Completed Set: 1990-91 Pro Set Hockey (Series I and Series II)

 

 

Pro Set. 

 

If you were a youngster who collected hockey cards in the early 1990s, seeing that brand name has likely brought back a tangled web of emotions. 

 

There was excitement back then, that's for sure. As a young hockey card collector, I clearly remember the brand's tagline: The Hottest Cards on Ice!

But were they? Yeesh. I don't know. That was kind of a bold claim for a company that was creating hockey cards for the first time—especially with Score, OPC Premier, Bowman, and Upper Deck all jumping into the mix that very same hockey season of 1990-91. And although Pro Set's inaugural release did generate some buzz at first, here's what I remember:

 

As collectors began opening packs from all those new hockey card brands, the buzz for Pro Set fell off. And with good reason.

 

First of all, it was riddled with errors (player name misspellings, wrong uniform numbers on the card fronts, incorrect stats on the card backs, wrong player photos altogether), and the photography sometimes left a lot to be desired. On top of that, the set didn't have foil wrappers and holograms like Upper Deck. It didn't have the exclusive rights to Eric Lindros like Score. It didn't have the history and strength of Topps and O-Pee-Chee. So who were they to claim they were the hottest cards on ice? Nobody, that's who.

But looking back, I'll say this: 

 

I appreciate Pro Set.

To use a baseball analogy, they were like the rookie who steps into the batter's box for his first Major League at-bat and swings as hard as he can on the very first pitch he sees, regardless of where it's located in the zone and what type of pitch it is. And I think there's something fun about that type of reckless abandon.

So for the rest of this blog post, I'm going to try to describe just how hard Pro Set swung at their first try with hockey cards. Whether you consider these points positives or negatives is up to you.

 

The set is huge 

Pro Set was released in two parts. Series I consisted of cards 1-405, while Series II went from card 406 to 705. That was an absurd number of hockey cards at the time. We'll get to how Pro Set filled all that space a little later. For now, here's the total number of cards in each of the major hockey releases of 1990-91:

 

 

 

 

I don't know which company finalized their numbers first, or if all the companies were privy to each other's information, but you'd have to think the folks at Pro Set were rubbing their palms together with a good feeling that they were going to churn out the most hockey cards that year.

 

 

The colors are huge

With all the new hockey sets that burst onto the scene in 1990-91, Pro Set had to do something to stand out. And they sure did. With color. Just have a look at these six action cards, for example. 

 

 

 

Those bold horizontal stripes, matched to each team's colors, really stand out. It's a good thing that the cards were numbered sequentially by team. Otherwise, there would have been way too many stripes of way too many colors on any given 9-pocket page.

 

 

 

The subsets are huge

So how did Pro Set increase their bulk? Subsets! In fact, there are more than 130 subset cards in all. Here are some examples.

 

 

 

There were all-stars, award winners, and team logos that sported a 3D metallic look—so cool in the early '90s.

 

 

There were career point leaders, Hall of Famers, and head coaches.

 

 

There were even 22 cards that featured referees!

 

For those of you who didn't watch hockey back then, I'll say that refs were pretty big stars in their own right. Kerry Fraser, Dan Marouelli, Pat Dapuzzo, Bill McCreary, Don Koharski, Paul Stewart, Andy van Hellemond. I remember names like that clearly. I don't think referees today get the same name placement and notoriety.

 

 

The amount of cards with errors and variations is huge

 

 

 

In fact, there's an error on the very first card of the set (pictured on the left). The name "Bourque" is misspelled "Borque" on the front.

 

Oof.

 

As for those other two, the photo on the middle card is not Peter Stastny. It's his teammate, Patrik Sundstrom. (Sundstrom's card features the image of Stastny.) The card on the right is not an error, but a variation. Look closely at Paul Gillis's face. He's got a bloody nose there. Pro Set spotted it early in production and airbrushed the blood out for the rest of the print run.

 

 

 

The number of rookie cards is huge

According to Trading Card Database, there are 213 rookie cards in the 705-card set. A whopping 147 of those rookie cards can be found in Series II. That means about half of Series II consists of rookie cards! Can't blame Pro Set there, as the rookie craze was well underway. And their approach paid dividends. There were some great rookies all around.

 

Series I has Alexander Mogilny, Jeremy Roenick, And Mike Modano.  

 

 

 

 

 

Series II has Sergei Fedorov, Mike Richter, and Jaromir Jagr, along with Ed Belfour, Curtis Joseph, Owen Nolan, Mats Sundin, and Peter Bondra, to name a few more. 

Now here's a card back

Pro Set did pretty well with the space here. The color bars and overall design continue from the card fronts. There's a player photo, some well-organized stats, and at least one paragraph of descriptive text. Unfortunately, a bunch of card backs contain statistical errors and other typos. And I think the team name at the top right could have been a little bigger or bolder. But overall, it's not bad.

Back to the card fronts, now.

 

 

Some of the stars of the era got good-looking cardboard.

 

Goalies got some nice treatment, as well. 

 

Overall, however, there were more misses than hits. Many cards feature players standing around during warmups or play stoppages. And there are quite a few blurry photos throughout the set, too—more than the other 1990-91 sets.

 

Getting back to some interesting aspects, on the left we've got a coupon card that was issued in every pack (10 cents off!). In the middle there's a peculiar "puck" card, which is the final card of the set. And on the right, the ultra-rare Stanley Cup hologram card that was randomly inserted into packs. As far as I know, the print run was limited to 5,000. That doesn't seem at all scarce these days, but when you consider how many packs of Pro Set were churned out that year (millions?), the odds of pulling one of these holograms change dramatically. I sure don't own one. That photo is from the internet.

 

Interestingly, there are no checklists in this set. Just think that with some team checklists and general set checklists, the company could have bumped the totals up to 730!

 

 

In any case, that's 1990-91 Pro Set. With all its faults and foibles, it's still a landmark set of the era. I'm happy to have the whole, big, whopping thing completed. (I might even try to add a couple of the variations next, like the Stastny/Sundstrom cards featuring the correct player photos.)

If you opened packs of Pro Set back in the day, share some memories in the comment section. And if this is your first time seeing the cards in such detail, what do you think?

The Only Kid at the Art Auction?

I'm going to paraphrase a conversation between my dad and I that took place at some point during the summer of 1991.

Dad: Want to come to an art auction with me tonight?

Me: Umm. I don't know.

Dad: Pat Lafontaine will be there, signing autogr...

Me: I'll go! 

1991 puts me in middle school. Safe to say I wouldn't have wanted much to do with an art auction back then—especially if the event was being held at a random car dealership in the middle of my summer vacation, as was the case here.

It's not like my dad and stepmom were art collectors, either. But I don't know. It's certainly possible that they were looking for a new painting for the walls. Or maybe dad knew that I'd recently gotten into the sport of hockey and that Pat LaFontaine was the biggest hockey name on Long Island, and the whole "wanting to go to an art auction" thing was just a case of dad doing something cool for his boy. 

In any case, I'd already gotten busy flipping through my hockey cards and decided to take out the most recent LaFontaine printing from Upper Deck:

1990-91 Upper Deck #246, Pat LaFontaine

 
Nifty-looking card. And that, I told myself, is what I'd ask Mr. LaFontaine to sign. 

Soon we'd arrive at the dealership. A decent crowd had gathered, but it wasn't exactly a throng of hobnobbing artsy folk. (I don't think the auction was a widely advertised thing.) All the cars had been cleared out of the main showroom and rows of folding chairs had been arranged in front of an auctioneer's podium. Dad and I found two seats and waited for the games to begin.

Well, they began. There were lots of generic oil paintings. One after the other. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, but there must have been a few bidding wars, which I can only assume I enjoyed at least a little bit. (Dad bid on a couple of different items, but wasn't the high bidder on either occasion.)

They didn't have the air conditioning turned on, so it was certainly stuffy in there. I do remember that. And although the auction probably didn't last more than and hour or two, it sure seemed like forever to me.

Finally, the last painting came off the block, and we got on the line for autographs.

When we approached the table and I handed Mr. LaFontaine the Upper Deck card, he looked at me with a little smirk, as if he wanted to sarcastically ask, 

"So, you like art auctions, do you?"

Or maybe he appreciated the fact that a kid would sit through an entire auction just to get an autograph from a hockey player.

Regardless, he was very cordial, said hello with that smile still on his face, and happily signed the card even though I think he was mostly signing photographs that the dealership (or the Islanders) had provided. Here's the card, with autograph:

Dad and I gave our thanks and commended him on a great season, and then we scooted from the line to allow the next fan to receive an autograph.

As it turned out, just a couple of months later Mr. LaFontaine would be moving up to Buffalo in that big trade involving Pierre Turgeon. (The full trade was LaFontaine, Randy Wood, Randy Hillier, and a 4th-round draft pick for Turgeon, Benoit Hogue, Uwe Krupp, and Dave McLlwain.)

It worked out pretty well for both teams. Turgeon had some monster years on the Island, and LaFontaine made absolute magic with Alexander Mogilny in Buffalo. Have a look at these numbers from the 1992-93 season, for example:

Turgeon: 83 GP, 58 G, 74 A, 132 PTS, 24 PP Goals, Lady Byng trophy, 5th in NHL scoring

LaFontaine: 84 GP, 53 G, 95 A, 148 PTS, 20 PP Goals, 2nd in NHL scoring

Still, Patty was really missed by the fans on the Island.

I'm glad I had the chance to briefly meet him before the trade. Even happier to still have this card, in addition to the memories. Was the card the best piece of art in the auction that night? The 1991 version of me would probably say yes.

You readers and fellow collectors must have a good childhood autograph story or two. Feel free to share in the comment section.

And thanks for reading!

Completed Set: 1990-91 Score Hockey

1990-91 proved to be a watershed season for hockey cards. Suddenly Topps and O-Pee-Chee weren’t the only boxes on store shelves. Now you also had Upper Deck, Score, Pro Set, Bowman, and O-Pee-Chee Premier to choose from.

Score’s first attempt was a good one. Their photography wasn’t quite on the level of Upper Deck’s, but overall it was still more interesting than the usual from Topps, who always seemed to include a lot of the “standing around during warmups” images on their hockey cards. (As a kid who had a certain amount of loyalty to Topps/OPC back then, even I had to acknowledge that fact, and opened quite a few packs of Score Hockey that year.)

As for the card borders, Score went with a rather safe yet appealing design, featuring a blue line/red line/blue line motif along the side borders and a player silhouette on the bottom right that’s reminiscent of the 1973 Topps baseball set.

When I rediscovered my childhood collection a few years ago, this was one of the sets that was almost complete. And I’m happy to say that I’ve now picked up the few cards I needed to complete it. The set still isn’t in a binder, because I usually reserve binders for pre-1990s sets. However, after looking through the cards again, maybe I’ll put them in pages one day after all.

Here are some of my favorites:

Wayne Gretzky, #1

There’s Wayne-O, doing his classic “cross the blueline, glide to a stop on right skate while winding up,
then shoot” maneuver. The action shots in this set are impressive, and often capture the moment quite well. 

Rod Langway, #20

It’s nice that you can see one of Rod Langway’s opponents giving chase in the background.
I feel like that doesn’t happen too often on hockey cards. 

Rob Ramage, #36

Even more impressive than the vertical action shots are some of the horizontal ones.
Score framed this card of Rob Ramage blasting one from the point rather nicely. 

Don Sweeney, #51

Another great horizontal shot that’s framed very well, and captures a “hockey moment”. Looks like Don Sweeney may have just dropped back to collect the puck, and now he's circling around to transition up the ice. If you’re a Bruins fan, you might give Score a bonus point for a clear shot of the Bruins crest on Sweeney's jersey and the New England Sports Network advertisement on the boards in the background. 

Daren Puppa, #60

Yet another horizontal card, this one from a vantage point not usually seen.
It almost feels like you’re on the ice and part of the play. (Top right! Shoot!)

Glen Wesley, #97

 Glen Wesley putting some mustard on a pass. 

Shayne Corson, #213

It’s always great to see a goal celebration on a hockey card.
(Although the dude in the Flyers jersey behind the glass is not impressed.) 

Brett Hull, #300

 This might be my favorite card in the set. 

Here’s an example of a card back. Two whole paragraphs filled with information,
which was standard for Score back then, no matter the sport.

Bill Ranford, #345

A statuesque Bill Ranford making the glove save. 

Jaromir Jagr, #428

Had to add the baby-faced Jaromir Jagr. 

Eric Lindros, #440

Score signed Eric Lindros to an exclusive contract that season, which allowed them to place the future superstar on an NHL hockey card. It was a pretty big coup at the time, as “Lindros Mania” was everywhere.

Along with the photography hits, though, Score had some misses. Mostly they involved cropping decisions. Sometimes, in order to get that follow-through, or to show the player controlling the puck, Score decided to partially crop the player out of the frame. What you get is a card that shows the entire hockey stick and a lot of empty rink space. It works alright for the horizontal cards, but not as much for the verticals.

Kelly Kisio, #37

Tom Laidlaw, #69

Dave Chyzowski, #372

However, if you look through the entire set, you’ll see that a majority of the time 1990-91 Score gets it right. A very solid overall effort for their inaugural hockey set. Probably a bit underrated, too.

What are your thoughts on Score’s first try at hockey?