Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Playoff OT Hockey

OH...MY...GOD...playoff overtime hockey is killing me...both teams so could have ended it...

Figures that Semin takes the only penalty of the first OT...friggin guy takes more dumbass penalties!!!  Caps survived, barely, and its on to the second OT...OY!!!!!

LET'S GO CAPS!!!!!!

WOW - gonna take a third OT to decide this one in DC tonight...WHEW...getting hard to watch these guys out there busting there asses shift after shift.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Trade Alert!!!!

Dave from Wax Stain Rookie offered me a trade recently that I was more than happy to accept since it involved adding a few new Ovechkin jersey cards to my collection!  You can check out what I sent him on his blog, but for my part I received the following:

2007-08 Upper Deck

In addition, he also sent me the following quad jersey card featuring Mr. Ovechkin, Tomas Fleischmann, Rod Brind'Amour, and Eric Staal from the 2009-10 MVP set:



He also threw in a few autos featuring current Capital Karl Alzner from this years Artifacts:


As well as former Caps Jason Allison and Eric Fehr:


Thanks Dave, it was a pleasure dealing with you again!!!

Double Tap

About a month ago, I stopped into my LCS as picked up a few packs of 2011-12 Black Diamond and O-Pee-Chee.  I have been having a pretty decent year from a hits perspective, and this little trip ended up being no exception as I pulled an auto from a pack of both brands!!

Funny thing about the autos...well, I will let them do the talking:


Yup, two Brett MacLean autos from two different products opened within minutes of each other!!  What are the odds??

This happen to anyone else before??

Thursday, April 26, 2012

WHEW

WOW the Senators pressure on Rangers for the last few minutes of game 7 have been amazing!!!  I so hope they score...I am tired just watching them... Too bad about the Sens...Caps and Rangers in Round 2. Gonna be a good one! Also, I know that the second period just started in Florida, but there are a TON of empty seats. Piss poor if you ask me.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A Retail Six-Pack

I recently found six 2011-12 Score packs at a local store that does not usually have hockey cards, so I went ahead and bought em...boy am I glad I did!!!

The six packs yielded two darn good hits in the form of the following cards:

Craig Smith SP RC - This card is an error card since Panini somehow forgot to number it!!
Back Side - OOPSIE!!
Craig finished 8th in rookie scoring with 14 goals and 22 assists in 72 games for Nashville.  Not a bad pull!

 The second card was a super cool surprise:

2011-12 Score Signatures #65 Tuukka Rask Auto
Very cool hit in my book!!  This kinda makes up for that Daniel Sedin Score redemption auto I am still waiting for from Panini requested in 2010...but only kinda!!

More to come!!

Thanks.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Where were you on Saturday February 5, 1994???

I can tell you where I was on that day...sitting in Section 220, Row V, Seat 3 at the U.S. Air Arena in Landover Maryland attending NHL Game #25 featuring my Washington Capitals versus the Tampa Bay Lightning.  See, I even still have the ticket stub to prove it:


We moved recently, and as part of the move I found my stash of Washington Capital ticket stubs from the early 90's.  This one ticket stood out to more than any of the others since it represented the one time I was witness to a number of records being broken by one of the greatest players ever to lace up the skates for the Capitals:  Peter Bondra!

A little refresher for those who may or may not recognize this name.  Peter "Bonzai" Bondra played 17 seasons in the NHL, the first 14 with the Capitals, he also played parts of a season with the Senators and Blackhawks, as well as one season with the Thrashers.  He ended his NHL career in 2006 with 503 goals and 892 points.

He is the Capitals franchise leader in points (825), goals (472), Power Play Goals (137), Shorthanded Goals (32), and Game Winning Goals (73) and will be for some time.  By comparison, Ovechkin (going into the start of the 2011-12 season) ranks third in points (more than 200 behind Bondra), third in goals (171 behind), second in powerplay goals (39 behind), and third in game winning goals (21 behind) and somewhere near the bottom of the list with shorties (Ovie has 4, which is 28 behind).

Oddly enough, his last base card was issued in 05-06, even though he played 37 games for the Blackhawks in 2006-07 (SHAME on Upper Deck for blowing him off, especially in light of his reaching the 500 goal mark).  Would it have been that hard to drop a card in for him in the 06-07 Series 2 release or in any of the 07-08 releases??  ANYWHO...back to my original point of this post...

There I was on February 5, 1994, sitting in Section 220, Row V, Seat 3 at the U.S. Air Arena in Landover Maryland attending NHL Game #25 featuring my Washington Capitals versus the Tampa Bay Lightning...unaware that I was about to witness history!!

On this night, against a hapless Lightning team, Bonzai potted 5 goals in a 6-3 rout.  He scored a natural hat trick in 2:09 of the second period (which is still a team record and a long way off from the NHL record of 29 seconds).  Further, the time between his first and second goals was 15 seconds, also a team record.  With his four goals in a period, he joined a short list of players to accomplish that feat...with names like Lemieux and Gretzky.  He added a fifth goal later in the game to finish off the evening.  An night to remember forever!!

I have not been able to find any video from that game on the Internet (who knows if it even exists) but would love to see it again...

Thanks for your time!!!


P.S. - Things have gone a little haywire in my live recently and I fell off the blogging wagon as a result.  I hope to get back to doing more posts soon!!!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Another Tease!! The Pack Break is loaded!!!!!!

After waiting what seemed like forever, the pack of 1986-87 Topps has finally arrived...and I will be recording the pack break for my blog shortly...Roy rc?????  God I hope so...



THE BREAK!!!!


Thanks!!!!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

A tease....UPDATED!!!!

Stopped by the LCS to get penny sleeves and bought 4 11-12 Black Diamond and 3 Pinnacle packs...

The results...a 1 of 1 auto and a ruby quad rc...as well as a jersey...will post more when home at scanner...


Giggity....

--------------------------UPDATED-------------------------------

OK, sorry for the long delay...I am sure you have all been waiting so anxiously by your computers for hours in the hopes of getting a glimpse of my results...so wait no further!!

First off, I really like the design of the black diamond set again this year...which is all I am going to say about that!! Of the four packs purchased, it got a hit in EACH pack!!  A double (Getzlaf), and triple (Couture) diamond featuring stars of today, a Quad rookie, and a ruby quad rookie!!!  Not a bad way to start the collection I dare say!  I also feel bad for the next guy to come in looking for a big pull from that box, as I took out two of the handful in the box!!

One of the neat things I noticed right off the bat was the inclusion of stars of yesterday.  Now this is not exactly an uncommon practice for UD, as they have been doing it for some time in other releases (Artifacts, The Cup, Ultimate) .  However in this case, these stars are now included in the single diamonds, whereas in the past they had been in the double or above!  Case in point, I pulled cards for Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier, both of which are single diamonds.  I really like the Messier single, as its a very old photo of him in his Oilers uniform...which adds a really nice touch to the card:



This next card, was a surprise as I missed it in my first run through of the packs (since I was out my with my kids).  It is a quad rookie for Aaron Palushaj from the Canadians:


The quad rookie ruby is for Devante Smith-Pelly numbered 098/100.  He has played in 32 games for the Ducks and holds the distinction of being one of the only players with a hyphenated name in the league (unconfirmed since I don't have THAT much time on my hands):



As for the Pinnacle packs, I had two hits, a jersey and the auto.

The jersey is for a guy who started his career with the Edmonton Oilers WAY back in the mid-90's, and was just re-acquired by them from the Kings in the off-season.  He is having a great year with 32 points in 41 games and seems to be well on his way to his best season since 05-06, Mr Ryan Smyth:


Its interesting to note that the card itself talks nothing about Ryan's accomplishments, but about the Oilers and the team's accomplishments (something about 4 Stanley Cups with some guy named Gretzky, whoever that is...).

And last but certainly not least, we come to the grand-poo bah of hits from today...I did a double and triple take when I looked at the back of this bad boy just to make sure...I will refrain for any further blah-blah and let the card do the talking...



All I have to say is WOW!!!  This would now bring my total of 1/1 cards personally pulled from packs to two (three total if you include the printing plate pulled for me in a group break I participated in last year)...how sweet it is!!!!

Thanks for your time!!

Chris

Friday, January 6, 2012

Linked to the Android...

Finally got the damn Android to sync to Blogger...only took a month.

An on the fly shot of my dog and my card hall of fame on the wall in my half-man cave.