My Picks #94: Mike Richter

Showing off the Patrick Roy Power Deck card got me wanting to do a few more of these since I already had all of the cards scanned and saved into my computer. This one is just another plain old base card, but sometimes that what these posts are all about. This one is from 1995-96 Topps Stadium Club and features former Rangers goaltender Mike Richter. 

It's not the first base card I've shown off from this set either. There was one featuring Arturs Irbe  (click here) and one featuring Bill Ranford (click here). All three are great examples of excellent base set photography. 

As far as the specific photo on this card of Richter, I'm not sure if we are looking at a save or an attempted save that led to a goal for the other team. I'm going to guess that we are looking at a save, but who knows? Either way, it's another great looking base card I'm glad to have in my collection. 

My Picks #93: Patrick Roy

Lately I've been going back and reading through some of my older posts here on the blog. In doing that I noticed that I haven't done one of these posts since February of 2013. That's way too long between posts for such a simple thing to write about. The only real criteria for this series is that it's actually a hockey card and there's something I can write about it. 

That being said, I thought I would jump back into things with something a bit unique, at least at the time it came out. I've had this card for almost 15 years now and saw that I had already scanned it at some point for one of these posts so I figured, why not? Here is a Patrick Roy from 1999-00 Upper Deck Power Deck. 

While it's not a card in the traditional sense, it came in a pack of cards and is part of a set, so I think it qualifies just fine for use here. In case you didn't know, these are actually mini CD's that when loaded into a computer will have some video highlights and interactive stats for the player pictured on the front. I don't know where this thing is at the moment, or I would pop it in and get some screenshots. 

My Picks #92: Martin Brodeur

Today is hockey day in America, but the only game that really matters to me is the one between the Red Wings and Wild. As I'm writing this post, the Wings are up 1-0 after the first period on a goal by newcomer Damien Brunner. He's been fun to watch, and its about time one of these European sensations actually came over here and did something productive. Anyway, enough about that and onto today's card. 

I picked this one up sometime last year at one of the Gibraltar shows along with a handful of other dime box cards. It comes from 2011-12 Pinnacle, a set that features a lot of interesting pictures, some good and some not so good. This one just happened to stand out among the others. Here's a look at it:

Anything seem out of place there? It actually took me a second to see that Brodeur's mask was about three feet in the air above him. Pretty cool thing to have in a picture on a card, right? I've seen a few cards were goalies are maskless during the play, but nothing like this.

My Picks #91: Brendan Shanahan

I'm closing in on 100 of these posts now, which is quite a bit more than I thought I would get to, but I keep finding cards that catch my eye. Some are from my existing collection and some come from card shows and card shops. No matter where I got them, the only thing that matters is that I like them for whaterver reason good, bad, or ugly. 

Today's pick would be one of the latter as it is another obnoxious looking insert from the mid-90's. I found it searching through one of the dime boxes at a recent card show, but just never got around to scanning it until now. It's from the 1994-95 Fleer Ultra Red Light Special insert set and features former Red Wing Brendan Shanahan. 

Hard to miss this one, isn't it? While this card comes from just a few years before I really got into collecting, it seems like something I would've thought was cool back then. I remember having a ton of stuff like this from sets like Fleer Ultra, definitely brings back good memories. Gotta love the 90's.

What are some of your favorite inserts from the 90's?

My Picks #90: Bill Ranford

Tonight's post comes out of nothing but boredom as I sit here listening to the Red Wings-Stars game. It's 1-0 Stars after one period. Anyway, I am waiting on a few things in the mail, but they weren't here when I got home, so this will have to do for tonight.

I chose this one because it's got a lot of things going for it. One of the first things I notice about it is the nice framing of the picture. This is what a base card should look like, other than the obnoxious TSC logo and text on the bottom.

The coolest thing about it is the way the puck is frozen in mid-air just as Ranford is about to make the glove save. It's also nice that there are no other players visible in the picture, just Ranford, the puck, part of the net, and the fans in the background.

Not bad for a so-called worthless base card from the mid-90's, right?

My Picks #89: Jeff Beukeboom

That's right, Jeff Beukeboom, for no other reason than he is the guy on the front of another 90's insert from the dime box at the last card show I was at. It comes from an insert set that I had never heard of or seen before: 1994-95 Finest Ring Leaders.

I will say this card looks much better in person. Something happened to it when I re-sized the file after scanning the card. I mean just look at how hard it is to read Beukeboom's name at the top of the card. It's actually got a nice rainbow tint to it.

The back of the card lists the years each player won the Cup as well as the teams they played for at the time. In this case, it lists Beukeboom with three Stanley Cups in Edmonton: 1987, 1988, and 1990. It also has his one Cup from New York back in 1994. 

On the back it also lists the player's stats from the above mentioned Stanley Cup Finals. In the case of Beuleboom, he played in 11 SCF games and had no goals with two assists.

My Picks #88: Alexei Yashin

Among the many Red Wings cards I grabbed from the dime box at the last Gibraltar show, I also found a few neat inserts from the 90's that I just had to share here as some more of my picks. While there was a lot of pure crap that came out in the 90's, some of the insert sets were pretty neat. At least that's what I thought as a kid back then. 

Now it's just kind of fun to look at some of the ridiculous designs from back in the day. Case in point, this one from 1994-95 Flair featuring Alexei Yashin. It's part of the Scoring Power insert set, featuring some of the league's premier scorers from back in the day.

Kind of looks like they let a two year old scribble with some markers and used that as the background for their design. Who knows, maybe they were going for some kind of artsy look to them. Whatever they were trying to do, it did not turn out all that well, am I right? 

Click here to see a few more cards from this set if you're interested. I will say that before picking this card out of the dime box, I had never seen or heard of this insert set from 1994-95 Flair. And for just $0.10, I bought it just to show off here.

My Picks #87: Roman Turek

Seems like forever now since I've done one of these. I guess that's what happens when I have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning without any new mail to share. Actually, the last one of these was all the way back in May of this year. Man, time flies doesn't it? 

Anyway, one of bamlinden's recent posts over at My Hockey Card Obsession got me thinking about some more creative ideas for collecting projects. Going through a stack of cards in my desk today, I came across one that I think would make for another cool project.

Now there's something that you don't see on most cards, although I'm sure you could make quite a collection out of these if you actually took the time and looked hard enough. Just flipping through my binders I came across several of these, both goalies getting sprayed and players just stopping.

If I didn't already have my Goaltending Gallimaufry project going, I would definitely like to get this one going. Like any project of this kind, it gives you a reason to actually care about and look for base cards in a world where a lot of people just throw away their base cards.

My Picks #86: John Vanbiesbrouck

Here's another pick that is all about the picture on the card and not the card itself. In this case, it's a John Vanbiesbrouck MVP card from I believe 1995-96 or 1996-97 Upper Deck. I remember really liking this card as a kid in the 90's because of the closeup of one of the most memorable masks in the NHL, at least I will always remember it.

Vanbiesbrouck spent five seasons with the Panthers from 1993-98. The peak of that time was probably the Panthers only trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1996, where Vanbiesbrouck squared off with the great Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche. 

One of the nice things about all of his masks is the fact that they are unique, as I don't think many other goalies used the square cage, other than Kelly Hrudey who had some neat masks himself. Anyway, I thought I would show off some of Beezer's other masks.

I really like the two Flyers masks with the unique take on the logo. The Rangers one is awesome too with the actual bees flying in front of the New York city backdrop. Not sure on the upper right mask, but it was listed on his Goalies Archive page. Looks like it could be from his time with New Jersey. Anyone know for sure?

My Picks #85: Matthew Barnaby

Here's another pick that is about the picture on the card more so than the actual design of the set. It's a Matthew Barnaby from 1997-98 Pinnacle, a set with plenty of well, interesting photography. This is probably one of the more unique photos in the set, although it would've been much better without the out of focus player in the foreground.

This one is definitely on the positive side of the spectrum when it comes to fan signs. The photo was obviously taken during warmups, as I'm sure a sign that big would not sit too well with the fans in the rows behind for very long during any kind of game play.

Now that we've seen the lighter side of fan signs, let's take a look at some of the more negatively directed signs I could find with a quick Google search:

Gotta love the love for Crosby in Philadelphia. The one for Jokinen dissing Sean Avery is pretty good too. What do you guys think? Know of any other good fan-made signs out there? Positive or negative?

My Picks #84: Kerry Fraser

That's right, Kerry Fraser. Time for something a bit different, a referee card. You don't see many of those nowadays, do you? This one is from one of the good old NHL Pro Set releases from back in the day. I love the idea for this little subset they have. I think it's the only one I've ever seen featuring any kind of official.

Here's a look at the front of the card. It's got the standard layout common to the entire set, with a few differences of course. The most notable is probably the black & white striped trim above and below the image. Pretty neat, right? Well, at least for 1990,

As you can see Fraser has his hair perfect and styled just like we're always used to seeing. Other than that the only problem with the front of the card is the way the picture is a bit off center to the right. One thing I will say is the teal top and bottom borders contrast well with the black and white stripes of the trim and Fraser's uniform. 

I will always remember Kerry Fraser as public enemy number one to Red Wings fans for a few bad calls back in the day, gotta love the "Fraser sucks!" chants that came out of The Joe back then. Others probably know him for the above YouTube clip. I don't really remember it because that was a year or two before I got into hockey, and I was like 5 years old.

My Picks #83: Wes Walz

Every now and then you come across a card where something just doesn't seem right. This pick is definitely one of those and has an error that I didn't even notice for the longest time. It's a Wes Walz from 2001-02 Upper Deck Vintage.

This set was the second iteration of UD "Vintage" as it followed the 2001 version that was competing with Topps Heritage. Now that was a great looking "vintage" set. This one not so much. I think it may just be this card, something seems off about a Wild jersey paired with a "vintage" card design. If it were an Original Six sweater, I may think differently.

Anyway, if you look at the bottom of the card, you see "Wez Walz" written. Hmm, that seems a little odd doesn't it. The correct spelling, Wes, isn't all that common of a name as far as I know, so how does it get misspelled like that? Was it because of the "z" at the end of Walz, and the designer somehow subconsciously thought it looked better that way?

 Here's a look at the back of the card, where Wes' first name is actually spelled correctly.

Not sure what happened on this one, as the front is wrong, but the back is right. I guess nobody's perfect and this one slipped by the quality control process.

Designing and editing cards is something for which I would love to know how the process works. Is there one person who does all the work for a given set, and how do they go about proof reading / spell checking everything? How often does something like this get by?

Hey, I could start another mini-PC project of cards with misspelled names on the front. Nah, I better leave that for someone else, I'm already busy enough with my other projects. So someone feel free to steal that idea and run with it. By the way, do you guys have or know of any other examples of misspellings like this?

My Picks #82: Blaine Lacher

This pick is just another one of those cards that caught my eye when I was sorting through my base card collection. It's a Blaine Lacher (anyone remember him?) base card from the 1995-96 Fleer Metal set. This card is probably more about the mask than anything, as it's one of the better ones from the 90's.

 

Lacher went undrafted and after two superb seasons with Lake Superior State of the NCAA was signed by the Boston Bruins. There he took over the starting job during the shortened 1994-95 season, helping the Bruins into the playoffs. For a little more about Lacher, click here to check out a great "Absurd Goalie Monday" post over at The Strangest One of All.

This set was the precursor to the Metal Universe set I've been working on building. The biggest difference between the two is that every card in the 1995-96 version had the same background design. While it's nice, it's not even close to the Metal Universe design.

As far as the mask on this one, it's pretty cool and one of my favorites of the 90's.  Here's a better look at the mask itself. I couldn't really find a decent closeup of either side of the mask, but that's alright as the most important part of the design is prominently displayed.

It's hard to beat having a nickname that can be represented like this on a mask. Can you guys think of any other goalies who've had anything similar in the past. The first one that comes to mind is Ed "The Eagle" Belfour and his famous mask design.

My Picks #81: Dmitri Mironov

It seems like it's been forever since I've done one of my picks, so here goes nothing. This is another one of those cards that I thought was the coolest thing as a kid in the late 90's. It's a Dmitri Mironov from the 1998-99 Upper Deck SPx Finite set. 

This one happens to be the Radiance version as evident by the "Radiance" text on the left side. You can't tell from the scan, but that this thing is numbered out of 4750. That's insane compared to some of the print runs in today's world. I should also note that the "base" versions were also numbered, to 9500.

As far as the design of the card, I definitely like the fact that they went with the horizontal setup, as it allows for the massive ice rink shaped gold foil stamp on the left side. The stamp itself is probable the only downside, as it takes up I would say at least 1/8 of the total surface area of the card front.

I think there is one more tier of this set, the spectrum version, numbered to just 300 copies of each. That definitely tells you what era these things are from, when the lowest print run of a rainbow is 300, compared to the bazillion 1/1 parallels that are out there today. 

Dmitry only played 11 regular season and 7 playoff games with the Wings after being traded from Anaheim during the 1997-98 season. He would go on to win the Stanley Cup that year and move onto Washington, the team the Wings swept in the finals. Since he only played a handful of games in Motown, I wonder how many cards were actually made featuring him in a Wings jersey, like this one.

So there you have it, a bit of a blast from the past that shows where this hobby has gone as far as parallels and serial numbering. What are your thoughts? 

My Picks #80: Martin Biron

Well, just got done with another roller hockey game in our fall season. It was a pretty boring game, but we ended up getting the win 14-6, in which I managed six goals and two assists. I say boring because the other team's goalie didn't show up, so we were shooting on a defenseman the whole game. Don't you just hate when that kind of stuff happens?

Anyway onto today's post. By the way, I can't believe I've already done 80 of these so far, the first one just seems like forever ago now. This one is another pick that focuses on a base card with a pretty cool picture on the front.

Its a Martin Biron, from 2010-11 Pinnacle, which has quite a few interesting pictures, that shows him shoveling some hats around the MSG ice, presumably after a hat trick by one of his teammates. Now that's something you don't see everyday on the front of a card, is it?

As far as finding out who score the hat trick, look no further than the back of the card, as each one in the Pinnacle base set has a short description where and when the photo was taken. This is probably the only time you would have to have the same picture on front and back, just to avoid confusion with the description, wouldn't you agree?

After reading the description on the back of the card, you see that the hat trick was scored by Biron's teammate Marian Gaborik. Since the specific date is listed, it wasn't that hard to look up the clip on YouTube, so here it is:

I can honestly say this is the first time that I've been able to post a video for one of these things that doesn't involve the player actually pictured on the front of the card. There were a couple of nice goals there too, nothing better than being in alone on the goalie like that, as long as you bury it like Gaborik did of course.

My Picks # 79: Jonas Hoglund

Happy Halloween! This pick is another one that's only here because of the photo on the front of the card, and it fits perfectly with the theme of dressing up as something different for just one night. It features something that you don't see everyday on base cards, and that would be a specialty jersey.

The card itself is a Jonas Hoglund of the Toronto Maple Leafs from the 2002-03 Topps set, although that's not the team he's playing for according to the jersey in the picture. It's actually a Toronto St. Pats jersey that was only worn for one game on February 14, 2002.

I love that they went with the brown pants, gloves, and helmets here as it just completes the look. One thing I do wonder is what the leafs goalie (I'm assuming it was still Cujo at that point) did as far as the brown equipment. Here's a better look at one of the jerseys from that game, courtesy of Third String Goalie.

By the way, here's a link to the post over at Third String Goalie that explains a little bit about the St. Pats and these jerseys. Take a look, it's definitely an interesting read, as always with TSG. Also, has anyone seen any other cards featuring these jerseys, this was the only one I found in my collection, although I think there were a few more from this set. 

My Picks # 78: Luc Robitaille

It's been a few days now since I've have the time to put together another one of these posts, so it's nice to be able to sit down tonight for a few minutes and write something about the hobby I love. This will be one of the older picks I've done, as it dates back to the early 90's, also known as the junk wax era for hockey cards. 

It's one of the awesome team checklist painting cards that Upper Deck used for a couple of seasons back then. This one, from the 1992-93 set, just happened to catch my eye when I was sorting through a box of base cards recently and I thought it would make a good candidate for this series. 

There is really nothing bad to say about this card at all, well maybe except for Luc's hair, but that was the "in" style back then, right? I wouldn't know, I was only four years old when this set came out. Other than that, this is just an amazing looking card.

The colorful background really works well with the black and white of the Kings uniforms. Add to that the sprayed ice effect, as well as the whole thing set inside a simple white border, and we've got a winner. Even the UD logo doesn't look too out of place on this one, and I must say I like the addition of the "collector's choice" text at the bottom. 

That's all I have to say about this one. What do you guys think? 

My Picks # 77: Jamie Storr

What's in your wallet? That's what popped in my head when I first saw this one. I got it from Chris over at Confessions of a Hockey Card Addict as part of the trade we made a little while back. I'd never seen one of these before and decided it had to be my next pick.

In case you're wondering, like I was at first, this credit card shaped card featuring Jamie Storr of the LA Kings is from the 1995-96 Leaf Studio Rookies set. It's got rounded corners, the raised text at the bottom, and even a neat little hologram in the lower right corner, just like actual credit cards. The only major difference is the size, as this is your typical 2.5" x 3.5" hockey card, while a credit card would typically measure about 2.125" x 3.375."

I don't usually show off the back's of the picks, but this one definitely needed it. As you can see they really went for the full look of a credit card with the black strip across the top as well as the facsimile "authorized" signature. Pretty cool if you ask me, or at least it's something you don't see every day.

Not really sure about the motivation behind this design, but it's still pretty nifty. Apparently there are 20 of these floating around out there, yet this is the first time I've ever seen one. Anyone else have any of these or seen them before?

My Picks # 76: Pavel Bure

Here's another pick that shows how much better inserts were back in the 90's when jersey cards and autos did not come in nearly every single pack of cards. This one is a 90's Snapshots of The Russian Rocket, Pavel Bure, from Upper Deck's 1999-00 MVP.

 

The scan does not do all that much for this one, it looks much better in your hand with the light reflecting off of it as it's printed on a kind of rainbow foil board. Overall, I really like the design. it's simple and focuses the most on the four different images on the front.

This is the only one of these I have in my collection and I thought it was the coolest thing back when I pulled it from a box when I was younger. Like I said, inserts like these were what it was all about for me back then, so I can still appreciate it today.

What I really like about this one is that it shows the same player in four different jerseys. That's something you don't really see all that often. It's kind of neat to see the changes over time as the photos are in chronological order starting with the earliest one on the left.

Here's a nice little tribute video I found on YouTube. It goes along pretty well with the card as it's got plenty of Canucks highlights with some Panthers stuff thrown in, and no Rangers highlights. The only thing missing is the all star game.

My Picks # 75: Curtis Joseph

This pick comes from an interesting set from the mid-90's, Sky Box Emotion. This set was kind of unique at the time because it used adjectives like rabid, psyched, fearless, etc to describe what was going on in the picture.Sure, some are kind of corny and don't make the most sense, but some just made perfect sense, like this on featuring Curtis Joseph.

Besides the obvious meaning of the word, rabid can be defined as violent, raging, uncontrollable, extremely zealous or enthusiastic, or fanatical. How perfect is that for the mask he's wearing in the picture? 

Now if there's one place in hockey that pop culture references are popular, it would be in the design of goalie masks. I've seen everything from television shows to movie stars and musicians represented. I think of all of them tough, Curtis Joseph has the best connection between his nickname, the Stephen King book/movie and the design on his masks. 

With such a clever mask design like this that can be adapted to pretty much any team color imaginable, why wouldn't Cujo go with the same design from team to team? Here's a look at a the six other variations of the mask I know of, all the way from Edmonton to his second stop in Toronto. 

For me personally, the Wings mask is the best. It is up there with the best in team history, even though it was only used for the better part of two seasons in Hockeytown. Which one is your favorite of the bunch?