The 1989-90 OPC Hockey Sticker Album Project: Packs 7–12

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.

It's Sunday morning, and young Gregory has woken up early. Will he go into the kitchen to pour himself a bowl of cereal?

No.

Will he go into the living room, turn on the TV, and look for some cartoons?

No.

He's going straight over to his desk, where the 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee hockey album sits. The box of sticker packs is in the top-right drawer, and when he opens it up, he grabs 6 packs from the top-right segment of the box.

 

It's very quiet in the house, but young Gregory knows that wax packs aren't very loud if you open them carefully. So he gets right to work.

 

Pack 7

 

Sweet! A Brett Hull sticker, a Mario Lemieux Art Ross sticker, and a Mario Lemieux all-star! 

What did Super Mario do in order to win the Art Ross trophy the previous season? Are you ready for these numbers? 85 goals, 114 assists, 199 points. A remarkable 31 of those goals came on the power play, and another 13 came shorthanded. The total of 85 led the league, and the 114 assists tied for the lead with Wayne Gretzky. In his final game of the season, Lemieux scored 2 goals against the Flyers in a 6-5 overtime win. You'd have to imagine his teammates tried their hardest to get him to the 200-point mark. It's too bad they came up one point short!

As for Brett Hull, while young Gregory was finding sticker #22 above, The Golden Brett was starting to come into his own. He'd lead the entire league in goals with 72, which would be 10 more than his nearest competitor, Steve Yzerman.

  

 

Pack 8

 

Yes! A Wayne Gretzky base card! During the season these stickers were released, Mr. Gretzky (40 G, 102 A, 142 PTS) would reclaim the points leader position from Mr. Lemieux (45 G, 78 A, 123 PTS). And if these sticker hits keep coming, young Gregory might wake up the rest of the family. And the dog.

 

 

 

Pack 9

 

Alright! A Patrick Roy all-star sticker back, and a Chris Chelios all-star subset sticker! The Canadiens were popular at this time, and they had a very good team. Patrick Roy was a sensation in goal.

 

 

 

Pack 10

 

No way! It's Patrick Roy's base sticker! Hockey is awesome! The dog is now awake, and sniffing outside of Gregory's door.

 

 

 

Pack 11

 

There was nothing of much interest in this pack, and young Gregory is totally fine with that. He's found enough superstar stickers already this morning. He does notice that some of the stickers have trivia printed on the back, however. Some of the backs contain questions, while other backs contain the answers. It's just more hockey knowledge for Gregory to soak up. 

 

 

Pack 12

 

A Joe Sakic rookie base sticker? This is just too much, already. As for Guy Lafleur over there on the right, he came out of retirement for the 1988-89 season. Did three years away from the NHL slow his production down? Not much. He totaled 18 goals, 27 assists, and 45 points in 67 games played for the Rangers.

What a great run of 6 packs! 

 

 

Favorite Page

 

  

Young Gregory added the Wayne Gretzky base sticker to the Kings page, and the Wayne Gretzky all-star sticker to the all-star page across from it. Hard to beat that! 

Now here's the updated summary for the set build:

Main Set (182 total panels)

 

New panels: 33

New duplicates: 3

 

Total panels: 69

Total duplicates: 3

 

Panels needed: 113

Set completion: 38%

 

 

Future Star/All-Star Card Backs (34 total)

 

New backs: 4

New duplicates: 0

 

Total backs: 13

Total duplicates: 0

 

Backs needed: 21

Set completion: 38%

So far, the quest to complete this set is going rather well. I'm 38% of the way there—both for the main set and the sticker back set—and I've only opened 25% of the total packs. As I continue to fill the album, I'm sure the law of diminishing returns will make its appearance. But so far it seems like O-Pee-Chee did really well with the collation of their packs in 1989-90. A total of only 3 duplicate sticker panels across 12 whole packs is excellent!

Best Stickers

Wayne Gretzky, Joe Sakic, and Patrick Roy base stickers; Patrick Roy all-star sticker back; Mario Lemieux all-star sticker.

 

Which were your favorite stickers this time? Share in the comment section, and thanks for following along! 

The 1989-90 OPC Hockey Sticker Album Project: Packs 1–6

 

A few weeks ago here on the blog, I shared the newly acquired sticker album you see above, along with a box of 48 packs of stickers from that same season. I also mentioned that I was going to gradually open the packs and place the stickers in the album, for the sake of nostalgia and good vibes. 

 

This post is the first in a series where I'll show which stickers I pulled, and start building up the album.

 

So let's go back to the 1989-90 hockey season. Young Gregory has been learning a lot about the sport of ice hockey. Now he's ready to tear open his first six packs of stickers. He's excited, yet focused, because he wants to place the stickers in their designated spots in the album as straight as possible.

 

He grabs the fist six packs from the top-left corner of the box. Let's get to it!

Pack 1

Remember those 4-panel action scenes that always appeared in sticker albums back then? You'd have to wait until you pulled all four stickers to see everything that was happening in the larger photo. I'm glad I got a couple of those out of the way right from the start.

 

Young Gregory pulled a few Calgary Flames stickers in this first pack, which helped his hockey knowledge greatly. The Flames defeated the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Finals the previous season, and that must have provided great retribution. The same two teams met in the finals just a few seasons earlier (1985-86), with Montreal taking the championship. 

 

(NOTE: From here on, I'm not going to share images of all six stickers from each pack, because that might get tiresome on the eyes. Instead, I'll just share the best stickers, along with some interesting information about the players and teams, where applicable.)

 

 

Pack 2

 

 

We've got a Joe Sakic "rookie" sticker! (I put that word in quotes because some folks don't consider stickers to be rookie cards, and because Sakic has a base sticker in the set as well.) Regardless, Joe had an excellent freshman season with the Nordiques, totaling 23 goals and 39 assists for 62 points. Brian Leetch topped him (23 G, 48 A, 71 PTS) and took home the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year. Patrick Roy made an appearance in this pack as well, along with his Jennings Trophy compatriot, Brian Hayward.

 

  

This pack also yielded a Jari Kurri sticker, and one of the special "future star" sticker backs. It's part of a 34-card set that includes some future stars and some all-stars. It's great to have the Sakic version in the collection so early on. I'm going to make it a separate goal to complete this sticker back set.

 

 

Pack 3

This pack didn't have much of interest by way of sticker fronts, but it gives me an opportunity to show off some of the super-awesome product offers on the sticker backs.

 

To receive your Team Puck, just send your name, address, postal code, and $3.95 plus 2 Sticker Wrappers for each Team Puck you desire.

 

Young Gregory is already trying to figure out a way to earn a couple of extra dollars around the house so he can send away for some of these products. 

Pack 4

 

 

Pack 4 didn't provide much excitement, either, but Al MacInnis would have been a fun pull for a young Flames fan. And there's another look at a rookie subset sticker, this time featuring Scott Young of the Whalers.

 

 

 

Pack 5 

 

 

Yeah! A Wayne Gretzky all-star subset sticker! Young Gregory saw clips from the press conference last year when Mr. Gretzky bid a tearful goodbye to the fans in Edmonton, and he's pretty psyched to see The Great One in his new Kings uniform. How did Wayne do in his first season with the Kings? 54 goals, 114 assists, 168 points, and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player. Pat LaFontaine and Peter Stastny were also excellent pulls from this pack. 

 

 

Pack 6 

 

There wasn't a whole lot in the final pack of this round, but the Steve Duchesne all-star sticker helps fill up that page in the album a little more. We also get our first look at the all-star sticker back, featuring Geoff Courtnall in that sweet Washington Capitals jersey. The previous season, Courtnall put up a career-high 42 goals, plus 38 assists. 16 of his goals were scored on the power play, which was also a career high.

 

Here's the best page after the first six packs:

 

 

 

That's 5 Oilers out of 14 total. Not bad!

 

And because I know many of you collectors enjoy poring over collection stats as much as I do, here's the rundown so far:

 

 

Main Set (182 total panels)

 

New panels: 36

New duplicates: 0

 

Total panels: 36

Total duplicates: 0

 

Panels needed: 146

Set completion: 20%

 

 

Future Star/All-Star Card Backs (34 total)

 

New backs: 9

New duplicates: 0

 

Total backs: 9

Total duplicates: 0

 

Backs needed: 25

Set completion: 26%

Best Stickers

Wayne Gretzky all-star, Joe Sakic rookie subset.

 

What's your favorite card of this first batch? Do you have any fun memories of sticker albums, be it hockey, baseball or any other sport?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for following along!