I've been sitting on a bunch of purchases from late 2013 that needed to be recorded, scanned, and posted, and I'm finally getting around to those. In many cases I may just mash up purchases by player instead of online store to make things easier. We'll see just how many posts I get out of this series, which I'm going to abbreviate COMC-JC-SL 2013.
It's Friday night, and that means one thing in a major Midwest college town. Well, it means lots of things, obviously, especially involving alcohol and especially not involving pants. But for the purposes of this post, it means one thing: college hockey! Traditional powers Wisconsin and Michigan square off in a Big 10 Hockey series (which I love, love, love, by the way) tonight and tomorrow.
So why not celebrate with some hockey pickups from last year? These all came from COMC, which is no surprise since Justcommons doesn't do hockey and it's not really financially sensible on Sportlots. Here's an album page worth of pickups for my icer PC:
Shawn Hunwick 2012-13 Artifacts RC (#092/999)
Shawn Hunwick 2012-13 Black Diamond RC
I haven't exactly raced off to a fast start to my Hunwick PC, but in light of surprisingly high prices, I'm slowly working my way through it. A few have actually arrived in trades with Doug of SCFtDS (he does hockey now?) but I've purchased the rest myself. I try to keep hits under $10 and others under $3, and these two RCs fit the latter category. The Artifacts card has a very cool "blue ice" thing going on for it, plus it's numbered, which is a big plus. The Black Diamond, meanwhile, is a pretty typical Upper Deck foilfest, and other than being difficult to scan nicely, looks pretty good. And of course I love that both feature some permutation of his Michigan equipment, which is one of the best thing in hockey cards ever. I'm so, so glad that Topps isn't really involved with hockey cards!
Hunwick now sits at 9/71 (or so, that may have updated) cards, and I look forward to hitting double digits!
Jack Johnson 2007-08 SPx dual jersey auto RC (#743/999)
Al Montoya 2005-06 SPx jersey auto RC (#0528/1499)
Continuing with the Upper Deck hockey theme, here's a great pair of relic/auto RCs of former Michigan stars. The Johnson actually looks pretty nice despite being so purple! You wouldn't think it of an enforcer-type, but Jack has an outstanding signature, and I'm thrilled to add a major RC of one of the better recent Wolverine D-men. I'm now just a card short of double-digits when it comes to JMFJ.
Montoya takes me back to my years at school when I had season tickets for the first time, 2002-03, and watched as phenom G Montoya led the team to yet another Frozen Four appearance. Michigan never won any titles with Al in net, but he was a fun guy to watch make highlight reel saves, and he wasn't afraid to throw a punch or two either! I now stand at three hits of the Jets goalie, who's 9-4 on the year as of this post (get this man a starting gig!).
Brendan Morrison 2000-01 BAP Signature Series auto
Brendan Morrison 2006-07 Be A Player Signatures auto
Well of course I added another pair of autos to my Morrison collection--who wouldn't at COMC prices? Be-A-Player is a fantastic set for casual collectors like me who want signatures of non-stars for cheap. That's probably the reason I already have four others (1, 2, 3, 4) of Brendan in my collection from that set! While I prefer the design, plus on-cardedness of the auto of the 00-01 version, the 06-07 has a funny photo, plus shows B-Mo with an assistant captain's patch, so that's cool. He's the subject of today's milestone as I now have 20 hits of the former Hobey-winner and NCAA champion!
Eric Nystrom 2005-06 ITG Heroes and Prospects jersey
Speaking of Doug C., as I was earlier, here's something relevant to his interests as he also collects Nystrom, who was a 2/14 baby as well. ITG is another fun set that probably appeals well to true hockey lovers as it showcases some cool pieces from players at the lower levels. In my case, I already had a similar card of Andy Hilbert, and again, it's a fantastic swatch, huge and multi-colored. Essentially, this is what a relic card should be.
This card depicts Eric as a member of the now-defunct Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights, his first pro team before joining the Flames. Nystrom, by the way, scored four goals in a game recently for Nashville against those very Flames (the Preds still lost). I now have five hits of the son of hockey legend Bob to my credit.
Steve Shields 2002-03 BAP Signature Series auto
Goalie #2 today is Steve Shields, a much-traveled backup type who skated for six teams during his 10-year career. I actually now have his autograph on a card for five of those six, including this Boston issue, as well as Buffalo, San Jose, Anaheim, and Florida. All are BAP cards--are you shocked? I'll have to see if he ever got an autograph as a member of the 2005-06 Thrashers; a quick check leads me to believe the answer is "no."
Marty Turco 2003-04 Topps Pristine auto
As usual, I tried to land at least one new Turco, today's goalie #3 and my oft-proclaimed favorite Michigan hockey alum ever. Also, Topps apparently found a way to sneak into the UD/BAP/ITG love-fest! This is actually a pretty sweet signature card, though, featuring a great photo, a foiled-up design, and a nice spot for Marty's solid John Herbie Hancock. It happens to fall kind of toward the first third of my Turco collection, which right now spans 2001-02 to 2010-11. By the way, Marty laughs at Morrison's 20-card "milestone" as he continues to reign supreme in the collection with 23 hits, 10 of which are now autographs!
I still have lots of baseball PC players and some football to get to, so stay tuned!
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