I should be documenting this!

I've talked before, several times, how my main goal, really, has been to get everyone who ever got an NBA or NASCAR card into my collection. Although I wasn't able to figure out who had cards and who was missing until I went person-by-person through the listings on the Trading Card Database a few years ago, in reality I was setting the stages for this project for many years beforehand...if I was at a place or even looking through online listings, and I had a choice of two cards, I would ALWAYS pick the one that was of a person not yet in my collection.

By time I started Cardboard History, most of this collecting was done already. I didn't start Cardboard History until my 27th year in the hobby.

Now I've taken up NHL hockey. And the sport has already embedded itself into my very being. But, I've been saying that I didn't know if I would attempt to do this project for the NHL. I'm coming in later to the sport, and I don't have as much money to spend on the hobby as I once did due to medical reasons. The NHL has 100 years of history and has been getting cards since the 1920s, 30 years before the NBA was founded and 32 before NASCAR. Unlike my first two sports the NHL has pretty good cardboard representation of it's early years. The teams also have a larger roster, too.

It seems daunting. Frankly, it seems impossible. But, I'm doing it. I'm going to go for it, no more hemming and hawing if I want to take on this task. I do. It is so much fun in my first two sports that I have to do it for the NHL too.

I have a good head start. As of 7/6/17, I have 1739 different people already, although that number does include some non-NHLers like the Women's Olympic Team members. It's also probably not entirely accurate as I found a couple people not on the list but I already had multiple cards of. Whatever, it's close enough to start with.

I have yet to figure out how many people are missing, how many got cards. It's going to be a lot of people.

Since January 1st I've been documenting the first card I got of each NHL person on a list on the Trading Card Database. But, it's currently only available to me. I keep it closed so I can add to it, and adding to it I have done- it shows 470 new NHL players added to my collection, including those that appear in this post. But I've got a blog about cards, and what better thing to do then post about a major, major undertaking? Something that, for the first two sports I did it with, was done mostly before I had a blog or even internet connection!

So, without further ado, here are the first players added since I officially declared I am going for this project on 7/6/17.

Alex Petrovic became the first person added since I decided to go for it.

I had purchased two blasters of 2016-17 Parkhurst back in April, opening one when it was new. I cracked the seal on the second one on 7/7/17 and opened two packs, which yielded these 5 new people for my collection.

You can expect to see more of this project posted to the blog over the coming years. I will be working on this project for the rest of my life, unless I win the lottery and can go on a buying spree, hah!