On October 12th, Arber Xhekaj played in his first NHL game for the Montreal Canadiens. While dozens of players will be making their NHL debuts this week, Xhekaj is different, because his is the first name that starts with X to EVER play in an NHL game...or any of the three sports I collect! Think about this...this is the 105th NHL season. Next week, the NBA will begin it's 76th season, and NASCAR has just 1 month left of it's 74th season. That is a LOT of people, and not a single one of them had a last name that started with X, ever...Until now!
I wrote about Xhekaj once before, when I got this card of him. But now that he's made it to the NHL that means he will be getting NHL cards. The NHL's contract stipulates that all players who appear in a game MUST get cards, which is the only way to do it right.
I will definitely be chasing them when they do appear, later in the year. Well, later in the hockey year. Probably 2023 in actuality.
He only needs one more card to become my Letter Leader in my entire collection...which would be pretty amazing to do with only two cards. (Two letters, G and J, the leaders have over 1000 cards in my collection)
In case you didn't read the earlier post, his name is pronounced "Jackeye" and is Armenian in origin although he is Canadian.
Add MLB to the list of major sports without an "X" player! With a constant heavy influx of European players, I'm surprised it's taken the NHL this long!
ReplyDeleteCool, I didn't know that! I know they have been around since the 1800s so that surprised me.
DeleteInteresting blog. I never would have guessed that is how his name is pronounced.
ReplyDeleteMe neither, but that's it
DeleteToo bad he didn't make his debut as a Ranger. Very cool that the NHL has that rule.
ReplyDeleteJoe Xavier made it to AAA in the 1980s, but didn't play well enough to merit a callup.
That would have been cool!
DeleteI saw a few baseball guys with X names but I only saw minor league cards when I was poking around the Database. Guess that explains why
He his actual Albanian not Armenian
ReplyDelete