Masks: Edge Ice The Wall

Mask cards are something I'm always on the lookout for when the price is right. I used to be able to find quite a few of them at card shows, but since I haven't been to one all year, I've resorted to looking for deals on eBay and what not. 

Today's post is about a mask themed set that has yet to make an appearance on here: 1995-96 Edge Ice The Wall. I've know of this set for years now, but never attempted to buy it. It is a minor league set from the 90's and it definitely feels like it looking at the design.

There are 12 cards in the set including both IHL and AHL masks from the mid 90's. Most of the goalies included spent significant amounts of time at the NHL level.

As far as the design, they are very similar to the original Pinnacle Mask cards from 1992-93. There is an actual photo of the mask set on a plain black background with the set and company name at the bottom. The one thing that separates these Edge Ice cards is the die-cut shape at the top. Each card is cut specifically to follow the outline of each mask.

Up first and my favorite of the set is card #TW3 featuring Rick Knickle of the Detroit Vipers. I actually went to a bunch of Vipers game as a kid, so this one was cool to see. Not sure if I ever saw Knickle play though. If I did that makes this one even cooler.

My next favorite is purely based on the mask artwork. Card #TW10 features Mike Dunham of the Albany River Rats. I always thought this design was cool as a kid and remember seeing it on several of his Devils cards I have floating around in my collection.

The rest are just in the order that I scanned them. Next is card #TW4 featuring the mask of Troy Gamble from the Houston Aeros. I love the look of that logo on the top of the mask.

Card #TW6 features this great mask from Wendell Young of the Chicago Wolves. The yellow really helps the wolf design stand out on the top. The claw marks on the chin are cool too.

Then we have card #TW2 featuring the mask of Manny Fernandez from the Kalamazoo K-Wings. I really like the combination of the darker green with the gold and black.

Card #TW9 features Les Kutnar's mask from the Hershey Bears. I love the symmetry of this design. The white cage and surrounding area really look good with the light blue.

Up next we have the mask of Jim "The Net Detective" Carey from the Portland Pirates on card #TW7. I always thought he had some neat masks. The playing cards are a nice touch on the chin. The brick wall design looks pretty cool too.

Next is card #TW8 featuring the mask of Dwayne Roloson from the Saint John Flames. The standout feature of this mask is definitely the yellow cage. That's something you don't see very often. Otherwise it is a nice simple look with the black and the flames logos.

Card #TW5 features the mask of Pokey Reddick of the Las Vegas Thunder. This one looks pretty cool with the Thunder logo on either side and the lightning effect.

Eric Fichaud's mask from Worcester IceCats is shown on card #TW11. This mask design is actually from his junior days with the Chicoutimi Sagueneens of the QMJHL.

Up next is card #TW1 featuring the mask of Ray Leblanc from the Chicago Wolves. This one has a real Cujo vibe to it. Definitely one of the better looking masks in this set.

 

 

Last but not least we have card #TW12 featuring former Red Wings goalie Kevin Hodson. This mask is from his time with the Adirondack Red Wings and I'm pretty sure he wore this exact mask in some NHL games. I always liked the look of the black accents.

Of the 12 goalies included in this set, they all eventually played at least one game in the NHL. Below is a summary of their career regular season statistics. They are listed in the same order as the cards on the checklist for this set.

Goalies of EDGE Ice The Wall Set: NHL Regular Season Statistics
Goalie	GP	W	L	T	SO	GAA	SV%
Ray Leblanc	1	1	0	0	0	1.00	0.955
Manny Fernandez	325	143	123	35	15	2.50	0.912
Rick Knickle	14	7	6	0	0	3.74	0.879
Troy Gamble	72	22	29	9	1	3.61	0.875
Pokey Reddick	132	46	58	16	0	3.71	0.873
Wendell Young	187	59	86	12	2	3.94	0.876
Jim Carey	172	76	65	16	16	2.58	0.898
Dwayne Roloson	606	227	257	82	29	2.72	0.908
Les Kuntar	6	2	2	0	0	3.18	0.877
Mike Dunham	394	141	178	44	19	2.74	0.908
Eric Fichaud	95	22	47	10	2	3.14	0.897
Kevin Hodson	71	17	18	10	4	2.76	0.893

Some of these names are definitely more familiar to me than others. Hodson was with the Red Wings when I was just getting into hockey here in Detroit so he is probably the most familiar to me. He would be followed by Dwayne Roloson and Mike Dunham.

The rest of the names I'm aware of mostly from the older 90's cards in my collection. The only name that I wasn't really familiar with at all was Les Kuntar. What's funny about that is he's not even the one with the least games played. That honor goes to Ray Leblanc.

Statistically, the top three here would be Roloson, Dunham and Fernandez. They are the only three of the group with 300+ games played and 100+ wins. Not a bad group.

As far as individual awards, Fernandez and Duham both won the Jennings trophy as backups to Tim Thomas and Martin Brodeur respectively. Carey won the Vezina back in 1996. Reddick (1990) and Hodson (1998) were the only ones to ever win the Stanley Cup.

So that's another cool mask themed insert set I can check off my list. While these are my number one priority, its always nice to be able to add them to my collection. One of these days I'll get them all organized and posted onto a single page of my collection website.

Viktor Arvidsson: Young Guns

When I started my Viktor Arvidsson collection, one of the cards I knew I wanted to have relatively soon was his Upper Deck Young Guns rookie. It seems like most collectors would agree that it and maybe the SPA Future Watch are the two key rookie cards to have.

Considering this is only my third new Arvidsson post on here since I started this, I would say this is soon enough for me to have a copy. The best part is I was able to find a great deal on eBay from a local seller. This one only ended up costing me $2 including shipping.

Here is card #222 in the 2015-16 version of the flagship Upper Deck set.

I actually really like the look of this Young Guns set. While the design at the bottom lacks any bright colors, it looks great and doesn't distract from the rest of the card above it.

Now I just need to work on finding the Silver Foil, UD Exclusives, High Gloss, Canvas and Acetate versions to complete the Young Guns rainbow. Some of those will definitely be hard to find. So far I've only see copies of the Canvas version for sale.

Viktor Arvidsson: OPC Platinum Sunset

In my recent Cardboard Creations post about my ideas for OPC Platinum designs, you may have noticed that all the cards featured the same player. That would be Viktor Arvidsson. I actually decided to start collecting his stuff around the same time I started that custom set, so he was the perfect choice as the player to be featured.

I also mentioned in that post that I got some inspiration from the new Sunset parallels from Upper Deck. Well, it just so happens that Arvidsson was the first one I actually bought for myself. The name bar on the bottom of my customs was actually taken right from the scan of this card. That ended up being easier than recreating it from scratch.

Here is card #36 from 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee Platinum.

While this thing looks nice in the scan above, it is even better in person. Definitely one of my favorites of all the OPC Platinum cards I have so far. Now I just need to start working on the rest of the Arvidsson rainbow for this set. I definitely have quite a bit to track down.

Viktor Arvidsson: MVP Super Script

Now that I have another player to collect with Viktor Arvidsson, I wanted to see what kind of good deals I could find on eBay to get things started. I'm not exactly going after his high-end stuff right now, so I'm focusing on cards that I like and can get relatively inexpensively.

It just so happens that I was able to find a 2020-21 MVP Super Script, just like the Jimmy Howard from my last post. This one is card #29 in the set and is serial numbered 09/25. The best part is this one only cost me $5 including shipping. Now I need the black version.

I have to say this is one of my favorite MVP designs of the last few years. The only thing I would change about this set is the Upper Deck logo in the upper right corner. I wish they would've made it the same foil as the signature and the other areas. The original few MVP sets did this and they look much better for it.

The other thing about these Super Scripts is my scanner does not like them. You can barely see the rainbow foil here. These things look amazing when you hold them up to the light. Definitely one of my favorite types of cards to just pull out of my PC box to look at.

Jimmy Howard: 2020-21 MVP Super Scripts

As a player collector I look forward to the release of MVP every year. While it is considered a low-end product, my interest in it is driven by the parallels. The script parallels have been a part of MVP since the beginning and I always like adding them to my collection, especially the Super Scripts. Howard has been in this set most years so I have plenty to go after. 

In addition to the regular script parallels including Silver, Gold and Super, Upper Deck recently added a Black version numbered out of 5. These are even harder to track down than the traditional Super Scripts, which are numbered out of 25.

I know Howard has these Black Super Scripts in both 2019-20 and 2020-21, so I at least have two of them track down. Definitely some of the lower numbered cards of his the last few seasons. Luckily, I was able to grab the latest version recently from eBay.

This is card #188 in the set and serial numbered 2/5. Other than my two 1/1's this is the lowest serial numbered card in my Howard collection now. I ended up paying about $20 for this, which is a little more than some similar cards have sold for, but I was comfortable with it and that's all that matters. Who knows when another one would show up for sale.

Once I had the Black version I figured why not try to complete the full MVP rainbow so I went on the lookout for the regular Super Script /25. Luckily I was able to find one a week or so later on eBay. This time I only paid just over $10 including shipping.

Now I just need the Gold Script, Silver Script and Base versions. I guess this would be the backwards way of completing a rainbow. At least the others ones are not serial numbered and I should be able to grab them relatively cheap eventually. Hopefully.

New Player Collection: Viktor Arvidsson

How many player collections is too many? I'm not sure. I have three at the moment and it does not feel overwhelming at all. In reality I've been focusing mostly on one of them, but they're all there and always give me something to search for on eBay and what not.

The only real limitation for any of them is the time period in which the players were active. Hasek has me covered for most of the fun 90's sets that I've always enjoyed collecting. Patrik Stefan has a good number of cards between 1999 and 2006 for me to chase. Jimmy Howard has regularly had cards from 2005 onward so I'm pretty well covered until now.

With Howard's future uncertain and Hasek being included in newer sets only occasionally, I'm missing someone that will allow me to chase some of the cool new cards being released right now. I'm talking stuff like the newer OPC Platinum parallels.

I know I already have team collections going for Detroit, Vegas and Nashville and I could always just grab cards for those as they come along, but there is just something more fun about player collecting for me. It seems to make collecting more enjoyable. 

That said, I've decided to add Viktor Arvidsson to my group of player collections. He is still my favorite current Predator and he's always been fun to watch. While he isn't in the realm of McDavid and Matthews as far as cards go, he seems to be included in most of the sets I've been interested in lately. If anything, his stuff appears to be pretty affordable too.

This works nicely with my already started Nashville Predators collection. I will just pull the few Arvy's I already have from there to get me started. After a quick search through my Preds binder, I was able to find six. My favorite is probably the 18-19 Upper Deck base.

A quick check of the Trading Card Database shows that Arvidsson has just shy of 500 total cards so far. That's quite a few less than my other PC players. Howard is around 1500, Hasek is around 5500 and Stefan is around 700 total. I know I will never have all the cards for any specific player, but at least I'll know how many are out there to chase.

I've also been checking eBay and COMC lately to see where I can get started. There are some really cool Arvidsson cards available. Hopefully he continues to improve with Nashville and will be featured in plenty of new card releases in the coming seasons.

Jimmy Howard: Ultra Premier Pad Men

If there is one thing I don't have a lot of in my Jimmy Howard collection, that would be die-cuts. I can only think of a few off the top of my head and would have to go back through everything to know for sure. I've always liked die-cuts, especially some of the crazy ones from the 90s', so I try to add them to my collection here and there.

In this case, Howard was featured in the Premier Pad Men set from 2014-15 Fleer Ultra. These feature the goalies obviously and have a really cool die-cut of the words PAD MEN on the left hand side. Here is a look at card #PP-20 from this great set.

Its hard to see in the scan, but this one is printed on a rainbow foil board that looks so much better in person. These are the types of cards that I love to pull out of the box and look at in the light. Looking through my cards is one of my favorite parts of collecting.

The best part about this one is that it only cost me $1 on eBay, and the shipping was free. That's a great deal for a PC card from a cool set like this one.