1988-89 OPC Don Cherry

  Sad news that Don Cherry, a polarizing tv personality, has been let go of his long-time gig, The Coach's Corner, on Hockey Night in Canada.  Don's Coach's Corner was a Saturday night fixture on Canadian TVs on since 1986.  While considering today's change in sensitivity, it was only a matter of time before Cherry shared a opinion outside of Hockey that would get him canned.  It seems his relevancy has been increasingly questioned over the past decade.  Although it was his willingness to be controversial that made him relevant compared to the other analysts the networks used.  It was like discussing hockey with a friend.  More feelings than analysis, warts and all.
  I have mixed feelings over what he said and I won't delve into that situation.  Cherry wore his heart on his sleeve, was unapologetic, and a proud Canadian.  While I certainty didn't always agree with what he said, about hockey or other issues, I feel the moral discords he has caused over the years were beneficial to get people talking.  I am fairly certain that there is already a greater awareness, by all, of the sacrifices Soldiers have made and there will be more poppies worn next year.

  On a side note, I have been in the process of moving.  I am beginning to settle in and plan on being back to weekly Lost Cards posts next week.

Book Review: Hockey Card Stories

  Hockey Card Stories: True Tales from Your Favourite Players by Ken Reid was released in October of 2014.  I put it on my Amazon Wishlist and Santa was thoughtful enough to leave a copy under the tree for me. 
 This book is a must read for any hockey card aficionado, especially if you long for the old days when O-Pee-Chee was the dominate, and sometimes only, brand.  The author, Sportsnet's Ken Reid, picked out 61 cards from his personal collection and then called up 59 players on those cards to see what they thought of them.  The book is divided up into ten chapters, with each chapter featuring five to six players.  Each player's story lasts 4-6 pages.
  The cards range from 1971 to 1991 -  all O-Pee-Chee.  There is a solid range of players, from HHOFers, such as Tony Esposito and Bobby Orr, to one game wonder, Bill Armstrong.  Player's reactions of their cards range between pride, to indifference.  Although most, especially the guys with the 1970s cards, expressed embarrassment over their photos.

An example from the WHA chapter

 

  The book read like a bunch of short articles, or blog posts.  In fact, some of the stories were previously published online a few years ago. Check them out if you want a sampling of what is in the book.  Most stories are directly relates to the card pictures, but a few seem to use the card more of a jumping off point to cover the player more in general. 
  One of the more interesting stories was the 1984-85 OPC Ken Linseman.  I alwasy knew it was an obvious airbrush job, but there is more to it than that.  It's Linseman's head, but not his body.  I will let you google it, or go out and buy the book to learn more. 

The FrankenCard.

  This was a very interesting book to read but it left me wanting more.  I have always wondered what players thought about their cards and what type of cards or memorabilia collections they might have.  Perhaps there will be a sequel.  I do hope so.
  I definitely recommend this book to any true hockey card fan.  There are no stories about game-used jersey or serial numbered cards, so perhaps not a great buy for anyone who has never ate gum from a pack of cards.  It has a $19.95 cover price but, as always, can be had for cheaper online.  Let's finish with a word from Ken Reid himself.

I have been Wiki linked

  The main reason I continue to do this blog is for myself.  It gives me an opportunity to post various thoughts and projects I work on.  I have learned a lot about the history of hockey while doing research for some of my posts.  Doing it for myself helps to explain my posting frequency.  I do it when I wanna do it.
  But I have to admit, I get pretty pumped when I find links to my blog.  Last year a link to my post that imagined if a certain Seals-Canadien trade had never taken place.  I stumbled across it while reading the comments on a blog entry on a popular Montreal Canadiens blog.  They sued a tiny url to link it so if I had never stumbled across that particular post, read that particular comment and bothered to click the link, I would have never known.
  Another time while trying to do research for my Gordie Howe Hat Tricks blog, I found someone on a hockey forum posting a link to one of my blog posts to validate a point they were trying to make.
  Just recently, I was checking my site statistics when I notice I was getting hits from Wikipedia.  My Perry Berezan: The Lost Cards post is being used as a reference for the Steve Smith (ice hockey, born in Scotland) entry.  I have no idea why they would use my post.  It just proves you should double check anything you read on Wikipedia. 
  While finding links takes the cake, getting post-related comments are cool too.  For the bloggers out there, do you ever check your traffic sources for your blog?  Any in particular stand out to you?

So ugly, I ain't gonna buy it

  I am not much of a player collector, but I do passively collect Mike Bossy, Matt Martin and Marty Turco.  So when I recently found out that Marty Turco had a card in the 2013-14 Team Canada set, I was a bit excited.  Except imagine my horror when I saw the following.

  What an ugly card!  It's from the team picture for christ's sake.  If you can't find a decent picture, why even put they guy in the set?  There's pictures of Turco from the year he played in the Spengler Cup, couldn't they use that?  Or is the Spengler Cup not prestige enough when compared to cropping a team photo?  I am not buying that card.

  Have you refused to buy a card of player you collect, just cause it's too damn ugly?

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

I Would Love Not to Hate This Card

    I was browsing eBay and I came across this card.

  This is the type of card I have been looking for.  I remember cheering for the Calgary Flames in the late 80s.  I remember watching Steve Smith's gaffe, the Monday Night Miracle and Brian Skrudland's overtime goal in 1986.  It was bitter disappointment.  I lived near Edmonton at the time and my favorite team was the New York Islanders, followed closely by whoever was playing the Oilers.  After that play-off run, the Flames became my Campbell Conference team. 
  In 1989, the Flames were a powerhouse.  Gretzky was out of Edmonton and it seemed the time was right for another deep play-off run.  The Flames almost never made out of the first round.  It took a puck off the skate of Joel Otto in overtime of game seven for the Flames to beat the Vancouver Canucks, a team that was 43 points behind the Flames in the regular season standings.
  The second round would have the Flames face their old nemesis, Wayne Gretzky, but without the supporting cast he had in Edmonton, The Great One couldn't hold back the Flames.  Gretzky had points on nine of the Los Angeles Kings eleven goals.  The Flames would sweep the Kings in four games.
  The Campbell Conference final would match the Flames up with an unlikely foe.  Back in 1989, the first two rounds was within each division.  The other division in the Campbell Conference was the lowly Norris division.  In the regular season, the Detroit Red Wings won the division with 80 points, but it was the cinderella Chicago Black Hawks who won in the play-offs.  The Black Hawks had 66 points in the regular season, the lowest of all play-off teams.  They were dispatched by the Flames in five games.
  Then came the rematch, Calgary Flames versus the Montreal Canadiens.  By far, the top two teams in the regular season and play-offs.  The Canadiens had beaten the Flames in 1986, and early on, the series was looking just like that one.  The Flames won the first game and then would lose the the next two.  In 1986 Skrudland won Game 2 in overtime for the Canadiens, in 1989, Ryan Walter would be an OT hero in Game 3.   Unlike 1986, the Flames had a deeper team and found a way to win the next three games, including two in Montreal, to win the Stanley Cup.

   There were alot of great players on the 1989 Flames.  First off, you have the four Hall of Famers on the card, Joe Mullen, Doug Gilmour, Al MacInnis and Lanny McDonald.  Then you also have Theo Fleury, Mike Vernon, Gary Suter, Joe Nieuwendyk, Hakan Loob, Rob Ramage and Joel Otto.
  I really wanted that Fab Four Fabrics card but I can't stand cards that should players in one team's jersey but then includes a jersey piece that is from another team.  Mullen's piece is from a St. Louis Blues jersey and McDonald's appears to be from a  Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, or considering it's Upper Deck, an alumni game.  I checked eBay for another one and I did find another, but this time Gilmour's jersey was black.  Must have been from his short-lived Black Hawks days.
  So I fixed the card.  This is how it should look like.  Four jersey pieces that all appear to be Flames jerseys.  

  What do you think?  Does matching the player picture to the jersey piece colour factor into your decision to buy a card? 

Toronto Sportscard Expo

  The Toronto Sportscard and Memorabilia Exposition is taking place this weekend.  I plan my holidays around the spring show every year.  The show is a sensory overload for the hockey collector.  There is a lot more than just cards to be seen and bought.  There are loads of memorabilia from jerseys, sticks, pictures, programs, McFarlanes, hockey coins and a lot more collectibles.  The theme for the autograph guests is the the 1993 Stanley Cup Champions Montreal Canadiens.  I rarely buy tickets for the autograph guests.  Patrick Roy will be there but will cost you $180.  Although I might get one or two of the cheaper players.  Do you think Andre Racicot will inscribe "Red Light" if I asked? 
  Last year, one of the highlights for me was meeting "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.  He was promoting he new book.  Throughout the day, you could hear a "Hoooooooo!!  reverberate through the expo. I even got onto the Upper Deck Hacksaw Jim Duggan video at the end of day.  You can see me Hoooooo-ing.

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

  I will definitely be at the expo again this year.  I am considering going for two days this year, Saturday and Sunday.  I don't have much of a game plan going in.  I don't usually spend much on a single card.  I tend to buy a lot of cheaper cards.  I think I'll be looking for lesser name rookie autos and numbered cards of star players.  I'll be keeping an eye out for cheaper game used.  Last year a guy had a binder of game used stickered at 50% or less of book, and then everything in the binder was another 50% off.  I got a Patrick Roy game used stick card for $5.  I hope he is there again.  Another great table was the guy who had dozens of 5000ct boxes of base cards and was basically selling them for a dime each, even Taylor Hall and Sidney Crosby.  I am getting excited just typing this. 

  Are you going to the show?  Do you have a game plan?

Suspicious eBay Listing

  I was always a bit concerned that my 88-89 OPC Tribute would be copied and reproduced.  I thought people might print them off for themselves.  In the end, I decided "whatever".  As long as they aren't passing them off as their own or trying to sell them.  When I think about it, all I am doing is reproducing someone else work anyways and then adding in someone else's picture I found on the internet.  Although I do put a lot of work into the templates.  I don't scan a card, erase the picture and then put in a new one.  Every template started as a blank file.  I guess you can call them original duplicates, but I do consider the templates my own.
  Today I was on eBay looking to see if a certain player had any cards listed.  The cards he had listed was a custom card.  I have seen this seller before and I decided to see what else he had.  What I saw looked too familiar.  He had several 88-89 OPC cards.  The pictures on them were not the ones I used but the card design just looked way too familiar.  Upon further checking, I am pretty sure he copied my file.

  Compare the two sets of cards above.  My version is on the left and his is on the right.  Notice how similar the borders, fonts and positioning of the logo are.  When I did the tribute set, the hardest part was the Pin and the shadow.  Let's put my picture on top of his and set mine to 50% opacity and compare.

  Upon comparison, every lines up exactly with the exception of the pin marks that cover the player picture.  My picture has the shadow on top of the player picture, but his doesn't.  The first reason that jumps to mind is because when he removed the picture from my version, he also had to remove the shadow.  Compare side by side and the with mine over top at 50% opacity. 

  The shadow lines up perfectly.  Even where the shadow dots met the upper border of the picture.  To do the shadow I used the pencil tool, did a bunch of dots and then used the copy and paste.  I had to adjust the size of the shadow dots as I got to the bottom of the shadow as well.   Even the marks on the Pin are exactly the same.  I had a hell of a time with the pin originally since using the paint dump tool would results in more and more of the black marks inside the pin to be colored over.  The pin marks were made with the pencil tool set at 1 pixel. 
  Also, of interest is the use of trademark on the team logo.  On some team logos, I erased the trademark and on others I left it.  The original 88-89 set had trademarks on all the logos.  For both mine and his cards, there is a trademark for the Penguins and Canadiens.  For the Oilers card, there is not a trademark for either.
  Here the link for the one of his auctions. His user ID is norm202020.

 Part of me feels pissed about this.  Part of me feels flattered.  Part of me thinks it's the pot calling the kettle black.  Do you think he has copied my cards and put in his own player picture?  Or just a coincidence?  What do you think of custom cards and selling them?  How would you feel in this situation?

200 and 30 Club: 2011-12 Season

The 200 hits and 30 goals club was very exclusive club in the 2011-12 season.  It's membership was limited to one man...  Alexander Ovechkin.

  Ovechkin, who set career lows in points and ice-time, finished with 38 goals and 215 hits.  After the season he was voted to be the worst local athlete by readers of The Washingtonian magazine.  Don't worry Alex, the 200-30 club still welcomes you.  Ryan Callahan ended the season one goal shy of making the club.  He missed 6 games last season and at one point, was on pace for the 300-30 club.  A few other players made a run at 200-30, but fell short.


  For Ovechkin, he has now made the 200-30 club fours times in his career.  More than any other player since Hits became an official NHL stat in the 2005-06 season.

Eric Lindros: HHOFer or Oversized Brat?

In the mid 1990s, no player inspired awe and fear, as Philadelphia Flyer's Eric Lindros.  His brute force and puck skills helped to make him one of the most dominating players the game has ever seen.  But a star that shines that bright, tends not to shine very long.  Concussions began to derail a great career and off the ice feuds tarnished his legacy.  

1990's Hottest Card

Matt Martin: NHL Single Season Hits Record Holder

On Saturday, March 31st, a single season record quietly fell as Matt Martin delivered his 357th hit of the season, passing Cal Clutterbuck.  

One of the reasons, the record was without fanfare, is because the NHL only officially started recording Hits as a stat in 2005-06.  Another reason is that what is and isn't considered a hit, is all subjective to the home arena official scorer.  So it it possible to quantify a home arena advantage?  My answer to that is yes, it can be, but not by me.  Instead I throw up some stats and figures that likely don't mean anything, like the chart below.