Jimmy Howard: Cardboard Cameos

Now that Jimmy Howard is retired, the likelihood of him having a lot of new cards any time soon is pretty slim. That being said, I am obviously not going to be stopping my primary player collection and will continue to focus on his existing cardboard.

The fact that he is retired also has me going back and actually looking through my box of Howard cards more often lately. After all, what's the point of having them if you're not going to pull them out of the box and enjoy them every now and then?

Anyway, after noticing the Wings backup goalie in the photo on Howard's 2021 MVP card, it got me thinking about the chance that Howard was in the background of any other Red Wings cards. That in turn made me think of the posts on My Hockey Card Obsession about Trevor Linden cameos. Click here for some examples of what I'm referring to.

Another recent example that helped inspire this post is from @creasecollector on Twitter with his Jhonas Enroth collection. Click here to check out his blog post on the subject.

For my cameo cards of Jimmy Howard, I was able to grab three as part of my latest COMC order. I've been slowly building a want list for these as I stumble upon them and the price was just right so I had to have them for this neat little side project.

Up first is my favorite of the three, a UD Canvas card of Mike Green from 2018-19 Upper Deck. This one has a cool shot of some action in front of the Red Wings net in what appears to be Nationwide Arena. Definitely easy to see it is Howard in goal.

Up next is another card from the same set, this time featuring William Nylander of the Toronto Maple Leafs. This one once again shows Howard in net, this time in the foreground at Scotia Bank Arena. This one is neat because all you see is Howard and one other player.

For the last of the three, we circle back to Mike Green. This time we have a base card from 2018-19 Upper Deck. You can clearly see Howard is the goalie behind Green, although his head is almost hidden by the Upper Deck logo in the upper right corner.

These are just some of the examples of cameo cards for Jimmy Howard. There are plenty more out there, I just need to track them down for the collection. I always like finding new and exciting ways to enjoy collecting. After all when your main PC player is retired, you've got to find something like this to keep things interesting.

As far as my Howard collection, I am not going to be counting these as part of the main collection. They will be their own separate category and I'll keep them in separate posts like this in the future. For me, that just makes it easier to keep everything organized.

Predators: Pekka Rinne 2020-21 Allure

I finished 2021 with a post about a newly started Pekka Rinne rainbow for my Predators collection, so why not start 2022 with a post about another Rinne rainbow? As you can tell from the title, this one is for Upper Deck's 2020-21 Allure set, which has a ton of parallels.

There are actually 26 different Rinne cards needed to complete this Allure rainbow. Now, some of these are 1/1's, so it is very unlikely that I would ever be able to actually complete it. The next lowest numbering is /10, so those are likely the top end for me.

Since I have yet to pick up a base card, we'll get things started with the Black Rainbow, which is one of the non-serial numbered versions. This one takes the base design and swaps the silver chrome for a black rainbow type foil. It looks really nice in person.

Up next in the non-serial numbered category is the NHL shield version, specifically the 2005 design. There are actually three different shield parallels, the other two (1945 and 1917) are numbered /45 and /17 respectively. I didn't like these at first upon release, but they are growing on me and I am glad to have this one as part of my rainbow now.

Now we're getting into the more rare parallels. This one is the Yellow Taxi version and while not serial numbered, they only fall one per mass blaster pack. This is one of my favorites and it looks amazing in person. It goes nicely withe the Predators colors too.

Up next we have something completely new from Upper Deck: the Leopard Print parallel. Seems like a really cheesy idea, but the execution was excellent. These are one of my favorites too. Definitely not a pattern I ever thought we would be seeing on a hockey card.

Moving back to regular colored parallels, we have the Red Rainbow version. This is the same pattern as the Yellow Taxi, just a different color. I do like the contrast it provides against the Preds uniform. This one is 1:5 hobby packs and is not serial numbered.

Now we're getting to some of the better stuff. The first die-cut parallel available is this Orange Slice version. These are 1:10 hobby packs and are not serial numbered. I really like how the die-cut follows the shape of the base design in the center portion.

My favorite of them all so far is this Pink Leopard print version. I mean, who would ever think of something like this? Love it. I mentioned this on Twitter a while back, but together this and the regular Leopard version remind me of Fred and Dino from the Flintstones.

So we're eight cards in now and finally getting to the serial numbered parallels from 20-21 Allure. This is the White Diamond version and is serial numbered /50. They have a white border and a really cool looking diamond foil pattern that looks great under natural light.

Last but not least is my first memorabilia version: the Red Rainbow Jersey version. This is not serial numbered and shares the same design as the regular red parallel. I got a great deal on this one and had to have it just for the yellow swatch to match the photo.

I guess nine cards isn't a bad way to start off a new rainbow, right? In reality, I got these over a few months at the end of last year, I'm just now getting to scanning and organizing everything. Part of that process is putting together a visual checklist grid, something I've really gotten into doing for any new rainbow project I've started. 

So between this and my Rinne OPC Platinum rainbow project, I've got plenty to be on the lookout for. Rinne was always one of my favorite Preds to watch so these will always be a good reminder of that. Now I just need to see what I can do about filling in the holes.