Return to 'Tender

 Ever since going to the Rhinebeck car show early in May, I've been on a 60s music kick again. (as an aside, car shows play the best music) And of course, you can't listen to a 50s/60s channel without hearing Elvis. When they play his "Return to Sender" when you are looking at the following card:

it's very easy for the song to start playing in your head but instead of "Return to Sender" it becomes "Return to 'Tender" and then the idea popped into my head to write a post about goaltenders. Other than the post title, it didn't give me much to build off of. Hmm, perhaps a countdown of the top 10 Goaltenders in my collection, based on number of cards? 

10. Technically 9th and 10th are tied, both with 48 cards. But since I don't particularly like John Vanbiesbrouck, he gets last. His numbers are bumped up because he played for my team. Sergei Bobrovsky is 3 cards away from bumping him out of the top 10, and frankly I hope it happens. He actually had been ahead of him until I got the Rangers Centennial set for Glad I'm Not Dead Day.

9. Ed Belfour is in 9th, and of the Top 10 I know the least about him. He retired before I started watching the sport. One of his cards does mention he has a classic car so he can't be too bad! 48 cards of him reside in my collection.

8. I thought the 8th place goalie would be higher, but nope...he's only in 8th with 51 cards, Martin Brodeur.

7. There's a big drop between 6th and 7th, with Connor Hellebuyck holding down 7th most goalie cards, but he only has 52 in my collection, 14 less than the 6th place goalie. He is still active and that does give him a chance to add more cards than a retired player would though. 

6. Just barely out of the top 5 is one of the all-time greats, Patrick Roy. I didn't get to see him play live but I did get to see him coach. The Islanders shouldn't have fired him. I currently have 66 cards of him.

5. Holding the final spot in the top 5 is current superstar and guaranteed Hall of Famer Andrei Vasilevskiy, with 69 cards.

4. The highest ranked goalie who I didn't get to see play live isn't a surprise, as he's one of the all-time greats of my favorite team, and our last Stanley Cup winning goalie, Mike Richter. I currently have 73 cards of him, tied with Mario Lemieux.

3. Once we got below the top 2 I wasn't exactly sure how it play out so looking at my collection totals to make this post let me be surprised as well. Carey Price is in third, with 76 cards. 

2. Coming in second isn't really a surprise either, and that's Marc-Andre Fleury, with 94 cards. Marc-Andre is my mom's all-time favorite player and I'm also a fan. 

1. Of course, at number one, and the only number I knew who it would be before I started writing this post, is Henrik Lundqvist, my all-time favorite NHL player and one of the few who I actively buy single cards of. Not only does he have the most goalie cards in my collection, he has the most hockey cards overall of all players combined, with 165 at the time of this writing. 

Since I'll be curious if I remember to revisit this post/concept into the future, here are the contenders looking to move into the top 10:

1. 11. Sergei Bobrovsky 45
2. 12. Jonathan Quick 44
3. 13. Igor Shesterkin 42
4. 14. Roberto Luongo 41
5. 15. Dominik Hasek 40
6. 16. Curtis Joseph 40
7. 17. Tuukka Rask 40
8. 18. Sean Burke 38
9. 19. Semyon Varlamov 38
10. 20. John Gibson 36
11. 21. Daren Puppa 36
12. 22. Pekka Rinne 34
13. 23. Braden Holtby 33
14. 24. Kari Lehtonen 31
15. 25. Nikolai Khabibulin 30
16. 26. Matt Murry (1) 30
17. 27. Bill Ranford 30
18. 28. Carter Hart 29
19. 29. Cory Schneider 29
20. 30. Mike Vernon 29

Since I started the post with a card of Ukko-Pekka Luukonen, he has a long way to go. I currently have 11 cards of him. 

Black History Month Hockey Spotlight: Dustin Byfuglien

 As I mentioned in my previous post I only had one player I could get a full post out of, and that is Dustin Byfuglien. In case anyone is unfamiliar with him, his last name is pronounced "Bufflin"

He had a moment in my first full season watching that sticks in my mind. His Jets were playing the Golden Knights and there was a scuffle on the ice. "Big Buff" as he was known grabbed one Golden Knight by the back of their jersey by the name banner in each hand, and lifted them up and away from the fight. It was awesome, LOL. His career ended shortly after I began watching due to a recurring ankle injury, and last I knew he was competing on the professional fishing circuit, which doesn't get cards as far as I know. 

I currently have 27 cards of him in my collection, of which 20 have been scanned. This is all of them. 

2006-07 Upper Deck Rookie Class #37

2008-09 Black Diamond #16

2010-11 Zenith #63

2012-13 Upper Deck #196

2014-15 Artifacts #18

2014-15 MVP #276

2014-15 Ultra #200

2016-17 Upper Deck #195

2016-17 Upper Deck UD Game Jersey

2017-18 Ice #29

2017-18 MVP #110. This set had pronunciation guides on the card back which is how I learned how to say his name.

2017-18 O-Pee Chee Platinum #72

2017-18 Panini Stickers #436

2017-18 Upper Deck #444

2018-19 MVP #152

2018-19 MVP Factory Set #152

2018-19 Upper Deck #192

2018-19 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C89

2019-20 MVP #55

2019-20 MVP Green Script #55

I actually have a card of him I just got in January that may get scanned before the end of February but it requires to be scanned with other cards of the same material. I may not get to it until next month. 

I don't think I have any other players with more than 3 cards that I can build posts for, unfortunately. I like doing these posts and updates, so I'll have to see what I can come up with for next year. 

I can't see clearly now, the card's opaque

 I'm currently dealing with an infected wisdom tooth that broke off. Extreme pain, even for me, someone who has lived in pain 24/7/365 for a couple of decades now. It has not been pleasant for me here lately. 

After a trip to the dentist, I stopped at my local card shop and bought myself a "pick me up"...a box of 2024-25 Clear Cut, which is one single card in a box. For $85. Totally unlike anything I usually buy, and not something I do often. 

The main draw of this set is that the cards are clear, which is why it's called Clear Cut. Except when they are not. The UD Canvas insert is not, and that is of course what I pulled, which I am sure you have figured out by now. 

 This happens to be the Red Ink parallel, which is numbered to the player's jersey number. 

It's a nice enough card, but after tax it was $90. Not a card I would expect to pay $90 for. At least it's my first Kraken autograph, and it's not a player I dislike...I don't really know enough about him to know if I would dislike him. I did see his first career game, which is kind of cool. 

It will probably be a long time before I do something crazy like this again. 

Cheese, please

 If you are on Facebook with me, you know that cheese is my favorite food. I can eat it at every meal, and usually do. You would also know that I am very much lactose intolerant, so I spend a lot of time in pain and nauseous. I just can't give up my favorite food. So, when I was perusing COMC by Rangers over a year ago now, I knew I MUST have this card as soon as I saw it!

Die cut in the shape of cheese, it was a must have. I don't know if this was epack only or pack issued, as I didn't do any of this set (they didn't use the etched foil that Metal should be, just mirror foil, boo) but I could definitely see myself chasing this insert just for the design. A quick check of the Database shows this is a 30 card set, and there's a Gold parallel SN to 50. Those parallels might be tough but I am definitely going to try and get more of these. 

I can't think of any other cheese themed cards, but I will have to get them too if they exist. 

Mmm, cheese.🧀

First card of the 2025-26 season

Last weekend I went to the mall with my brother, and while I struck out at Target, I found some cards at GameStop. Them getting into cards has been a big deal on twitter but it's mostly graded stuff. I don't mess with that, I don't need anyone to think for me. So it was a pleasant surprise to see that had some real cards for sale, including a blaster of 2025-26 MVP, first set released for the NHL every year. Naturally I bought said blaster, and the first card of the year is this one:

Not a bad design. I like it. 

I find it pretty hard to believe we are in the 2025-26 season. I became a fan of stick and ball sports in the 1995-96 season so I feel pretty old now. If only Fleer, which was my first pack, still existed! I wish the hobby still looked like it did in the mid-90s. That was peak. I'm glad I got to experience it live. Of course it would be quite a while before I would begin collecting hockey, so I didn't get to experience that during the best days, unfortunately. Better late than never.

Utah Hockey Club joins the collection, history of 1-year only NHL Teams

 It's always exciting to me when I can add a new team to the collection. Even though it's really just the Arizona Coyotes in a new place, any team name change counts as a new team, with a new album on the Cardboard History Gallery. It's not something that happens every day, much rarer than adding a new person to my collection. 

The 2024-25 Topps Now set is the first release to show images from this season, and this is card #3 in the set- my first Utah Hockey Club card. 

and card #4 is a team card, which I always enjoy and specifically search for. 

The third week brought my third Utah card, and this is my first card of Lamoureux as well, which means it will be the first card showing Utah in the Alphabetical Directory. 

Utah is playing without a name this year and will introduce the actual name of the team next season. So Utah Hockey Club will be pretty obscure in the grand scheme of things. There are only 5 previous team/name combinations that were one year only, and the most recent was the Brooklyn Americans all the way back in 1941-42! Of the six, Utah Hockey Club was the only one that is planned to be one year only. 

The others:

Brooklyn Americans, 1941-42. Formerly known as the New York Americans, the team was renamed the Brooklyn Americans for the final season, despite still playing in Manhattan, but couldn't survive the Depression and WWII. When the team folded it created the Original Six era. There had been 10 teams before the Depression.

Montreal Wanderers, 1917-18. The rarest team in NHL History, lasting only 6 games into the very first season of the league before their arena burned down, never to appear again. (The team dated back to 1903 pre-NHL)

Philadelphia Quakers, 1930-31. The team was struggling as the Pittsburgh Pirates, and moved to Philadelphia to try and salvage the team. It failed, and this was the first of 4 teams to fold as a result of the Depression.

Quebec Bulldogs, 1919-20. Moved to Hamilton and became the Tigers after one season. Playing only 24 games as the Bulldogs, the Utah Hockey Club has already played more games (25 as of this writing) than the Bulldogs did.

St. Louis Eagles, 1934-35.  Had been the original Ottawa Senators, which was a successful team in the early days of the NHL, even winning four Stanley Cups. Holds a unique place in NHL history on two fronts; it was the oldest team of the 4 that the league founded with, dating back to 1883. Secondly, while the team only played in the NHL for one season it actually continued on until 1954 in other leagues, what was known as semi-professional. That format of hockey that is not really around anymore, replaced by the AHL-ECHL format. 

All five of the defunct team logo cards come from the excellent 2004-05 In the Game Franchises set. 

While hockey cards have been produced almost continually during the NHL's existence, the early cards are rare and expensive. All of the one year teams also existed long before I was born, let alone collecting! With three Utah cards in the collection, they have already passed or tied all but one of the 5 previous one year only teams in my collection, and Brooklyn has only 4 cards so it's only a matter of time before they have the lead. The Montreal Wanderers are one of three teams that have only one card in my collection, the other two being the previous names of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Arenas and St. Patricks. Unfortunately I was unable to find a box of the In the Game Franchises Canadian series to purchase which has the only cards of these early teams I'll likely ever be able to add to my collection. 

Contest Winnings

Editorial note: I wrote this post back in 2017 but never posted it, for some reason I no longer remember. I did not change it other than correcting a typo I found pre-publication. 

This isn't something that happens too often, but I actually won a card related contest! I am a fringe member of the Collector's Universe forum, which is owned and run by a grading company. My thoughts on that concept are not really a secret so I am not on the forum all that often...I try from time to time but there's way, way too much worrying about nothing and not a lot of real collecting. So, I get annoyed and take months off. However, there are still enough posts that make it worth reading, and I've been trying to work myself back into the message board scene...I used to spend hours on message boards every day. When you aren't able to do things, due to health issues, you have to find something to do, and for many years for me that was message boards. That kind of went by the wayside when I began scanning my collection in 2009, to the point where I didn't visit any of them at all. But I did enjoy them, so I'm slowly working my way back in.

That's kind of a long pre-amble, sorry about that.

In August, I won a contest on there. The game was to predict which driver was going to finish second in a particular Cup race. I don't even remember which race at this point, but I know I didn't get it for the first race after I posted. I didn't track the thread. A few weeks later, I see the thread is still getting new posts, so I clicked on it to see what the deal was...and as it turned out, I missed the part of the original post that if there was no winner, it would roll over...eventually, when Martin Truex Jr. finished second at Michigan...I won! The contest runner posted a bunch of stacks of cards and the winner was going to pick five of them. Since I was the winner, I picked the one that showed as Star Wars, the one that showed as hockey and the rest were NBA. The cards arrived and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that some of the cards were from sets I have very few of, but also a little disappointed because I thought I needed a lot more of the Return of the Jedi cards than I actually did...so there were more duplicates than I expected. For some reason I can never remember that I bought a big lot of series 2 (blue border) cards a couple of years ago, and this is actually the second time I've gotten a "lot" of them expecting to add a whole bunch of new cards, only to find out I had them already. Maybe this time it will stick and I won't do it again...but knowing me, probably not.

Now, here are some highlights. I ended up getting 85 new cards and I am not going to post them all, LOL.

This was one of the bigger highlights for me, as it's only my second card from 2006-07 SP Game Used, and only my third of Denham Brown...but the first that shows him in NBA action. Plus, Serially Numbered cards are an addiction of mine.

Speaking of serially numbered cards, this Greg Oden card from 2008-09 Topps Treasury- a mini card that might have come out of a rip card (what a terrible concept that is) but it's SN 23/25. Nice!

One of my biggest achievements in the hobby was completing 2002-03 SP Authentic, including the autographs and serially numbered cards- of a 203 card set, all but 90 were SN. I pulled Yao's autograph, the biggest card in the set,which allowed me to do that. I couldn't do it with the 2003-04 set as I didn't pull LeBron's autograph, so I didn't chase it as much. I am still missing some of the Spectaculars subset, and Yao, card #100, was one of them!

When I first opened the package, I was pretty happy to get some Mystery Finest cards from 1996-97 Topps. Then I looked a little closer- these are Super Teams redeemed cards, significantly harder to find than a standard Mystery Finest. So much so, that I didn't have a single one beforehand. The first design, with the silver border, was the prize if you had a Conference winner. The second version, which has the broken border, is the prize for Division winners. There is also a third version that I have not seen...but I think may be a Refractor for the Champion winner, which would have been the Bulls that year. I actually like the Division winner design better, so I'm glad I got more of them...although I would gladly add the others if I found them in the wild.

Another good one is this Paul Pierce rookie from 1998-99 Ovation. The 10 rookies included in the set were all redemption cards, thanks to the Lockout. They aren't particularly rare as far as redemption cards go but I only have half of them counting this card. I had previously had the SN'd Gold parallel of Pierce- who just retired in June 2017 - but I don't think I got it via redemption, I think I got it on the secondary market. I don't honestly remember. Being the #10 pick (a steal!) Pierce was the final card in the set, #80.

With these two Mournings I'm now 3 cards away from completing both 1992-93 Hoops and Stadium Club. Getting real close, hopefully I will complete them at some point soon. I thought that this was going to knock Hoops out for me but a quick check of my Wantlist on here showed me otherwise.

 I got three of the Lottery Pick redemption cards from 1994-95 Hoops! That's one of my favorite sets, and I didn't have any of the Lottery pick cards previously. Unfortunately they have some contact damage, enough that the Grant Hill card didn't get scanned.

 This one kind of threw me. This is the wrapper exhange card from 1994-95 Hoops. I would never have done that- I save my empty packs- even if I could have. I didn't start collecting the NBA until February 1996 though so it was long expired by then.

Some more NBA highlights, including some great 1990s inserts. Anytime I can get new inserts from 1996-97 Topps is a great day, and here there are some more, in addition to the Super Teams cards. That's only my third Hobby Masters card- the previous two in my collection I pulled when the set was new. Magic gets me 1 card away from the 1989-90 Fleer sticker insert completed. 2006-07 Upper Deck is a set I have very little of...I think only two packs worth. The Rondo is my first RC from the set.

Some of the Star Wars cards I got. There were 9 new base cards, which I scanned all of but didn't show, and some of the stickers, which I needed much more of. The #49 sticker was the one they reprinted in the Abrams' book about the Topps Return of the Jedi set so I had to scan that one.

The set that saw the largest influx of new cards was 1991-92 Pro Set French. I more than doubled my collection of the set, although considering it's a 600+ card set and I now have 30 something, I still have a lot more I can add. I added a bunch here and only scanned a couple (and one of the English versions) because they were all done on the Database already.

Quite a few of the new addition are from the All-Star subset. Somebody sign Jagr already!