Sunday, January 5, 2020

Completed Set: 1984-85 Topps Hockey

The 1984-85 Topps Hockey set is terrific, but it's also a bit of a puzzler. Here's a classic clip from The Simpsons to set the theme.




Let's apply that back-and-forth discussion to this set, but in a much less mysterious, dark, cursed kind of way:

First, the 1984-85 hockey design was clearly inspired by the 1983 Topps Baseball release, which might make you think the designers were being a bit lazy. 



That's bad.

But at the same time, adjustments were made to that design to give it a more active, angular look that really works for hockey. And the colors match each team better than they do in the baseball set.

That's good!

I mean, just look at these three cards and tell me the combination of action and design scores anything but a 10 out of 10:




Next, the size of the set. It's minuscule. There are only 165 cards in all, compared with 396 in the O-Pee-Chee version. 

That's bad.

But at the same time, that size makes it relatively easy to complete, even 35 years after its release. I just completed my second set, in fact.

That's good! 

That minuscule size means Topps left out some very attractive rookie cards. Cam Neely, Doug Gilmour, and Chris Chelios rookies only appear in the O-Pee-Chee version.

That's bad.
 
However, the absence of those cards makes the Topps set more affordable.

That's good! (Sort of.)

So as a hockey card collector, what do you do?

Well, I still say you should go for it. You can probably find a large stack of these cards for a reasonable price, and with the set being so small, one large stack means you can be more than halfway to a complete set.

You can even do what I did a few years ago when I was building this set for the first time: Buy a wax pack or two, open them, and add some of those cards to your setyou know, the old-fashioned way. 

Packs are not as cheap as they used to be, partly because Topps used a heat-sealed tamper-proof plastic wrapper for that year's hockey packs instead of the standard wax wrappers (another puzzler!), but the nostalgia you'll feel will be worth it.

And another reason to try that out? Well, because the entire set consists of only 165 cards, and each pack contains 15 cards, there's a pretty decent chance you'll find at least one or two star players in your pack. Take one of the packs I bought for an example:





That's the first Topps card for Housley and Bellows, Barrasso's All-Star card from his rookie year, Coffey and Bourque are HOFers (as is Housley), and of course the Yzerman rookie card (another HOFer). All in the same pack.


Here are a few other cards from the set that I enjoy.



Watch as Guy Lafeur and Mike Bossy show you proper crossover technique (left-over-right and right-over-left), while Michel Goulet shows you very nice form on a pass.


 
The goalies had some nice cardboard in this set. On the right, there's Billy Smith with the kick save. In the middle, Gilles Melloche makes an equally nice stick save. On the left, it's Murray Bannerman with the great combo of turtleneck, old-school mask, leather pads, and super-cool 80s font on the Canadien goalie stick.



Here's Brian Sutter busy doing a Sutter brother thing (not giving an inch), plus Ken Morrow jumping into the action and a Pat LaFontaine rookie card. Note that the O-Pee-Chee version of this set contains all six Sutter brothers. The Topps version did not include Duane and Rich. I wonder if all six of them went over to the Topps headquarters to rough some guys up for that omission.


 
And here's Wayne and Mike on the All-Star card design, plus the checklist. They fit all 165 cards between the front and back.



Finally, here's an example of a card back. When space allowed, Topps did a nice job with the write-ups, often mentioning a highlight or two from the player's previous season. I like how they kept the hockey stick in the same neutral color as the border, which helps keep it subtle and in the background.

Now let's get back to the bad-good thing, because we've got more.


A total of 171 cards (or 162) would have made more sense for the 9-pocket page. A total of 165, however, leaves just three cards alone on the last page. 

That's bad.

And it's befuddling, because in that era Topps did consider how many cards would fill that last page in the binder. Just think of all the baseball sets that consisted of 792 cards. 

With no Topps version of a hockey set in 1982-83 or 1983-84, however, maybe it was a late decision by Topps to even produce a set in 1984-85, and 165 cards made for more efficient printing somehow.

Next, the distribution of cards per team. Perhaps Topps was hasty in trying to reduce the set by so many cards (396 down to 165), because here's the shakeout of base cards per team:
14 cards: Islanders
12 cards: Bruins, Red Wings, Rangers
11 cards: Sabres, Black Hawks, Whalers, North Stars
8 cards: Capitals
7 cards: Devils
6 cards: Kings, Flyers
5 cards: Penguins, Blues
3 cards: Flames, Oilers, Canadiens, Nordiques, Maple Leafs, Canucks, Jets

That's bad. (Also, wow, no love for the Canadian teams.)

To take one example of the odd distribution, the Whalers (last place in their division, missed the playoffs) received 11 cards in the base set, while the Oilers only received threeCoffey, Gretzky, and Kurridespite winning the Stanley Cup the season prior. No Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Kevin Lowe, Grant Fuhr, Andy Moog, Dave Semenko, or Charlie Huddy. They did have four of the All-Star cards at the end of the set as well, but three of those four were exactly the same playersCoffey, Gretzky, and Kurri. Messier was the fourth All-Star card.

So that's that. Overall, I think I count more "that's bad" than "that's good". But the design is so terrific that it certainly makes up for some of the bad. And regardless of the strange nature of this set, I'm happy to have completed it a second time. 

How do you feel about 1984-85 Topps Hockey? More good? More bad? Leave a comment, and thanks as always for reading.

17 comments:

  1. I really like the set. I don't have too many, but I do have most if not all of the Rangers. Weird how little Canadian coverage there was. Almost like the earlier days where Topps did the US teams and Pakrhurst did the Canadians.

    By the way, Frogurt entered my family's regular use after that...any soft serve ice cream is referred to as frogurt.

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    1. The word frogurt entered your family's regular use? That's good!

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  2. It's interesting to me how little effort Topps went into NHL and NBA sets at the time. It skipped the NBA entirely for a year and 165 cards for a major sports league?

    I don't know if Topps had 9-pocket pages in mind at the time. The baseball sets only went over to 792 cards in 1982. Before that they were 726 cards from 1978-81 (and 660 from 73-77) and that isn't divisible by 9.

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    1. Good points. I suppose Topps didn't have much of an R&D or analytics department back then. Also, the NHL only had 21 teams at that time and I can't imagine it was a hugely popular sport across the entire US. If nothing else, the set provides an interesting look back in history, doesn't it?

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  3. That's an awesome set. Love the design. But you're right, the distribution of cards per team is really, really off.

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    1. I wonder how many hockey-loving American kids noticed the oddity of the set back then. (Or maybe they were just happy to even have a set to collect after two years without one.)

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  4. six Sutters? okie dokie. This is a neat set of cards from an era when goalie masks were still scary. Meloche's little portrait shot is just so darn cute, although at first glance, thought he much resembled John Wilkes Booth. Then there's the Bannerman, which I do NOT have but will whine until I do. You own TWO sets? Well that certainly may be good for you but it's bad for me who owns zero sets. Was it the easy build that made you go for the second?

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    1. Yes, I had a pretty good stack of duplicates, including the Gretzky and Yzerman cards, so I figured why not try to put together a second set?

      Also, I've got a Bannerman card with your name on it!

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  5. I have the OPC set and considering Topps is only 165 cards, missing some key rookies and gave the defending Champs the shaft, i have to give this a thumbs down. I wonder how much airbrushed goodness you missed out on. I say go for gold and go OPC.

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    1. Heheh. Yes, if Topps had increased the number of cards in their set, I'm sure we would have gotten some airbrushed goodness. As for the O-Pee-Chee version, maybe I will go for it some day.

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  6. This is my favorite set of the 1980s, and I'm about 60 cards away from completing the OPC version. I'd have to assume that Topps assumed American collectors would be less interested in pulling cards of Canadian teams (before ESPN, the internet, and NHL Center Ice how would we have even seen those teams play)

    Also I just watched that Simpsons episode with my daughter about a week ago. We're going through the whole series (or at least the first 10 seasons or so) 1-2 episodes at a time.

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    1. Can't really blame Topps too much if that was their reasoning, can you? I'm sure the average US hockey fan back then didn't know a whole lot about the Jets or Canucks, for example.

      As for your Simpsons plan, that's great! Seasons 3, 4, and 5 contain so many brilliant episodes. You and your daughter will be laughing a lot.

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  7. Did your set come with a free frozen yogurt, which I call frogurt?

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    1. No free frogurt, but with all this talk about it maybe I'll go out and get some. (Just not the cursed kind.)

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  8. This is my all-time favourite set. From great action shots, to different colours for different teams, it's just perfection. I like the OPC set better because there were more cards.
    One difference between the Topps and OPC set was that players who were traded were with their old team in Topps, while they were with their new team in OPC. For example, Charlie Simmer (L.A. to Boston) and Darryl Sittler (Philadelphia to Detroit).

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    1. Interesting difference between the sets, Mike. I didn't know that. I might really have to try and tackle the O-Pee-Chee version one day.

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  9. Just discovered you via a link on A Cracked Bat. Checked out your want list. I have a dozen or so 1989 Upper Deck baseball available. Send me your address and Ill get them to you.

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