My Picks # 66: Pat LaFontaine

This pick actually comes from the huge garage sale lot I picked up last summer, it's just taken me this long to get to it. It's a 1993-94 Leaf Studio Signature Series featuring Pat LaFontaine of the Buffalo Sabres. First, here's a look at the card:
 

 

Now, let's take a closer look. The first thing I noticed was the embroidered Sabres logo taking up most of the background, a neat concept that I haven't seen on all that many cards. It looks to be from some kind of miniature patch version of the Sabres logo set on some kind of mesh material. The stitching just looks to big to be an actual crest, doesn't it?

I like that it has a decent upper body closeup picture, as a full body image seems like it would be overshadowed by the giant logo in the background. It's also nice that they used a pic of him in the white jersey, as opposed to the blue which may have blended in with the background a little too much.

Other than that, you've got the old Leaf logo in gold foil in the upper left hand corner. The text at the bottom along with the facsimile auto are in a kind of rainbow foil, although it's kind of hard to tell from the scan.

I did find one more of these, Wayne Gretzky, but I thought the blue and gold looked better than black and silver, plus LaFontaine is a local guy growing up only miles from where I live, so that's cool. It's a real shame the Wings missed out on him by one pick and got stuck with some guy whose name is always mispronounced, oh well, what are you gonna do? ;)

Speaking of the 1983 draft, did you know that was the only one in which I team did not participate? Apparently the Blues tried relocate to Saskatchewan, but were blocked by the NHL so they were not a part of the draft. Never knew that before today, I really love learning random facts like this.