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I usually don’t make a habit of putting comments as a title for a post, but for me it made sense this time.  I took a look at the next SNI page to be posted, and I really liked a lot of the photos that were on it.  Also, if you read last night’s post about grouping cards together with a common theme, the next 3 cards for the hockey SNI set are legends of the sport.So without further delay, let’s start with page #28 of the SNI set…Card 244:  Kyle Gibson, 2013 Topps Updated gold parallel #244/2013.  Minnesota card #7Card 245:  Octavio Dotel, 2011 Topps gold parallel #245/2011.  St. Louis card #15Card 246:  Joel Piniero, 2010 Topps gold parallel #246/2010.  Los Angeles Angels card #13Card 247:  Brant Colamarino, 2004 Topps gold parallel #247/2004.  Oakland card #13Card 248:  Andruw Jones, 2008 Topps Co-Signers #248/300.  Los Angeles Dodgers card #9Card 249:  Christian Guzman, 2010 Topps gold parallel #249/2010.  Washington card #10Card 250:  Adam Dunn, 2010 Bowman Platinum gold parallel #250/539.  Washington card #11Card 251:  Richard Hidalgo, 2004 Topps gold parallel #251/2004.  New York Mets card #6Card 252:  Cameron Maybin, 2011 Topps gold parallel #252/2011.  San Diego card #12Love the top row of cards right off the bat(for wont of another phrase).  All three pitchers in varying stages of their pitching motion is pure gold (again, poor pun).  Brant Colamarino may be the best baseball name in this set.  And a rare Bowman Platinum gold parallel popped up in the form of Adam Dunn.  8 of the 9 cards came from various members of the blogosphere, so thank you to all who contributed!!What you see in these three players is 52 seasons of hockey with a combined goal total of 1538.  All 3 are in the Hall of Fame.  Of the 3, only Perreault didn’t win the Stanley Cup (although he made it to the Finals against Clarke and the Flyers in 1974-75). Robitaille in his first 8 NHL seasons was a pure sniper, scoring 44 or more goals each season, with a high of 63 in 92-93!  Gil Perreault was more of a steady goal scorer, notching 30 in 10 seasons, including his Calder winning rookie season in which he scored 38.  Bobby Clarke was more of a set up man, notching back to back 89 assist seasons with the Flyers in 74/75 & 75/76, winning the Hart Trophy as league MVP both seasons. What’s been great about the lot that Doug sent me is the variety of cards, many of which I’ve never seen before.  The Clarke and Perreault cards are both from Upper Deck’s Ultimate Collection (Clarke from 13-14, while Perreault is from 06-07).  The Perreault serial # is 507/699, and very difficult to see, even in hand.  Even though the numbers are in silver, the Clarke is also tough to decipher, but it’s #259/499. Still a lot of serial #’d cards to go, lots of pages to write about, so serial Saturday should keep on going for quite a while.  Thanks for reading, Robert

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When you get a nice big stack of cards from a fellow blogger, but you don’t want to cram each and every last one of them into one post, you have to look for common themes among the group.  Case in point, the monster lot of serial #’d hockey cards that Doug from the Sportscards from the Dollar Store blog sent me.  Seeing as I didn’t want to put all 50 of them into one post (thank you again Doug, BTW), I have to find some common groups or themes.I thumbed through the cards recently and found 6 cards that had a significant theme.  The players aren’t North American by birth.Let’s start with the Eastern European group.  Vlad Namestnikov is in his 2nd full season (4th overall) with the Lightning.  He’s actually sporting one of the versions of the Lightning jersey that I like, with the “Bolts” nickname diagonally in the front.  His card is from the 2014-15 Artifacts set, a product that you’re likely going to see quite a bit in the SNI Hockey set. Another Lightning product, Vlad Mihalik, managed only 15 games over 2 seasons with the Lightning before heading to Europe to play one season in the Swedish Elite League before finding steady work with HC Slovan Bratislava in the KHL.  This card is from the 08-09 Trilogy set, and is one of those rookie cards that hit the market and cooled quickly.  Konstantin Pushkarev is the 3rd member of this group, and not unlike Mihalik, only had a cup of coffee in the NHL.  He lasted just 17 games over two seasons in the mid 00’s, played a couple of more in the AHL, went to the KHL for a year, back to the AHL in 09-10, then back to the KHL again for the past 6 seasons with Barys Astana.  The card of Konstantin is from the 06-07 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection set.  The serial # is a little harder to see but it is #246 for my set.We go up to Northern Europe for the next three players.  Peter Forsberg doesn’t really need any introduction to hockey fans out there.  “Foppa” was a first year HOF inductee in 2014, and finished his career with 2 Stanley Cups as a member of the Avalanche.  Forsberg’s card is from the 16-17 Artifacts release. Petter Granberg never did get much of a chance to show what he could do in a Leafs uniform, playing just 8 games over 2 seasons.  He was actually called up to Nashville’s roster in the past week, but hasn’t seen any playing time with the big club this year. Markus Granlund has finally found a full time job in the NHL, having played each of the Vancouver Canucks games so far this year.  He was acquired from the Flames a week before the trade deadline last year for one of the best names in hockey, Hunter Shinkaruk.  Granlund’s card is from the 2015-16 O-Pee-Chee set, and is serial #’d 68/100. Tampa and Toronto become just the 2nd and 3rd teams with 5 cards shown so far, trailing only Philadelphia who have had 6 displayed in the first few weeks.  Still a long way to go….thanks for reading, Robert

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The more I’ve written, and thought, and reached down deep inside of my inner collecting child has allowed me to figure out what I want to collect.  As Queen would sayI want it all.  I want it all.   And I want it now. Realistic?  Absolutely not.  Unless I win the Powerball, which is less realistic.So, I have to rely on trades and sticking with a budget (as best I can) in order to build my collection.  Then sometimes you get a box of cards you totally don’t expect, like the one I’ve been going over for the past couple of days from Trevor.One of the sets I just recently put on my want lists is 86-87 OPC.  I’ve always liked this set, it has some really good RC’s featuring players such as Patrick Roy, John Vanbiesbrouck and Wendel Clark.  Add in a 2nd year card of Mario Lemieux and other big name cards such as Gretzky and Yzerman and you’ve got a winner of a set. Trevor didn’t send me any of those, but he sent me close to 50 commons which will certainly help the cause.How about some goalies?Big names?  Nope, but they all feature the 2nd generation of goalie masks, the helmet and cage combo.  Guys would take the protection of the cages and combine them with the style and comfort of the old fiberglass masks and turn them into what is used today. What I love about the older cards is the prominence of the ‘A’ or ‘C’ on the jerseys.Although the Taylor C is a little hidden, the other two are quite visible.  These were some great players from the 80’s, and the cards do well to show off the leaders of their teams.Same her, but only this time with the ‘A’ on the front.  I also love the North Stars and Nordiques logos, a great reminder of some great run and gun hockey that went on in the 80’s.  The Rich Preston card has the “Now with Black Hawks” line, which leads me right into the next scan…All guys that were moved to new teams, but OPC didn’t worry about airbrushing them into new uniforms.  I had totally forgotten that Clark Gillies finished up his career with 2 seasons in the old Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo. I do know that I would like to put together all of the 1980’s OPC sets, there isn’t one of them that I don’t care for, even the mass overproduced 1989-90 set.  Most of the sets are reasonably priced enough that they can be obtained without destroying my budget. Well, I don’t really want it all.  But as far as OPC sets from the 1980’s go, you could say that the title of this song is quite appropriate.Besides, I want to show off more mask cards such as this one…Thanks for reading, Robert

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I mentioned yesterday about the envelope that Trevor from Supporting the Minnow sent my way last week.  Another part of the goodies inside was a small group of 9 cards from the 1980 Topps set.What was interesting for me is that 7 of the 9 cards were team checklists.  Back then, they included a team photo on the front.  Something that a lot of us miss, myself included. I decided for this post to show 6 of the 7 cards (left the Indians out, sorry Tribe fans), 3 AL teams (at the time) and 3 NL teams.Let’s start with the White Sox, shall we?Remember the collars!!??  Wow, and the shorts as well (not shown here).  These unis might be just as old school as it gets.  Take a look here at the road uniforms that the White Sox wore during the ’77 season in the Blue Jays first game ever.  The solid black doesn’t look all that bad really.  Tony LaRussa had just taken over the club towards the end of the ’79 season, and would manage them until 1986 when he was fired and Jim Fregosi took over.  LaRussa won one division title in 1983.  This was a very good Brewers team, which won 95 games in the ’79 season, yet still finished 8 games behind the Baltimore Orioles.  Manager George Bamberger would be replaced during the 1980 season by Buck Rodgers, who would lead the team for a couple of seasons before they became known as “Harvey’s Wallbangers”.  You may recognize some of the names…Molitor, Yount, Lezcano, Cooper, Thomas, Money, Sorensen, Caldwell.  This easily could have been yesterday as the iconic Yankee uniforms never change.  After winning back to back World Series titles, the Yankees dropped to 4th in the AL East during the ’79 season, winning just 89 games.  They would rebound in 1980 winning 103 games and going back to the ALCS, losing in 3 straight to the Royals.  You may recognize a couple of the names; Guidry, Jackson, Randolph, Nettles, Gossage….I much prefer the 80’s Braves uniforms to what they have now.  The scripted ‘a’ on the hat and ‘Braves’ on the jerseys looked really good.  ’79 was the 2nd season of Bobby Cox’s 4 as manager of the Braves  the first time around.  This team only won 66 games, and would only finish above .500 once, which was the ’80 season as they went 81-80.  There was some talent on the team, names like Dale Murphy, Bob Horner and Garry Matthews patrolled the middle of the lineup, and ageless Phil Niekro won 21 games that season.The Expos were on their way to becoming serious contenders in the NL East by the time 1980 rolled around.  Dawson, Carter, LeFlore, Cromartie and Parrish were all solid major leaguers, while the pitching staff featured Steve Rogers and Scott Sanderson as the anchors, along with the 40 year old Woodie Fryman as the closer in the bullpen.  In ’81 they would add Raines and Wallach to the lineup and fall one game short of the World Series, losing on a Rick Monday homer in game 5 against the LA Dodgers.’79 World Champions!  Stargell, Parker, Candelaria, Garner, Madlock, Moreno, the names go on and on of the Familee.  Unfortunately, that would be the last run of success for the Black and Gold at 3 Rivers Stadium until the run of 3 NL East titles in the early 90’s.  Manager Chuck Tanner is still 4th all time in managerial wins for the Pirates with 711. Seeing all these old style uniforms takes me right back to the late 70’s and early 80’s, when I was entering my teens and watching as much baseball on TV as I could. It really does feel like yesterday for me, even 36 years later…Thanks for reading, Robert

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Fellow hockey collectors are few and far between, and when they leave the blogosphere for a while, well let’s just say you have to travel awhile before you find another puck proponent.So when Trevor from the Supporting the Minnow blog dropped an email on me a few weeks back, I was both surprised and happy to see him back at it.  Trevor mentioned he had a few cards for me, asked for my address and told me to expect something in the mail.I surely didn’t expect what was coming.My recent updating of my want list was largely to get my ass started, because I had procrastinated forever about getting want lists up for sets that I really wanted to chase.  Trevor saw this as a challenge for him instead…This post will only contain 5 cards, the briefest of hits from 3 different want lists.Let’s start with a fellow I don’t show often on this blog anymore, because he’s one of the major players on my PC collection blog, Joe Sakic.Need ’em both!  Seeing as I’m a long way away from having my entire Joe Sakic collection posted on the PC blog, sending me these two was kind of a shot in the dark.  Thankfully, both were needed.  The Sakic on the right is from the McDonald’s release in 2002-03, while the blue bordered beauty on the left is the O-Pee-Chee parallel from 01-02 Topps.  Great stuff.That might be one of the worst pictures on a hockey card ever, but I still love this card.  It just reminds me of what Bobby Clarke was as a hockey player, tough, hard working and fearless (no helmet).Trevor also knocked off two more numbers from the SNI Hockey set.  Both of these are 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee black rainbow cards, serial #’d /100.The face of the Jets franchise for almost a decade, Dale Hawerchuk was the 1st overall pick in the ’81 draft from the Cornwall Royals junior team.  183 points in a 72 game season will get you noticed.  He was involved in one of the biggest deals of the early 90’s, going to Buffalo for a trio of players that included Phil Housley, and Buffalo’s 1st rd draft pick which the Jets used to draft Keith Tkachuk.  This card is serial #73, and not only gets the Jets on the board, but knocks them off the list of teams that need a card that is #’d below 100.Joey MacDonald bounced around the NHL, playing with 5 different teams over a 8 year career.  He is now currently playing in the German Hockey League with the Schwenninger Wild Wings, located in southwestern Germany.  This card is serial #’d 8/100, and is the 2nd single digit serial numbered card for the Red Wings.Some great stuff so far, but there’s plenty more to come from Trevor’s bounty.   Thank you Trevor!Thanks for reading, Robert

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