One Star, One Sheet: Vincent Damphousse

Vincent Damphousse

432 Goals
1205 Points
1993 Stanley Cup

  Vincent Damphousse was drafted 6th overall in the 1986 Entry Draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs.  He is the highest scoring player from that draft year, and arguably had best career, with the exception of Brian Leetch, who was drafted 9th overall.

  Damphousse immediately became a regular on the Leafs.  In 1989-90 Damphousse finished second on the team with 94 points.  The following season he led the team in points with 73, which was 34 points higher than the next Leaf.  Damphousse also made waves around the NHL scoring four goals and earning MVP honours at the All-Star game in 1991.

  The Leafs, desperate for goaltending help, sent Damphousee to the Edmonton Oilers in a package that brought Grant Fuhr and Glen Anderson to Toronto.  Damphousse led the Oilers with 89 points but the Oilers felt a need to toughen up, and sent Damphousse to the Montreal Canadiens in a deal for Shayne Corson.

  Damphousse enjoyed the best years of his career in Montreal.  In his first season, 1992-93, with the Canadiens, he led the team in scoring during the regular season and during the play-offs.  1993 was Damphousse's first and only Stanley Cup victory.  Damphousse scored 90+ points three times while with the Canadiens, including a career high of 97 in 1992-93.  Damphousse also served as team captain from 1996 until he was traded in 1999 to the San Jose Sharks.

  By this time in his career, Damphousse was no longer a point a game player.  His best season with the Sharks was his first full season, 1999-2000, when he scored 70 points.  A free agent in 2004, he signed with the Colorado Avalanche, but announced his retirement after the 2004-05 season was canceled.

  Damphousse was a solid, but unspectacular, star throughout the 1990s.  He never topped 50 goals, 100 points or make the top ten in goals, assists or points. While he never played with any top tier scoring talent, he played with a lot of tier two and three players. 
  On a side note, I love how the 2003 Pacific Exclusives Gold scanned.  That set was notorious for coming out of the back in bad condition,  a lot of chipping on the corners and edges.

74-75 OPC WHA Customs

   I decided to do a few 74-75 OPC WHA style cards.  I believe the guy on eBay I been bitching about, took these off another eBayer.  So I decided to try my hand at them. Pretty simple, other than trying to get the right radius for the rounded corners.

  Gary Simmons is the all-time winningest NHL goalie to be born in Prince Edward Island. He has 30 more wins than the second best goalie, Drew McIntyre, who has zero.

  Jacques Plante will be best remembered for his time with the Montreal Canadiens and for being the first goalie to regularly wear a mask in the NHL.  He did spend 2 1/2 seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Plante led the league in GAA during his first season with the Leafs in 1970-71.  Plante had a 1.88 GAA, the other Leafs goalies combined for a 3.39 GAA.

  Cesare Maniago made a name for himself playing for the Minesota North Stars.  He joined the North Stars for their debut season in 1967.  Before the 1967 expansion, Maniago played briefly with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers.  He would retire as a Vancouver Canuck.

Amazing Drawing: Jacques Plante

  I wish I could draw like this, or at the very least, buy a drawing like this.  I first thought it was a photograph when I saw it while googling for Jacque Plante pictures.  It's done by Jean-Francois Verreault.  He posted work-in-progress pics of it as well on deviantart.

Another eBay rip-off from my blog; Same Seller

  I first found this seller back in November of 2012.  He was taking the pictures of the 88-89 OPC Tribute set I was posting to my blog and then selling them as his own on eBay.  Some of the listings were the exact same picture he lifted off my blog but most were ones were he replaced the pictures but kept the framework.  Some of his work was quite sloppy.  The shadow of the name box was often cropped very poorly. 
  I contacted him, he denied it.  I sent him a link to my blog with proof, he never replied.
  So I started putting a Blargh copymark across the pictures I posted of new custom cards.  It seemed to work, until I did a search on eBay and found this from the same seller as before.

  Which looks like it may be an exact copy of this picture from a post in October of 2012..

  Okay, before I call this eBay seller a piece of shit, let's try to verify it.  When I did my 1980s OPC, I did the entire template.  I didn't scan a Canadiens card from the set, cut out the picture and put in a new one.  I do all the lines and shapes to make the boxes to be as close to the original card as possible.  So odds of his lines being the exact same as mine are highly unlikely.  Ditto for the font and text.  The picture below is his card layered on top of mine (without the Blargh mark), with his set at 50% opacity.

 

  Gee, what a surprise, it's identical.  What are the odds of that?  But how did he get a copy without the big Blargh across the top?  Even if he photoshopped it, the lines wouldn't match exactly the same.  And why remove the OPC symbol on the bottom?  I did originally post the picture without the Blargh mark on it but added it a few weeks later after finding the eBay copies of my pictures.  If he saved a copy back in October of 2012, then why wait until now to post it on eBay?
  I did some checking and I found out that Blogger stores all your pictures you uploaded in a Picasso album.  I am not sure if someone can access it, but the original 83-84 Roy, without the big Blargh, was still online in the Picasso album.  I have gone through and deleted anything I don't want copied.  While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, if any one makes money off me ripping off OPC, then it should be me

One Star, One Sheet; Bill Guerin

Bill Guerin

2 Stanley Cups
429 Career Goals
2002 2nd Team All-Star

    Bill Guerin was an upper tier power forward in the 1990s and early 2000s.   He twice topped the 40 goal mark and played with eight teams over his 18 year career.
  Originally drafted 5th overall by the New Jersey Devils in the 1989 draft, Guerin chose to go to college.  He played two seasons at Boston College before making the jump to pro hockey in 1991.  After being a point a game player with the Utica Devils in the AHL, Guerin earned a permanent spot on the Devils roster during the 1992-93 season.  Guerin was a physical force for the Devils and helped the Devils win a Stanley Cup in 1995.  In a game against the San Jose Sharks on Novemeber 11th, 1995, Guerin earned his first career Gordie Howe Hat Trick, scoring a goal, an assist and also getting into two fights.
   Guerin was selected to team USA for the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.  While Guerin was unable to score a goal, he provided toughness for the team and won a stunning upset over the heavily favoured Team Canada.  Guerin followed it up leading the Devils in goals, with 29.
  Prior to the 1997-98, Guerin sat out training camp, hoping to get a better contract.  Of course it made huge waves with Devils fans, but it also made national sports headlines as the Devils GM, Lou Lamarillo, who was also the GM of the USA Olympic team, left Guerin off the preliminary roster for the Olympics.  The situation drew the ire of the NHLPA and other USA hockey stars, but in the end it was Guerin who blinked first.  Guerin, begrudgingly, signed a 3 year, $5 millions dollar deal, not so much to play for the Devils, but to play for team USA in the 1998 Olympics.
  By January of 1998, the saga drew to a head, as the New Jersey Devils shipped Bill Guerin to the Edmonton Oilers in a four player deal.  Guerin got to play for team USA in the the 1998 Nagano Olympics.  Team USA had a regrettable performance on the ice, finishing 6th, and off the ice, trashing their hotel rooms.  Before the off-ice incident Guerin was asked if the team should have a curfew, his reply was prominently featured in the papers after the room trashing.  "No.  Why should we?  We are all grown men.  We know how to handle ourselves."

Guerin, #12, can bare to watch

  Guerin spent three seasons with the Oilers.  He had his first 30 goal season and had 64 points in 1998-99 but he followed that up with a disappointing 24 goal and 46 points in the following season.
  Guerin, a restricted free agent after the 2000-01 season and eligible to be an unrestricted free agent in 2002, played himself out Edmonton, by that I mean out of Edmonton's price range.  In the 2000-01 season, Guerin was fourth in the league in scoring with 22 points after 21 games when he was traded to the Boston Bruins in a deal for Anson Carter and draft picks, one of which was used to select Ales Hemsky.  Guerin would continue his point a game pace and finished with 40 goals and a career high of 85 points. 
  Guerin would sign a one year deal with the Bruins and set a career high with 41 goals, which was 2nd best in the NHL that season.  He was chosen as a Second Team All-Star.  He won a silver medal at the Olympics in Salt Lake City.  Guerin was seen as one of the biggest names available during the 2002 free agency period and he was set to cash in, and he certainly did.
  The Dallas Stars signed Guerin to a 5 year, $45 million dollar contract.  Straddled with high expectaions, Guerin struggled to produce.  Scoring 25 and 34 goals in the first two seasons of the contract.  After the 2004-05 lockout, with rules in place to increase scoring, Guerin looked lost, scoring only 13 goals, a career low, excluding the 1995 lock-out season where he scored 12 goals.  He was still selected to his third Olympics but Team USA put in a horrible performance, finishing 8th The Stars cut Guerin loose, buying him out of the remaining two years on his contract.
  Guerin signed a one year deal with the St. Louis Blues for $2 million.  Guerin was rejuvenated in St. Louis, scoring 28 goals in  61 games.  The Blues, who were out of the play-off chase come the trade deadline, sent Guerin to the San Jose Sharks for a pair of prospects and a 1st round draft pick.
  Guerin had 8 goals in 16 games with the Sharks, but Sharks failed to make it out of the second round in the play-offs.  Guerin, an unrestricted free agent, signed a 2 year, $9 million contract with the New York Islanders.  Guerin led the Islanders with 23 goals in 2007-08.  The Islanders were an abysmal team, finished 26th in the NHL in 07-08 and were on thier way to a 30th place finish when they dealt Guerin to Pittsburgh Penguins.
  The Penguins, who had lost in the Stanley Cup finals the previous season, were looking for Guerin to add veteran leadership to a young team.  Guerin played incredibly well in the play-offs, scoring 15 points in 24 games and helped the Penguins win the Stanley Cup.  It was Guerin's second career Stanley Cup.  Guerin would play one more season with the Penguins.  Guerin scored 21 goals, his 13th 20+ goal season.
  Guerin was invited the Philadelphia Flyers training camp in 2011, but failed to make the team.  With no other offers for in his services, Guerin officially retired in December of 2011.

  Guerin was elected to the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013.  He currently works in Player Development with the Pittsburgh Penguins.