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?
I also largely prefer they been from the same team. Also, for a while, I wanted to get rid of my dual, triple and quaduple-jersey cards, because I'm sorting tem out in binders, alphabetically, by player, and wouldn't know who to file them under.
ReplyDeleteFor now, because I found a few I'm fond of, I'm keeping the multiple-player ones in their own binder.
I wouldn't say it deters me, but I would MUCH prefer they match. While I'd prefer a Ron Francis relic card to picture him as a Penguin with a black or gold swatch, if he's pictured as a Whaler with a green swatch, I'm cool with that, too. What I don't want is him pictured as a Pen, with a red swatch from the Hurricanes. THe one exception would be something team-specific, like the one you are referring too. If it comes to it, just give me a plain white swatch, so that I don't know any better.
ReplyDeleteYou NEVER run into this problem with In the Game, by the way. Any time they have a player pictured they include a jersey from that team, and even specify that in the fine print on the back of the card.
Hell yeah it is important. I absolutely HATE cards where the swatch does not match the team. I've written to Upper Deck multiple times about this, and have sent back cards where the swatch is "wrong." For example, I pulled a Dino Ciccarelli jersey card that showed him with the North Stars, but used a bright red swatch from a Red Wings jersey. Who the hell wants that?
ReplyDeleteThat Flames card would be great with four red swatches, or a nice mix of red and white. Why on earth would Upper Deck use blue swatches on a Flames card. If the Lanny McDonald swatch is from a Leafs jersey, then it should be on a Leafs' themed jersey card.
Today on eBay I saw a Larry Murphy jersey card. Murphy was pictured as a Penguins, the card had Pens colours and the jersey piece was three colours; white, red, and blue. So it was either an alumni jersey or a Capitals jersey. I hope it wasn't a Caps jersey, that would criminal carving up a mid 80s jersey and then mismatching with the team on the card.
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