Jimmy Howard: 2020-21 O-Pee-Chee Error

Mistakes happen, that's just how world works sometimes. When it comes to sports cards, there are inevitably going to be some errors made on the manufacturer's side whether that be printing errors, quality issues or a number of other possibilities.

In the case of 2020-21 O-Pee-Chee card #448, the error was actually made upstream of the card manufacturer. It was on the photographer's end and unfortunately was not caught in time. The error in question: the photo used on Jimmy Howard's card is actually of his teammate Jonathan Bernier. Here's a look at the card in question. 

Its a nice looking card and I was really excited to see my main PC player was once again included in the O-Pee-Chee checklist. However, once the singles started hitting eBay I saw one of these and was immediately disappointed. The issue also carries over to the Retro parallel design, so all the possible variations of Howard's card feature Bernier.

I say disappointed because I was looking forward to chasing all these variations for my Howard collection, but now I do not plan on it since the player I'm actually collecting is on the card in name only. Some people might still chase these if it were their guy, and that's cool, but I'm not interested in these anymore.

The worst part is now that Howard has retired and never actually suited up for the 2020-21 season, this might be his last major release base card, at least for a while.

So where does that leave me? Well, since I've enjoyed making my own custom card designs for years now, I figured why not at least make myself a digital copy of this card with an actual photo of Jimmy Howard on the front? It is pretty easy cut and paste.

I'm definitely happy with how this one turned out. If only the actual card looked this nice. On a side note, it is really weird seeing Howard with those CCM pads and gloves. He wore Vaughn equipment almost his entire Red Wings career. They do look cool though.