Vote for Jimmy: EA Sports NHL 13 Cover

Not much in the mail for me lately, as you can tell by the lack of posts here lately. Anyway, I came across a Puck Daddy article on Yahoo! about the cover athlete for EA Sports NHL 13, due out later this year. For the first time, fans are going to vote on the cover athlete, and as it turns out, Jimmy Howard is one of the two Red Wings candidates.

I'm sure a lot of you guys are at least into a game like this, I know I am. It's the only video game I buy on a yearly basis. If Jimmy was on the cover it would make it that much cooler, at least to me. Here's what it might look like. I found this pic over on a site called PicturePush under the username marri61. Check it out:

Pretty cool, eh? Click here to vote for Jimmy and be sure to do so before the June 4th deadline. Unless of course your favorite player is among the candidates.

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.

Jimmy Howard: More Trade Pickups

There's nothing better than picking up cards you need through trading because other than the small cost of shipping, you get something you want in return for something you don't want or need. The best part is both parties involved get something out of it and more cards find a home in a collection where they will actually be enjoyed. 

Today I have another trade post to share, this time from Brad over at Cards from the Crease. He and I worked out a deal that involved him sending some Jimmy Howard stuff my way and me sending some Paul Kariya stuff his way. Both of us got rid of stuff we didn't need and got stuff we did need, win win, right?

Anyway, the first one and my favorite of the bunch was this base card from 2011-12 Black Diamond. The BD designs are always hit and miss with me, sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. The thing that puts this one on the good side is the little bit of red trim that goes perfectly with the Wings' jerseys.

The second was this one from 2011-12 Certified. I think this is definitely an upgrade over last year's design, especially the added ice texture fading down from the top of the card. I also like how the Certified logo is on the bottom with everything else, leaving the top completely open to focus on the picture.

The third was this one from 2011-12 Score. While I don't mind the direction Panini went with the design of Score this year, I can't really love this card because it has the exact same image as the UD base card, which I have two of now. Oh well, what can you do?

In addition to these three, there was also a Howard sticker from this year's Panini NHL sticker set. Now I've got one from this season and last season. There were also a couple of other nice Wings cards of Pavel Datsyuk and Chris Osgood. Thanks again Brad!

Jimmy Howard: LCS Pickups

We were out shopping today and I made a quick stop into my local card shop just on the off chance the guy had any Howard stuff I could pick up on the cheap. Well, he did and I ended up grabbing two base cards for the collection. 

The first was this one from 2011-12 Pinnacle. It's a great looking card with an even better picture, one with an overhead view that you don't see all that often. 

The second was another copy of a card I already had, which I somehow forgot when I was in the shop. Anyway, it was this one from 2011-12 Upper Deck Series 1. 

All in all not a bad pickup, I got one new card and another dupe for the collection for just $1.50. It would've cost me that much just to buy either of the cards on eBay, plus another $3 to ship each one, so I look at it like I've saved about $5. Plus, I'm supporting a local business this way and that's always a good thing.

Thoughts: I've Gone to the Dark Side...

...relatively speaking. I'm talking about what I've always considered the dark side of social media, Twitter. As long as it has been around I've thought it was a dumb idea and never really understood why people used it. Now that I've been strapped for time when it comes to the blog here lately, a Twitter page was a good alternative for sharing quick thoughts here and there or really cool eBay finds, rather than writing an entire blog post. 

 

So if you're already on the Twitter, look for me @CardBoarded or if you're new to it and have no idea what its about, click here to go directly to my page.

 

What do you guys think about using Twitter when it comes to the hobby? UD and Panini are in on it already and it's actually a nice way to get the most up to date information.

Jimmy Howard: Limited Jersey

Man have I been busy at work this week. Normally I have plenty of time on my lunch break to post here, but this week I've been busy with something from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm every day. It's nice to be able to sit down tonight and actually get this post out of the way now. 

I mentioned recently that I've been trying to keep my card spending to a minimum lately, without stopping completely of course. Ebay has made that goal pretty easy lately with a bunch of stuff ending on the cheap side. While this one isn't another $0.99 special, it only cost me $6 delivered.

It's a 2011-12 Limited base jersey card numbered 02/99.I love the design of the Limited base set this year, especially the scratched ice kind of texture over the background of the pictures. I also like how the player is the only thing in color, it really makes them pop.

It's definitely an upgrade over last year's design even though it's actually pretty simple. The other thing I like about this one is the fact that the swatch on the front of the card actually matches the color of the jersey pictured on the card. Although if you want to get technical, a white swatch could've come from the same jersey just as easily, right?

That's it for tonight. This one brings my Jimmy Howard collection total to 111, as evident by the updated sidebar tracker.

Jimmy Howard: Another $0.99 Special

Like I said in my last Howard show and tell post, I'm trying to stay on the cheaper side as far as purchasing cards lately. That leaves me hoping for auctions ending with just the one initial bid of $0.99. This one was another pleasant surprise as I watched the auction count down to the last few seconds as I was the only bidder.

This time it was for a beige parallel from 2005-06 Beehive. Here's a look at it:

One thing that's cool about this card that I never noticed before is the different finishes on the front of it. It's hard to tell from the scan, but the photo area is actually glossy and the perimeter is a kind of matte finish. It gives the card an interesting look.

Other than that it's just too bad that they were unable to put a facsimile auto on this one. While the cursive font looks nice, it's just not the same. Click here to see what I'm talking about. This one doesn't look so great compared to the others, does it?

Now I just need to track down the blue, gold, and matte parallels, the last of which is only numbered to 25 and the only copy floating around for sale is graded and way out of my price range. The blue is pretty common, I just don't want to pay a ton for it.

Jimmy Howard: Highlight Video

I was bored last night and got on YouTube to watch some hockey highlights and came across a great Jimmy Howard tribute video. It's got some great saves from the past few seasons, as evident by the different masks, well at least to me. Check it out:

Nothing like a great tribute video set to music like this, am I right? The best of the bunch is probably the breakaway save on Sedin. I'll always remember that one.

Jimmy Howard: Dominion Jersey

Lately I've been trying to cut back a little further on my eBay spending by only looking for really great deals that are hard to pass up. That usually means placing an opening bid of $0.99 and if I win great, it not no big deal. This latest pickup has been the most surprising that I've done that with. 

I was sure this one would not end with just one bid, but sure enough it did and now I can knock off another one of the many parallel versions from this set. At this point I'm not sure how many there are with all the jersey, prime patches, autos and what not. All I know is they all use the exact same design, only changing the foil color and the cutout window.

Let's look at what this card would've effectively cost someone when it was pulled. Assuming the current retail price of a box of Dominion to be around $275, if you divide the cost of eight cards evenly, that's $34.38 per card. Given that this is probably one of the "hits" you can probably bump that up a bit knowing the base cards aren't worth as much.

I ended up paying $0.99 for this card, plus $3.00 for shipping. For a player collector like me, I love that this product has so little value, but the rest of the collecting world may look at it differently. What do you guys think? To put things further into perspective, I only paid a few more dollars for the nameplate version of this card numbered to just 25 copies.

Gold Script Update

As often as I can, I try to buy the cards for this and other sets like it in lots to save on shipping costs. This time I was able to pick up six out of seven from a particular seller on eBay. Doing that saved me $2.50 shipping on five of the six cards, so in the end I only paid $5.94 for the six cards plus $4.25 for shipping them.

Anyway, the first is this Patric Kjellberg numbered 017/100. Its got a standard full body action shot of Kjellberg skating up the ice in his home white Predators jersey. I like that he's the only player you can see as it makes him stand out a bit better.

Then there is this Michal Sivek numbered 012/100. This is another one of the CHL prospects subset cards, which all have a silver foil CHL logo in place of the facsimile signature. The picture is neat on this one because the Milan Kraft has the other half of the picture.

The next one is this Tommy Westlund numbered 064/100. This is another one with a nice full body action shot making for a much better overall look. As far as the facsimile auto, it's a bit better looking than the Kjellberg, but still not what you would consider a great sig. 

Then there was this Blair Atcheynum numbered 054/100. This is one of the cards where the photo is a bit crowded as you've got players in the foreground and background taking away from the player actually being featured on the card.

The next one was this Aaron Miller numbered 079/100. Back to the nice full body action shot here, plus you can see the puck on Miller's stick so that's kind of neat. Again not a great looking signature, but it's still one to cross off the want list so I'll take it.

Finally there was this Garry Galley numbered 064/100, which looks great next to it's Super Script counterpart. Now I just need the Silver Script Galley (same goes for Joe Thornton) and I'll have another rainbow for the collection.

These six bring the Gold Script total to 42 out of 220. This puts me just under the 20% mark for the Golds. Pretty decent progress for such an old set if you ask me. The hard part is going to be getting some of the bigger name players (i.e. Yzerman, Roy, etc) as a lot of these cards are locked up in current player collections.

NPN Success: 2010-11 Upper Deck Series II

The other day I came home to an unexpected bubble envelope waiting for me in the mailbox. I knew all of my eBay purchases were accounted for, so I had no idea what was inside. Well, I opened it up and was surprised to see the following:

At first I was like "what the...?" but then I saw the form letter from Upper Deck behind the card and remembered that I had entered a bunch of the hockey NPN contests on the website. Not bad for just having to sign up for an account with UD and click a few buttons.

I'm guessing UD sent out a huge lot of these lately because I've seen a few posts over at SCF and on other blogs about other NPN successes. Not sure what they typically send out with these, but I'll take a card numbered to 100 for free any day of the week. 

Anyone else enter these things and more importantly have you won anything? As far as I can remember, this is the first time I've got anything from one of these.

Cardboard Creations: Jericho

I haven't come up with any custom card designs for a little while now, mostly because I never have time to work on them, but partly because I didn't have any new and exciting ideas to work with. Well, that changed when I stumbled across my new favorite TV show, Jericho, a few months back while browsing Netflix during my Christmas vacation. 

Here's a quick summary of what the show is all about from IMDB: "After a series of terrorist attacks leave the US in a state of disaster. A small Kansas town must come together to deal with a new reality." I highly recommend that you check it out.

Now for the custom cards I came up with. I should mention that there is a trading card set already out there from the first season of the show and I kind of used that for inspiration in getting started with my initial concept design. Beyond that I just threw together some ideas and it eventually turned into what I have here.

Here's a close-up look at the first card featuring Skeet Ulrich as Jake Green:

Since Jericho is a post-apocalyptic kind of show, I wanted to start with a grungy looking background and that's what I used as the base layer. While I was searching for that, I came across the caution tape looking wallpaper and decided to try and work that in somehow. As you can see, I used it behind the character/actor names as well as the thumbnail image bar across the bottom of each card. 

The idea with that was to contrast the studio-quality head shots with some live action shots taken directly from some of the episodes. It came out looking better than I thought it would. Other than that, I made an editable copy of the Jericho word-mark and placed it in the upper left corner to complete the design.

I ended up creating nine of these to have one complete page. Here they are together:

What do you guys think? I know it's not the usual here, but I wanted to try something different and work in another one of my interests, other than hockey of course. By the way, have any of you watched, or even heard of Jericho? If not, check it out.

Thoughts: Collecting Superstitions

When it comes to collecting, I'm sure some of you have some superstitions like not grabbing the last pack of an opened box or making sure you get the bottom pack of a freshly opened box at the hobby shop. The biggest one I deal with is not crossing a card off of my wantlist or showing it off before I actually have it in hand. 

For some reason, I feel that if I do that prematurely, I'll jinx myself and the card will either get lost in the mail or show up damaged. I know it's good to mark things as incoming sometimes, but for me I simply wait until I have the card in hand before doing anything.

It's the same way with showing something off here or over at SCF. I will wait until I have the card to be able to scan it myself. Up to this point it works, knock on wood, as I've yet to have a card I either waited to scan or check off the list go missing or show up in bad shape.

Am I the only one that thinks like this? Do you have any collecting superstitions?

Gameday: Sharks vs. Red Wings

It's almost March now and I'm still enjoying my Christmas presents, well at least one of them. I got a pair of Wings tickets way back in December for a game that seemed like forever away. That day came and went yesterday as the Wings hosted the San Jose Sharks down at Joe Louis Arena for a Sunday matinee.

Here's a look at the view from section 220. Not bad. We were on the end of the rink where the Wings were in the offensive zone twice. This means I had a great view of the first goal of the game as well as the eventual winning goal by Darren Helm in the third period.

In case any of you live in a cave when it comes to the NHL lately, this was the Wings 23rd consecutive win on home ice. It was also the last game in a long home stand for the Wings. This could very well have been the game that sets the record, hopefully not though, so I figured a picture of the scoreboard at the end of the game would be pretty neat.

Here are the highlights from the game:

All in all, it was a great day as the weather was decent, we had some great pizza across the street from the Joe before the game, and the Wings kept the streak alive. Plus, even with a 45 minute drive home from the game, we were home before dinner time, something that doesn't happen all that ofter with the usual 7:30 start times.

So that was the highlight of my weekend. Anyone else make it to any other games lately?

Goaltending Gallimaufry: Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

Gallimaufry [gal-uh-maw-free] - A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

Been on the road for work all week, so it's nice to finally get a break to post something here. Luckily I had these scans already saved in the draft of this post, and since it was the only one with them, it only made sense to post it now. Anyway, here's another sub-theme for the project: all things red, white and blue that don't belong.

The first is this Ray LeBlanc from 1992-93 Parkhurst. LeBlanc is best known for his 5-2-1, two shutout performance at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. He bounced around the minors and only played a single NHL game with the Blackhawks in 1992. In that one game, LeBlanc had pads and gloves that went with the Blackhawks color scheme. Beyond that, and the reason the card is here, he wore his team USA mask.

The second is this Jim Hrivnak from 1993-94 Leaf. The card shows him with the St. Louis Blues, for which he has matching pads and gloves, but that's not the case with his mask. It's a little too patriotic for the Blues, but it fit perfectly with his Capitals equipment from the season before. Click here to get a better look at that.

I like finding little sub-themes to the project like this. Maybe I should come up with some way of organizing all of the cards I've got so far. Either way, these are two welcome additions to the project as I close in on the 100 mark. Hopefully I can make it out to another card show here soon to bring myself even closer to that mark.

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 70