Eddie Lack retires- how does it compare to my other sports?

On March 30th Eddie Lack announced his retirement from professional hockey, due in large part to injury. Why is that a big deal, you may wonder?

Because the very first card out of the very first pack I ever opened after I officially became a hockey collector was Eddie Lack! I found some packs of 2014-15 MVP at the now closed antique mall I loved so much, and this was the first card I saw from the first pack I opened.

To date, it remains my only card of Eddie Lack in my collection.

It's an interesting comparison to my other two sports. I opened this pack in January 2017, so he retired 3 years and 2 months after I added his card to my collection. In the NBA, my first player out of my first pack was Sam Cassell, who got me started with that sport on Valentine's Day 1996. He would play through 2007-08, 12 years after I got the card!

In NASCAR, my first sport, well, that's totally different...my first card didn't come from a traditional pack, it came with a Racing Champions die-cast car, and Richard Petty, who was my first card, he had already retired by the time I got the card- Christmas Day, 1992. He retired at the conclusion of the 1992 season, which ended on November 15th, just one month and 10 days before I got the car, card, and GI Joe knockoff figure. Like Cassell, who is now a coach, Petty is still involved in the sport, as a team owner.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, this only really matters to me, but I thought it was interesting enough to get a blog post out of it. I've been meaning to write it up since the day I read it, but have been kind of busy with other hobbies, and just got a chance to write it today.