Hockey card of the day--2012-13 OPC Stickers #S-82 Logan Couture

• 19 points so far in the playoffs...maybe headed for the Conn Smythe trophy?
• I didn't know that he made $6 million a year.  Not bad for a player who hasn't scored more than 32 goals or 67 points in a season.
• Would love to know how this photo was taken.  It appears that someone was right behind the net as the photo was snapped...

- Robert

Hockey card of the day--1979-80 OPC #38 Wayne Stephenson

• Great mask.  The days of the full fiberglass mask are long gone, but there were some great designs on them back in the 70's
• Wayne didn't debut in the NHL until he was 27 years old.   He spent a decade in the league with the Blues, Flyers and Capitals.  Wayne won a Cup with the Flyers in 1974-75
• The first jersey number that Wayne wore in the NHL with the Blues was 25.  Not sure if any other goalie in the league ever wore 25...

- Robert

Leaf card of the day--1971-72 Topps #80 Dave Keon

For $2 at this month's card show, this was a no brainer...

Getting a couple of 76-77 OPC wants out of the way

Within the orders that I had placed on COMC over the past couple of weeks came a pair of cards to knock down a hockey want list for a change.

I would love for Upper Deck to start using these types of team leader cards in their modern sets.  OPC would be the natural place for them to land, since the set size is so large.  They could even get away with it in the base set, put half of the teams in series 1, and the other half in series 2.

Anyone ever notice with these team leaders cards that there aren't goalies included?  Wonder why that is...

thanks for reading, Robert

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!

1977-78 Topps Wayne Thomas

I'm hoping to make this blog a little more relevant in 2015 with posts a little more often than once a month.  What I want to do is just grab a card that I have in my sights, and do a quick little post.

Do the backup goalies skate on the ice with a towel wrapped around their necks anymore?  Just seeing this brought me back to the days when I first started following hockey back in the mid 70's.

Flipping to the back....

I see that Wayne earned the Molson Cup for the Habs in 73-74, and played 42 games in net.  Then I think, wasn't Ken Dryden part of that club?  It appears that Wayne was the beneficiary of Ken Dryden's holdout for a better contract.  The next season, Wayne would sit on the sidelines for the entire season while Dryden and Bunny Larocque shared the goaltending duties. 

The Leafs gave up a first round draft pick to acquire Thomas so he could play a grand total of two seasons for the Leafs.  Wayne wound up losing the starting job to Mike Palmateer in 76-77.

Wayne wound up being waived at the beginning of the 77-78 season and was claimed by the Rangers, where he would play for 4 more seasons before retiring. 

Wayne is now a VP and assistant GM of the San Jose Sharks, 2nd in command to long time GM Doug Wilson.

15 years in the making

Many of you who read the $30 a week habit blog are well aware of my foolish fascination with various types of parallels.  Serial numbered or not, I've chased many of these ever since the mid 90's.

There have even been a handful of parallel sets I've liked so much that I have chased the entire set.  The 1999-00 Upper Deck MVP silver signature set is one of them.   Today, I finally acquired the last remaining card I've needed for a long time, Mike Richter.

I've been searching eBay for this card for the past couple of months (off and on), and the few copies that I did find were about $1-$1.50 apiece, plus about $3 shipping (most were from Canada).  I really didn't want to pay that kind of money just for one card.

Then I remembered a web site that many, many other people out there have used for a long time, but for some reason I have stayed away from.

COMC.com 

I decided to give it a try for the first time, and ordered the Richter along with 10 other SPs I needed to finish another set.  8 days after the order was placed, the cards arrived and I will say that my first foray into the COMC world was a great success.  

It makes me wonder why I waited so long.  Hopefully the next attempt at putting together a silver signature set will take less than 15 years....

thanks for reading, Robert