I can almost hear the collective groan from A Pack a Day readers as I begin typing up a post on the second of three consecutive hockey packs that I recently purchased. What I thought would be a fun experiment quickly went sour when the first pack of 1989 Topps went over like a lead balloon. I feel as though it's only right for me to provide a disclaimer up front for this '88 O-Pee-Chee pack. This pack is close to being a complete dud, so if you're not into hockey cards or you have better things to do you can safely browse on down to the excellent 1995 Donruss pack below and save yourself some time. If you're intrigued by cartoon thumb tacks on a sports card then please continue.
211 - Pelle Eklund - Philadelphia Flyers - See, I warned you that this wasn't going to be very exciting. Although you probably haven't heard of Pelle, he had a decent career in the NHL, tallying 455 points in 594 games.
47 - Ulf Dahlen - New York Rangers - Best mullet in the pack.
22 - Peter Stastny - Quebec Nordiques - One of two cards in the pack that caused me to warn you that the pack was "close" to a complete dud, rather than a flat out complete dud. Peter is a member of the NHL Hall of Fame and has the second highest career point total for a Slovakian. Can you guess who's ahead of him on that list?
4 - Tony McKegney - St. Louis Blues - Tony's Wikipedia entry claims that he's the first Black Canadien hockey player to make an impact in the NHL.
50 - Mike Gartner - Washington Capitals - The other card that saved this pack from complete disaster. Gartner was an incredible offensive player, scoring over 700 career NHL goals. He was traded to the New York Rangers in 1990 for the afore-mentioned Ulf Dahlen (Dahlen's mullet was considered heavily in the negotiations).
82 - Tony Tanti - Vancouver Canucks - In 1980-81, Tony broke the Ontario Hockey League record for most goals by a rookie by scoring 81 times. Whose record was it that he broke? None other than Wayne Gretzky.
55 - Ray Sheppard - Buffalo Sabres - The 20-year old gum from this pack was stuck so well to the back of Ray's card that his stats, as well as the brief paragraph about him, were both removed from the back of the card along with it. As a result, this card has been deemed a 1988 O-Pee-Chee bookmark and is stuck in the beginning pages of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.Hopefully the final pack of this hockey installment (which is much older) will be a little more exciting than this one was...
That wrapper looks more appropriate for 1968 rather than 1988. Did O-Pee-Chee have a monopoly that allowed them to just put the oh so descriptive "HOCKEY" on the front?
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you mention that, because I was thinking earlier that the '88 OPC wrapper was almost identical to the '89 Topps wrapper from my first hockey post with the exception of the background and primary colors being different.
ReplyDeleteI know Topps wasn't investing a lot of money in the hockey card industry in the 1980s but this was O-Pee-Chee's bread and butter, you'd think they could've stepped it up a little...
Old Hockey is good. Keep posting 'em. I'm posting crappy old Olympic packs, and boy is today's a stinkeroo...
ReplyDeleteI think you'll like the final hockey pack from this trilogy Dave. As a teaser, it might possibly be the oldest pack ever busted on A Pack a Day...
ReplyDeletekeep throwing them out there. Thes yanks need to see what Canada has to offer.
ReplyDelete(just be careful about mentioning the Flames around dayf. He still has issues)
That next pack better be amazing
ReplyDeleteFlames? Did someone say FLAMES???
ReplyDeleteThanks to goddamn Tom Cousins selling up out we're stuck with the stinkbutt Thrashers!
AAARRRGGGHH FLAAAAMES
My knowledge of hockey begins and ends with NHL '96 for the Sega Genesis, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI have a small random stack of hockey cards that I should give away to someone someday. I'm not sure I know who any of the players are, which is probably a bad sign as far as their potential value goes.
I happily take hockey cards
ReplyDelete