2011-12 NHL Hall of Fame Inductees...

This year's Hall of Fame inductees are....

Joe Nieuwendyk (KNEE-when-dike) Center. (SEN-ter)

Joe ended his 20 year career with 564 goals, 562 assists in 1257 games. And three Stanley Cup wins with three different teams.

Joe's rookie card is this 1988/89 OPC #16. To show you how times have changed, Joe had already played 2 seasons BEFORE this card came out, including scoring 51 goals the season before.

 Mark Howe (HOW) Defence (DEE-fents)

Mark Howe, famous for more than being one of Gordie's sons, retired after 22 seasons in both the WHA and then the NHL. Combined, Mark scored 405 goals and 841 assists.  No Stanley Cups, but two Avco Cups in the WHA with Houston, '74 and '75.

Mark's rookie card is from the '75/76 OPC WHA set, which I do not have sadly. So enjoy his card from the '77/78 OPC WHA set instead.

 Mark did have a card in the '73/74 OPC WHA set, but apparently it does not count as a rookie card like it would in baseball.

Ed Belfour (BELL-4) Goalie (GO-lee)

Eddie the Eagle, probably best known for his masks than anything, finished a 17 year career with one Stanley Cup win in 1999 with Dallas. In those 17 years he had a record of 484-320-125 with a 2.50 GAA.
Ed's inclusion into the H.O.F. is marginal at best, however with the bar set at Grant Fuhr, quite a few goalies from the '90's are going to get in.

Ed's rookie card came in the horroble card year of 1990/91. Upper Deck (seen here), Bowman, Pro Set and Score all had rookie cards of Belfour.

Doug Gilmour (DUG) Center (DUG)

Another marginal entry into the Hall. Mostly due to media popularity. But when Glen Anderson, Bernie Federko and Clark Gilles are in the Hall.... the bar is now set pretty low....
450 goals 964 assists for 8 teams. Traded 7 times.

Dug's rookie card is the '84/85 OPC seen here.

what I thought was a mint set is not as Dug here is the poster child for OPC off centeredness.

Congrats to all the new entries into the NHL Hall of Pretty Good. I mean, Fame.

Card Show Pickups, Part One - the swag

So as you all know I went to the Super Bossa Calgary Sports Fan Fest Extravaganza yesterday. I had asked in an earlier post some thoughts as to what I might find. Thanks for all of your support, however it is painfully obvious that not many of you have ever gone to a card show in Canada. (Canada, not toronto)

There were no oddballs (except for a couple of the dealers) no quarter boxes, no dime boxes. There was virtually no football, except for the Calgary Stampeders booth, but if you've ever watched them, you'd understand, there was no football. There was almost no baseball. At all. More on that in post Part Three.

It was hockey, hockey, hockey. And a lot of dealers had large stacks of autographs. But I didn't bite. If I want fake autos, I'll get them off of ebay like everyone else.

But first, we start off with the free swag promised us. On the show sell sheet, it states that Sunday is
"Collector Appreciation Day! Each paid admission will receive one of our famous "Bossa Super Bags!" with Upper Deck hockey packs, rare hockey cards, autographed memorabillia, and more!"

Okay, let's take a look at what $16 paid admission ($8 each as my wife came with me...) gets. Here are the rare hockey cards.

some 2010 cards called Biography of a Season, and three Sportflic type 2006 cards, all of Crosby/Ovechkin.

No packs. None.

In one bag there was a 1/32 scale Diecast Vancouver Canucks Zamboni. Lame. So lame, no photo for you.

In the other bag was an autographed picture of Doug Gilmour.

Not bad. Can't complain about that. But not exactly what the show sell sheet was promising.

Meh.... no big deal. Next post, the purchases....