Talk about an uphill battle

I'm not sure if I would want to be Craig MacTavish right now.

I think the deer in the headlights look on this card might be similar to the look he has in Edmonton right now.

It might be time to tear the whole team down, top to bottom, and start over again.  Imagine if this organization was somewhere in the sun belt.   They'd have moved to Quebec years ago due to lack of fan support.

Card looks nice though!

Recognizable

What better way to come back from another 2 week layoff (I've got to stop that...) than to boast about a great lot of cards I scored off of eBay.  I had my eye on this auction for a few weeks, and when I finally came to a week where I had no plans for my card budget, I hunted through the seller's auctions and found another want list need that provided combined shipping and pulled the trigger.

Thanks to Priority Mail, 3 days later I had in my hand a 160 card lot from the 83-84 OPC set.  The entire lot cost me just under $20 shipped. 

The lot isn't 160 commons either.  Dale Hawerchuk, Guy Lafleur, and several other stars are in the lot.  This one card I took one look at and felt like I was in a time warp.

I would never have to even see the rest of the uniform to identify that mask with Mike Liut.  The elongated front with the triangle cut outs will forever be for me one of the most recognizable masks in hockey.  Maybe it is easily identified for me because there was no paint job on the front.  The only other goalie that I can remember that had a mask that was similar in shape to Liut was this fellow.

Very similar, except that Dion's had circles instead of triangles.  Dion's Penguin design is also very cool as well, incorporating the city's black and gold colors with the classic skating Penguin.

I couldn't remember if Liut played for any other franchises besides Hartford and St. Louis; I wound up using Hockey Reference.com to check his career stats.  For the life of me, I cannot remember him as a Capital.   Maybe it's because he's wearing this mask instead.

Yes, it's Mike Liut, but forgive me if I believe that it isn't the same one I recognize from the picture above.  He's just not as recognizable to me with the cage/fiberglass hybrid mask. 

Thanks for reading, Robert

1990-91 OPC added to the want list

You're going to see a few posts like this over the next few weeks.  As I continue the great monster box clean out and clean up, I'm going to add some of these 90's sets to the want list on the off chance that someone out there may have some cards that are taking up space.   Space that is probably better suited for cards that fit in their collection.

Here's a scan to jostle your memory if the 90-91 OPC design doesn't ring a bell...

This was the first of two consecutive O-Pee-Chee sets that contained 528 cards, larger than any other release from the company.  No one series set even came close to this size until Upper Deck started releasing O-Pee-Chee sets in 2006-07.

I need quite a few cards to complete the set, 166 in fact, but it's a cool looking set and I would enjoy finishing it.

More of these types of posts to come, stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Brendan Shanahan hired as president of the Maple Leafs

It's the week of former players being hired on as team presidents.  First, it was Trevor Linden in Vancouver, which for me made total sense.

As far as this guy heading up the Maple Leafs, I'm not so sure.

92-93 Upper Deck #122

What has me worried is that Shanahan has no ties to the Leaf franchise at all.  None.  The closest you could say that he's come to the Maple Leafs is having played in the old Norris division against the buds in the early 90's. 

We'll see what he has to say about the current state of the roster when he takes over the reins this weekend (as has been reported).  It will be interesting to see if he thinks the Leafs are just a couple of pieces away from starting to contend, or if another major shake up is needed.

I have a feeling it's going to be the latter.   Should be an interesting summer in Leafland.

Thanks for reading, Robert