We're going back to the 1989-90 NHL season, where young Gregory Ninepockets has been bitten by the hockey bug and is attempting to complete the current year's hockey sticker album. Previous entries in this series available here.
1989-90 Gregory is psyched. It's summer break, and even though there's no hockey on TV, he's been playing in the driveway in sneakers. He's only got a stick and a few tennis balls, but it's still super-fun to imagine skating around on the ice. Maybe mom will see all the hard work and time spent learning the sport, and answer Gregory's pleas for a pair of roller skates. Maye even rollerblades.
But now it's almost noon. It's gotten a little too warm to be out there running around, stickhandling, and shooting tennis balls against the garage door. Time to go inside, cool off, and open a few more packs.
This time, it'll be 6 packs from the bottom left part of the box.
Pack 13
Another Wayne Gretzky base sticker emerges! What a great start. Young Gregory is feeling so good that he even chooses to ignore a sneaking suspicion that he's seen all 6 cards in this pack before.
Pack 14
Well that's a pretty cool action shot of Blackhawks goalie Alain Chevrier. But a similarly worrisome feeling has come to bother young Gregory again. A lot of the cards in this pack look the same, too. He checks his album against the cards in the pack, and . . . he was right! Five out of six are duplicates. Frustrated, he grabs the six cards from the previous pack, including the Gretzky.
What? All six cards from that pack are duplicates.
Ugh. The Gretzky sticker is great and all, but Gregory doesn't like where this is going.
Pack 15
The excitement from pulling a Patrick Roy duplicate was muted by the fact that all six stickers in this pack were duplicates, too. Young Gregory looks at the next unopened pack, picks it up, and hesitates. This nonsense couldn't happen again, could it? He peels open the wax seal, and. . .
Pack 16
. . .all duplicates AGAIN!
Alright, O-Pee-Chee. You had us feeling like the king of the mountain after all the great stickers we found last time. Now we're down on the ground.
Pack 17
Well whoop-de-doo. A duplicate of the Joe Sakic base rookie sticker. And a Guy Lafleur duplicate. Not only are we still down on the ground, but O-Pee-Chee is kicking us now.
Pack 18
Thanks goodness. In this pack, 5 out of 6 stickers were new. And the Tony Granato rookie subset sticker is a cool addition. In 1988-89, the American-born winger scored 36 goals—the most by any rookie that season—and added 27 assists for 63 points.
Favorite Page
Out of the 36 total stickers this time around, only 6 of them were new. However, 3 of those new stickers were Maple Leafs, so at least that page has gotten a boost.
Now here's the updated summary for the set build:
Main Set (182 total panels)
New panels: 6
New duplicates: 30
Total panels: 75
Total duplicates: 33
Panels needed: 107
Set completion: 41%
Future Star/All-Star Card Backs (34 total)
New backs: 0
New duplicates: 4
Total backs: 13
Total duplicates: 4
Backs needed: 21
Set completion: 38%
Best Stickers
Gretzky, Roy, and Sakic duplicates.
Man, 1989-90 Gregory is pretty bummed out by those results, but maybe he'll be able to trade some of those duplicates to friends at school.
How about you readers? Any specific memories of "collation frustration" back when you were kids?
Share in the comment section, and thanks for following along!
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