a sad day in Calgary

I'm sure you've heard the news by now. Calgary has traded Elisha Cuthbert, I mean, Dion Phaneuf to the Toronto Maple Laffs.
This means no more "accidently" running into her at the grocery store she shops at. No more stuffing the pool boy into a garbage can and stealing his uniform and equipment to, ah, clean the pool while they tan poolside.... I hope someone let the poolboy out...

I'm shocked that Phaneuf was traded... one of the top blueliners in the NHL, and the most devastating hitter. But I guess when you get in an argument with the coach over how the team should be run, you gotta go. Now some of you may say, wait. He's a star. Owners and General managers listen to the stars nowadays. Yeah, well, um.... the GM is the coaches brother. So yeah.

Bottom line, our team is weaker than before. We added "depth". That's an industry term to describe the pile of crap you receive when you get bent over the trade table. Plus, Dion is locked in for four more years at a reasonable $6.5 mil each. The four guys we got are all free agents at the end of the year. Perfect.

Did I mention we gave up this?

At least if they had traded him to Ottawa for either Mike Comrie or Mike Fisher, we'd get something back. For those of you who don't know, they are dating Carrie Underwood and Hilary Duff. Don't ask me which one is which. I can't even tell Comrie and Fisher apart let alone Duff and Underwood.

A sad day in Calgary....

Something a little cheerier...

My old bud, The Collective Troll stepped up and sent me a whack o' '76 Topps. Too many to list... among the highlights
A Willie
a Reggie

and an Expo. One of two Expos in the Hall of Fame.

If you can help in my eternal quest to finish this set, please go here to see my needs. They used to be wants. They are now needs. LINK

The ones in RED are hopefully on their way from helpful people, including some more from Troll.

Thanks to Marck and everyone else who has helped me with this.

Oh the Humanity!

Thanks for the comments on the last post... I had a few ideas of how to make a fun post out of them, but I'm too depressed.
Yeah. My card shop is closing it's doors. Tomorrow is it's last day.
Well, technically no. It's moving to Vancouver. This shop is part of a larger wholesale card store chain from back east, and moved into Calgary over a year ago. Unfortunately, Calgary, the nations second largest city, cannot support it the way other cities can.

So they are moving their western Canadian distribution to Vancouver. Apparently it's a lot better there. More hobby enthusiasts. And a lot more card shops / places that sell cards. It's tough trying to make it in a city where there are only two card shops I guess. I know it's tough shopping here.

So there wasn't anything really left to buy... most of it was packed up. I did grab one box, which I will share later. Kind of an oddball set. And pages. Six boxes of pages. He sold them at $15 each instead of the normal $20-$22 each at the other places. So I stocked up. I'm a set collector remember.

Now I have to go back to getting everything online. And waiting.

Crap.

Going to the cardstore...

The good one. The one where he doesn't expect you to sign over your mortgage for a box of '91 Donruss. It's about 50 - 60 minutes away, so I don't get there as often as I'd like.

What will I come back with? Any guesses?

And no, typhoid is not a guess.

a little T206 help if you please...

awhile back in one of Joe Collectors group breaks, I was fortunate enough to acquire a Tommy Hanson Cyan Printing Plate. Behold. Glorious.
Now, T206 was a product that I basically ignored when it came out. I wasn't going to collect the set, and I knew I'd get a pretty good chunk of the Braves team set in Joe's break. Here's where I need the help... this is the back of the Tommy Printing Plate.

That there is the actual Printing Plate for card 262 Tommy Hanson.

Here is the back of the card that the plate printed. Card 262.

Now here is the front.

WTF? I get a picture of Tommy in mid raspberry? (BTW, how many pitchers are confident enough to raspberry the batter as they are about to be struck out?)

How did this.....

become this?

I'm sure there are many of you who can help me. Dayf and his master cranial checklist.... maybe even Night Owl. He works in the newspaper industry. I'm sure he's run through the plant screaming "STOP THE PRESSES" at least once.

How do we go from "The Staredown"

to "The Raspberry"

oh, and for those of you who have Braves in this set, and are just dying to share, I have Tommy, Jair Jurrjens, Kris Medlin, Yunel Escobar, Casey Kotchman, Jordan Schafer, Nate McLouth, Derrick Lowe, Brian McCann, Garrett Anderson, Javy Vazquez, Chipper Jones, and Kenshin Kawakami. I also have a McLouth Piedmont mini, and a Kawakami Gold/Bronze/Brown border thingy...

Am I missing anyone?

Stat O' the Day

Peyton Manning's 2010 salary - $14,000,000

Donovan McNabb's 2010 salary - $25,000,000
I wonder if the guy who made that decision for Philly still has his job?

Vikings Win Super Bowl!!! Favre Named MVP!!!

This just in.... The National Football League has just announced that the Minnesota Vikings have been named Super Bowl Champion and that Brett Favre has won MVP.

In a statement, Commisioner Roger Goodell starts off by apologizing to the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints, but states that it is too good of a story to let actual results stand in the way. Quote ".... in a league meeting two weeks ago, the Board of Governors decided that Minnesota and Lord, I mean Brett, Favre should win the Super Bowl. We instructed our officials to make it happen. Unfortunately, they couldn't quite do it, despite a great effort on their part."
He continued; " once the NFC Championship ended the wrong way, we decided to just go ahead and award the Lombardi trophy now, rather than wait the requisite two weeks. We're ecstatic that the season could end the way we wanted. We couldn't have scripted it any better."

The ceremonies were dampened a little when Brett handed the Lombardi trophy to Adrian Peterson, who fumbled it. Thankfully, it didn't break.

When reached for comment, Saints coach Sean Payton had this to say. "f%$k Favre"
Peyton Manning could not be reached for comment, as he was busy filming a commercial.

Conference Championships...

Jets @ Indianapolis 1:00 MST

Vikings @ Saints 4:40 MST

Should be a great day of football. How are you doing in the contest?

Sooooooo close....

Thanks to my good friend, the not so Average Joe, who sent me 10 of the last 11 cards I need for 2009 Allen & Ginter set completion, I am down to needing this one last card.

#347 Yovani Gallardo. Here's what he looks like...
anybody got a spare Yovani?

Joe also sent me some other goodies which deserve their own post. Coming soon. Thanks Joe!

I'm on a roll....

2010 is turning out to be a good year for hits. First, if you remember (and I keep reminding you, so how can you forget?) I pulled this patch /50 beauty.
Yesterday, I cracked open a box of 2007 Upper Deck Football looking for a Peterson Star Rookie. No Peterson, but I did pull this.

Mr Larry Fitzgerald Philadelphia insert auto #'d 1/5

I have no idea what the odds on these Philly autos are... but I'm happy with this one.

Puttin' on the Hits, 2008 Masterpiece style...

A few days back, I posted this little beauty. I bought two boxes of this stuff for around $75. Since base cards bore most of you, I'll skip to the hits.

The following are black bordered and not serial numbered.

Next up, red borders #/199

then it gets confusing, one blue shade #/150....

green #/75

and another blue out of #/50

the jersey cards, two per box.

and the on-card autos, found one per box.

not too shabby. I love the set, and will buy more if I find any at the $35-$37 range again.

All of these are up for trade for similar cards of different players.... shoot me an email if interested.

Cartoon of the Day...

Denis is one of my favourite goalies of all time. He played for Pittsburgh several times, Kansas City, and Montreal. All great reasons to like him. But I think the real reason can be traced to this card.
I pulled this out of a pack as a kid way back when... after I read the back, I was in awe. He became one of my heroes that day.

"Denis drinks up to 8 milkshakes a day."

Awesome.

Amazing Stat of the Day

Combining Card of the Day, and WTF of the Day, I bring you Amazing Stat of the Day.

Behold, a 1989 Topps Traded Darrell Evans.
You all know Darrell was quite the hitter in his day, but did you know he also pitched?

Click to expand of course.... what do you think his most amazing pitching stat was? 1313 career wins? 1363 saves? 8697 IP?

See? If you read the backs of these things, you learn something new every day. Darrell Evans, Pitcher Extraordinaire.

Contest Update

After a decent weekend of playoff football, let's give a quick update as to where some of you stand.

AdamE - 60 pts
Don - 60 pts
madding - 60 pts
Mad Guru - 60 pts

the rest of you are lagging behind. Some of you are close, others....... not so much. Interesting that no one picked every game right.
Stay tuned as I'll have the next installment to the contest coming up in the next few days.

CBS Football coverage

I just got through the 3 hour CBS "Lovefest with Ray Lewis and Ray Rice" debacle. I think the announcers either had just came from, or were about to go to a huge sweaty manpile in the Ravens locker room.
Nothing like hearing how much in love they are with two men. An overrated linebacker resting on his reputation of five years ago, and a young back that they spent the entire evening comparing to Emmitt Smith.
Really? One of the greatest backs to play pro football? Isn't it a wee early for that?


Anyways, some quick hits on today's action...

New Orleans looked good. Good coaching got them ready to play after a month off...
The Arizona defence looked horrible. Again. Fix it.
I hope Kurt Warner comes back again next season... too good to hang it up now.

It's a good thing they were playing Baltimore, 'cause the Colts were not sharp. They better get it going for next week or they're done.

Can't wait for tomorrow's games.....

Everyone gather around...

It's playoff football time! Arizona at New Orleans, Baltimore at Indianapolis.

Boo yeah!

My wife already has the facepaint on....

Outgoing mail...

by my count, 11 packages went out yesterday, with another 3 going out on monday. Included in this is someone in the continental 48 getting Bipped.
You've been warned.

You asked for it...

by voting in the poll over on the sidebar, In The Game's 1972 The Year In Hockey.
This box cost me $85. 18 packs per box, 9* cards per pack. (only the packs with a "hit" have 9 cards, the others have a decoy card that can be used as points towards a redemption)
The set consists of 200 cards, no SP's! Along with a few insert sets.
First up, the base cards. Now we all know that ITG does not have the ability to produce licensed NHL hockey cards. So you will not see logos etc... but as usual, they do an outstanding job.

and for my special group of followers that worship all that is facial hair, I give you your Holy Grail. Mr. Cowboy Bill Flett.

awesome.

The NHL stars take up the first 100 cards including a checklist. For the next 50 cards, we are treated with some of the stars of the brand new WHA. (World Hockey Association)

Mr. Gilles Gratton, who once told his coach that he couldn't play that night because the moon was descending in the wrong house as Mercury was rising.... true story.

but Gratton is best known for his time with the Rangers and giving us this beauty...

The rest of the base set is divided up amongst the biggest hockey story of that particular year. Maybe all time. Canada vs. USSR. (please go here after finishing here, it's an amazing site) It changed hockey forever. Of course Canada was at a disadvantage with the NHL not allowing them to choose players from the new WHA.

The greatest goalie to never play in the NHL.

Each game (there were eight) gets a mini write up on it's own card.

Now as for inserts, I found several.... the first being one that I must admit I do not like. I just cannot understand the fascination with these, even as an obsessive compulsive player collector, I do not go for these...

Blank backs. I found two, They both look like this;

incredible, aren't they?

Next up, one of the best insert sets of the year.

Masked Men. I only found two in my box, but some boxes didn't get any.....

For those of you who remember Bernie Parent and his stark, white mask while playing for the Flyers....

this is from his days with the Blazers in the WHA.

I didn't get any cards in the Coaches inserts, but I did get this one in a trade.

Now the hits you've all been waiting for... each box will deliver you three ON CARD autos. Yeah. ITG does it right.

and one game used card. Now the game used could be from one of different levels of scarcity. The one I found was of the most common variety.

Although they are not individually numbered, according to the ITG website, there were between 70-90 of these produced. Not bad for the most common, eh?

All in all a great box to bust. I spent more time reading the cards than I care to admit.

For the first time, I believe ever, ITG has delivered a product where a set cannot be completed out of one box. I'm torn on this. As a set collector, I need to complete this set. But at $85 a box (at least, I've seen it a lot higher) this isn't realistic. But there's always trading, right?

I'll give it a 9/10 (dropping down to 18 packs from the normal 24, and the blank backs... otherwise this is a 10)