2005-06 NHL Replay Cards

One of the Zellers locations in my area are on the verge of shutting their doors for good and so forth are having a clearence sale; me and my fiance were driving around the city doing some thrifting a few days ago and decided to drop in and pay a visit, maybe they would have something on sale that would fixate our interests.

As per any usual Zellers visit, I made a bee-line to the card section only to find that it was pretty much picked apart down to the bare bones; UFC, the Simpsons and Magic - a few boxes of Puck Attax remained unscaved but that was about it when it came to hockey.

But just when I was about to give up hope in uncovering at least one pack of something or another; underneath the shiny unicorn figurines and puppy dog keychains, I dug this up...

I've never seen or even heard of these NHL Replay Cards before, just great!  I love finding random oddball hockey shit.  At a loonie I wasn't exactly going to go broke, how could I go wrong - the sheer pleasure of opening up and finding out just what exactly these cards were all about was worth it in my opinion.

I did a little research on these cards and it appears they were produced by Quebec-based Softmotion, a designer and printer of 3-D lenticular images.  There are 36 cards in Series 1 which are licensed by the NHL and NHLPA.  Softmotion were able to weave their way around Upper Decks exclusive rights in the hockey card industry during the era due to the unstandard size (3x4) of the cards they released.

Markus Naslund of the Vancouver Canucks on the breakaway; not a bad player to haul.  The card has two photos featured on the front depending on which way you tilt it.  You can slightly see the other photo in the above scan; but for a much clearer view, it's the first picture on the left side of the wrapper.  Not sure if the photos featured on the front of the wrapper indicate the card inside or if it was just a coincidence.

Not much to write home about in regards to the back of the card.  The write-up is game dated in accordance to the picture on the front of the card, 2004 - didn't collect during that period, but geez way to make me feel old.  Anyway card is numbered 31 out of 36.

Blueprints were in the works for a secnd series but never did get off the ground.

Mail Day! 1996-97 Score Sudden Death Jeremy Roenick vs Chris Osgood

It's been a while since I decided to search out for one of these 96-97 Score 'Sudden Death' insert cards in an attempt to further complete the set - but here you have it, finally after two previous attempts at ordering the card - Jeremy Roenick versus Chris Osgood.

The front features a fresh looking Roenick just a year before he headed to the desert and joined the Phoenix Coyotes and Osgood sporting the bird-cage style mask - one of the last to do so.  Just a side note; when Rick Dipietro came back to action after taking a beating from Brent Johnson, he wore one of Osgood's Bauer SK 2000 masks from Osgoods stint with the Islanders.

According to the back of the card, Osgood held Roenick to just one goal and three assists in the three years previous to this card. 

Now... just one more card left to fetch from this set and I'll have them all in my hands, Teemu Selanne vs Nikolai Khabibulin #15.  Hopefully I can pick it up before June, that way I'll fulfill one of the goals I set this past year in collecting.



Alexandre Radulov: Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

Fittingly it was kind of like an old time country song when Alexander Radulov done the Nashville Predators wrong by walking away from his contract, packing his bags and making a bee-line back to his native land to play in the KHL nearly four years ago.

The Predator`s 15th overall pick in`the 2004 draft Radulov isn't exactly an Evgeni Malkin but by many he is arguably considered the best player outside North America.  Alexander is the KHL's all-time leading scorer with 254 points and also holds league records for most career assists (163), plus-minus (98), and points in a single KHL season with 80.  In 2010 he was awarded the Golden Stick Award (KHL's version of the Hart Memorial Trophy) for his outstanding play on the ice and in 2011 Radulov would lead Salavat Yulaev Ufa to capture the Gagarin Cup (KHL's version of the Stanley Cup).

In the Predator's pursuit for a pllayoff position, they've buried the hatchet with Radulov - allowing the right winger to play out the remainder of his NHL.

Although Radulov`s current NHL numbers (44G 95Pts 145GP) aren`t as respectable as his KHL tally he will definitely help fill an offensive void in Nashville`s lineup - currently the team has three forwards in the top 100 in scoring, Martin Erat leads the team with 55 points ranking him in at the No. 46 position.

What Radulov will decide to do once the season comes to an end and his contract expires is still in question.  Many predict he will head back to the KHL and continue his career there - NHL GM`s hold hope that he will stay in North America as a UFA.

The fate of Radulov will tell in time - as of now he`s here and lacing them up with the Preds, anamosity aside.  Alex makes his return to the NHL tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins who hope to extinguish the Radulov hype and clinch a playoff berth.

Unlikely Heroes: Christian Dubé

I wanted to add something new to the blog, going through my boxes of hockey cards recently I grew nostalgic after coming across a few cards from players who I had a love for as a kid - but their careers never exactly panned out how I had anticipated.

My first featured player who I once held close to my hockey card heart as a young collector was two time WJHC champ and former New York Ranger, Christian Dube.

Not sure why I fell in love with Christian Dube at the age of 11; maybe it was because he was a highly touted prospect coming into the league during the 1996-97 season.  Maybe it was the fact that he just won a gold medal with Team Canada at the WJHC in '96 - The World Juniors were a big thing for me and my Dad during those years.  Or maybe it all was just in his last name, Dube... Du-be - rolls of the tounge, hell I still like it just as much as I did sixteen years ago.

But what I can remember very clearly is going to my first ever flea market and searching out for his cards, thinking this guy was the next superstar.  I mean, he was part of every rookie sub-set from every set I collected during that time - this guy had to something special, right?!

And there was the ridiculous amount of times I "created a player" in NHL 95 under the name Christian Dube, obviously placing him on whatever roster I was partaking my hockey video gaming season in.  True love for a player right there everyone.

Dube would play a whole 33 games in the NHL, accumulating a total of 2 points (1 goal, 1 assist) - he would see some time in the AHL before taking the trip across the waters to Europe to play.

Although Christian Dube has been long forgotten by most fans of the game but thanks to EA Sports I can still relive my childhood memories of placing him on my dynasty roster, now without the "create a player" feature - 'cause Dube can be found in the game under the Swiss-A league.  Not that I ever choose to anymore.

Warning: Hazardous Zone

Why?  Why did I even bother making an attempt at better organizing my card collection.  Sure, things looked bad the way they were before; cardboard boxes filled with random junk, towers of binders unevenly stacked against a wall and rows of stacked cards waited to be placed in a respectable spot that resembled the Himalayan mountains scattered my desk  - but now, now it looks like a bomb had gone off in my confined little collection space.

I thought it would be a neat idea to have a few open boxes on my desk filled with cards in penny sleeves, divided by player; in particular 'All-Star' players.  Got about a quarter into sorting and figured it wasn't going to work, I have just too many cards.

I mean in retrospect if I did manage to do as planned and divide my star players into boxes, I would still have a ton of cards without a home - unorganized, sloppy and taking up space.  I've seriously have purchased and done a few things in the hobby that would qualify me as a hockey card hoarder.

As of now I have no idea where I'm going to go as far as tackling this collection organization thing.  I really don't want to spend to much time on it, I would like to have the desk/space cleaned up pretty soon.  On the other hand I don't just want to tuck everything away without a rhyme or reason.

Ryane Clowe PC Mail Day + 2011-12 Panini Certified Pack Rips

I'm way to lazy to post an actual update on a few new pickups; I'm feeling slightly bummed over the fact that my car broke down in the parking lot outside the mall earlier today leading to it having to be towed to the garage - fingers crossed whatever is wrong with it is still covered under warranty.  I also have to work the graveyard shift tonight, at the moment I'm ready to tuck myself into bed and I haven't even started my shift yet.

So here are a couple videos that I recorded earlier...

2 Package Mail Day - 2011-12 Crown Royale Royal Lineage Patches - Episode 001

2011-12 Panini Certified 2 Pack Rip Recap + Panini Player Of The Day Extras - Episode 002

Ryane Clowe - PC Progress Update

Since starting my Ryane Clowe player collection a couple of weeks ago I've added quite a few new cards to my project.  By the numbers, I've increased my amount of Clowe cards from 9 to 25 (26 if you include the unredeemed redemption card I picked up) in hand.

Taking a page from the book of CardBoarded I decided to take a snapshot of my progress:

February 29, 2012

March 12, 2012

Just to clarify a few cards in the above photo; the third Upper Deck card is an Exclusive #d/100 and the two 2011-12 O-Pee-Chee cards near the bottom right are the Rainbow and Black Rainbow parallels - I'm still looking for the regular base card in the set to complete that rainbow.  Although I'd like to feature the majority of the new additions in this blog post, it's way too early in the morning to go on a scanning spree so I figured I would just post my 'biggest' card in the project thus far.

2011-12 Panini Crown Royale

Royal Lineage #d 28/50

Logan Couture, Ryane Clowe and Joe Thornton

Two color swatches from the starting three players of the Sharks.  In my opinion Clowe has the nicest piece on this card, I'm guessing that it's a cut from the home jersey collar.  There's also a one color swatch version and a Prime Patches version of this card unnumbered and #d to /25 accordingly - snatched myself one of each of those as well, just waiting for them to arrive.

The 2011-12 Panini Certified jersey and auto redemption card should be nice as well, if it ever arrives!  It's my second time applying for a redemption card; the previous account would be the 2011-12 Upper Deck Artifacts card that I applied for over the telephone many moons ago, on the first day of the Artifacts release to be exact.  Still haven't heard a peep from them or received my card.  I really hope that this redemption actually turns into something, until then I'll be impatiently waiting near the mailbox.

Online Group Box Breaks

I think I'm going to attempt to participate in my first ever online group box break, you know - those box breaks where you place a bid for a team, the box of product is broken, recorded and posted online.  If any of your teams cards are pulled then you receive them.  If none of your teams cards are pulled you go home empty handed.  Simple enough.

I've been tempted before - at an opening bid of just 0.99 for a chance at something shiny and nice I figure you can't go wrong.  Or can you?  It almost seems to good to be true; a contributing factor that lead me to this assumption is the question, how does one break a $100+ product and let bids go for just under a dollar?  I haven't exactly followed any previous box break bids so it's very possible that all bids increase towards the end to a considerable amount, enough to cover the box price and then some.

Anyone partake in an online group box break before?  Did you so happen to win a jackpot hit or did you go home with the insides of your pockets hanging out, empty top loader-less?  Maybe there's something that I should know beforehand, let me know.