster than our city taxes.
How he had this and not showed it to me during any of the last 100 trade nights we've seen each other is beyond me.

I hardly ever buy cards that expensive, but every once in awhile it's nice to add a significant piece to the binder.

Another local guy waved me over to his booth. He's never set up at any of the local shows, but I've seen him 3-4 times at a local trade night.

He had this one prominently displayed. He asked if he had it priced right, knowing that I was a Habs guy.

He had it priced at $20. I then showed him what I just bought for $20. His face kinda fell a bit when he realized how overpriced he was. I told him to put $10 on it and hope to get $5. After all, it was only a jersey card. And around here, jersey cards aren't worth spit. Try trading them. I dare you.

He asked if I had it already or not to which I replied no. He said if I would pay the $5, I could have it.

Whoops. Kinda painted myself into a corner on that one.

Okay, $5 it is. And now it's mine.

My budget was $100 for cards at this show and five minutes in, 25% of that was gone. Time to slow down.