Monday, August 15, 2016

2016 COMC purchases: Hunwick and another hockey Mike

It's time to show off more COMC pickups.  Why am I posting hockey cards today, in the middle of August?  Because I have just two so it'll be quick and easy to scan and post them.
Shawn Hunwick 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee Retro
It's been a little bit but I now have my 22nd of Hunwick's 71-card run thanks to this Retro parallel from 2012-13 OPC.  Here's his base rookie for comparison:
The Retro version is naturally plainer, but while that makes it a bit more boring I do like being able to see his pads in the shot, whereas the base version covers up a ton of the photo in a way that immediately brings Idiocracy to mind:
Anyway, as always it's fun to see Hunwick in his full getup, which is completely Michigan-centric except for his jersey.

Hopefully I can start making faster progress on his PC, but for now his prices just don't make enough sense to me.
Mike Van Ryn 2006-07 Be A Player Signatures auto
Today's other card introduces yet another Michigan Hockey Mike to my collection!  After adding Mike Brown recently I noticed that I somehow hadn't tracked down a hit of defenseman Mike Van Ryn, a two-year Wolverine who won a title with the '97-'98 squad and returned for one more year.  Having been drafted by New Jersey at #26 overall in 1998, he then headed to the Devils' system before winning an arbitration ruling that made him a free agent, allowing him to sign with St. Louis.  He ended up playing three seasons with the Blues, four more with Florida, and his final campaign in Toronto.  Apparently he's now the head coach for Doug's Kitchener Rangers, which is very cool.

Considering how well it represents underappreciated guys who would otherwise likely be hitless, I'm not remotely surprised that Be a Player is the product that came through with this very nice Van Ryn signature.  In fact, more than 30 of my Michigan Hockey hits hail from that fantastic product.  Speaking of that collection, Van Ryn is the 45th member, not to mention the sixth Mike!

That's it for hockey this time, and I don't anticipate posting any more cards from that sport for a bit unless I get another trade package from Doug, so stay tuned for a bit of baseball and plenty of football.

2 comments:

  1. Van Ryn stepped down earlier this off-season for the always popular "spend more time with family" reason.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooof, good to know. I may enlist your help finding some other first hits of Michigan guys soon!

      Delete