1968-69 OPC – Bob McCord

One of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year was to try to get a least one card from every OPC set. I can now safely say I have done just that as I crossed off a card from the 1968-69 OPC set.

The funny thing is that for the longest time i thought this was a Topps card (as it says T.C.G) and had it in my Topps/trader pile. The “Printed in Canada” finally clued me in.

Not much info on the career of Bob McCord. He played 316 games in the National Hockey League. He played for the Minnesota North Stars, Detroit Red Wings, and Boston Bruins.

In the minors he was considered one a stay-at-home defenceman and named to the QHL second all-star team in 1959 and placed on the AHL first all-star team twice and second all-star squad three times.

He also was an assistant coach in the WHA with the Ottawa Civics.

More importantly “to me” Bob McCord wil;l live on as the first card I ever owened from the 1968-69 OPC set

Huge Haul For The White Whale

I really like the generosity of other bloggers, I’ve been approached by a few people with offers of help on The White Whale and i really appreciate it. The Base set, Retro set, pop ups and stickers are almost done!

So, please if you get a chance to check out the White Whale Need list and you can help..let me know!

Thanks in advance

Lunch Time Pick Up – Red Wing Mystery

As mentioned in my last post..the LCS is very close.
So close that today I walked down and exchanged pocket lint and spare change for…

1970-71 Larry Jeffrey Detroit Red Wings

Not bad centering. Great non action pose. Pretty much the model for the 2012-13 Retro OPC Parallel.

What’s super cool about this card? Larry Jeffrey was not a part of the Wings that year. he sat out the entire season due to injuries. The back of the card lists him as being in the Detroit Farm system.

According to my notes he had not played with the Red Wings for about 5 years by this time. His last 4 years were with the Leafs (with them for the ’67 Cup) and Rangers.

His rights were acquired back by the Red Wings but he did not play with them again. In fact he appears to have retired after the 1969 season(thanks Wikipedia).

Vintage from the LCS

I’m pretty lucky that there is a card store close enough for me to walk to on my lunch, spend 1/2hr poking around at, and get back in time to eat my lunch at my desk.

Lately I have been limiting myself to $20 max as I wait for the spring/summer yard sales to start up again. Kijiji has been a bit of a wasteland lately.

I read a lot of other blogs and I hear about the “dime box” or the “quarter box”. I guess the equivalent they have at this store is the “Vintage Cards at Vintage prices” where the newest cards are from 1981 and almost everything is under $1.00

1st up. 1974-75 Bernie Parent Conn Smythe Winner
Bernie was a great goalie on some great Philadelphia flyer teams. Also the first Conn Smythe Winner on a losing team.

Next up. A Bob Wall from the 1970-71 Season.
Slightly off centred, but love those awesome purple kings jerseys.
Not a big fan of sets with only one year of stats on the back. but I do like the cartoon.
Lots of wasted space.

Introducing Greg. Boddy 73-74 OPC
Not sure why they felt the need to highlight the fact that Greg is the short form of Gregory
What I hate more than just showing one line of stats? Showing one line and not even showing career totals. In this case it’s because it’s his RC. Happy RC Greg.

Competition for the White Whale

I’ve created a monster. But a good monster. I don’t have kids so my only hope for passing on my love of sports cards goes to my nieces and nephews, or my best friends kids. For the longest time it looked like the end of the line..but there is a glimmer of light.

My nephew turned 9. He loves hockey. He discovered hockey cards. He discovered his Uncle’s hockey card collection. He left home with a “starter” box of about 3,000 various junk wax cards and a hope from me he would actually enjoy them. And to my joy he did!

I’m trying not to push him to hard, but I make sure whenever I see him I have something to trade and he has gone to the Card store in his hometown with his dad. They live in a small town so it was a small shop. This past weekend I took him to my favorite card store in Toronto. He was blown away. I figured I would just take a quick visit and maybe check for a few cards for The White Whale and he wanted to go through EVERYTHING on my want list. I had to explain to him that we would be there all day so we settled for spending an hour or so poking through the packs and boxes. Looking at the displays. The look on his face was priceless.

I asked him what he wanted to collect. He said “Same as you Uncle Trevor” which I had to admit was pretty cool. So I bought him a few packs of 12-13 OPC Hockey.

Little bastard held me hostage for a Black Rainbow I needed!

I have trained him too well.

4 More Black Rainbows

And Stan Mikita (of Stan Mikita’s Donut Fame)

Road trip to the BBHOF

My best friend and I took a roadtrip to the Baseball Hall Of Fame. I don’t remember much about what happened that night (we stopped in Syracuse for the night on the way back to Toronto and sampled many of the fine (and some not so fine) local brews)

The BBHOF was fantastic though. Seeing as it was off season it was very quiet. I would expect the place and town to be rammed full on a nice summer day or during inudction weekend. Outside the hall pretty much every store on the main street is some type of memorabilia shop. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t much Hockey stuff.

The HOF is well set up, has a ton of excellent exhibits and kept too 40-somethings entertained for 4 hours. Of course for me one the best parts was the Card display.

As a novice baseball collector it was great to see the history of the cards spread out. I spent a ton of time, just looking at each year so I could get a feel for the progression of design, style and stars.

Now I know many people are out there who want to go or dream of going so I don’t want to post too many pictures or give away details other than to say definitely worth it if you get a chance to go.

Peter Mueller & Assist Leaders – White Whale

It’s been an incredibly busy couple of weeks as I work at a travel company that specializes in High School and University/College travel and we have 1000′s of passengers going away over spring break and march break.

But it’s been too long since I posted so here is a quick one.

Pete Mueller
2012-13 OPC Signature.

I liked him when he was with the Avalanche, but now that he has signed in Florida he is dead to me. I just have always had a hard time drafting Florida players into my hockey pools.

I also picked up another of the league leaders cards. This one is the assists.

I know the goal guys get all the glory, but they need the set up men.

So for anyone else keeping count
that puts me at:
OPC Signatures: 2/30 = 6%
League Leaders: 5/9 =55%

As of February 18th, 2013, I am at 986 cards. So just a smidgen over 27% down.

As always..any help on 12-12 OPC Hockey would be appreciated. Check out the updated list at http://supportingtheminnow.wordpress.com/the-white-whale/