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 the middle of October. School has been back in session for more than a month now, and young Gregory has been acclimating well. Just this past Friday he scored a perfect 10 out of 10 on a science quiz. And even more exciting, the new hockey season is underway!
Now it's time to open more packs of O-Pee-Chee hockey stickers. Gregory goes for the top-left portion of the box, and takes out the remaining six packs.
Let's get right to it.
Pack 25
Sweet start!
But hang on a minute. Gregory feels like he's pulled these three stickers before—as well as the other three stickers in the pack. He flips through the pages in his album to check, and sure enough, they're all in there already.
But hey, two different Mario Lemieux duplicates and a Brett Hull duplicate? Nothing to complain about.
Pack 26
Ooh, that Al MacInnis sticker is new, for sure. The defenseman won the Conn Smythe trophy (playoff MVP) last year for a very good reason. In 22 games, he scored 7 goals and added a league-leading 24 assists to help his Flames win the Stanley Cup. As if that weren't impressive enough, 4 of those 7 goals were game winners. The Scott Young Future Star sticker back is a new one as well, and so is the David Volek rookie sticker.
Pack 27
More new additions here! That Maple Leafs player on the top left is Vincent Damphousse. Young Gregory recently learned that the correct surname pronunciation is not "damp house". It's actually pronounced dom-FOOSE.
Also in this pack was another new Future Star sticker back, plus a special award sticker featuring Montreal Canadiens player Guy Carbonneau. Last year he won the Selke trophy, which is awarded to the forward who "demonstrates the most skill in the defensive component of the game".
Gregory stops to check all six stickers in this pack against his album, and . . . yes! He needs all of them.
Pack 28
Another pretty good pack here! There's star goalie Partick Roy on the left, featured in a nice action shot. In the middle, it's Joe Mullen. Last year Gregory learned that Joe and his brother Brian grew up playing roller hockey on the streets of New York City. Very cool! And on the right, it's a Brian Leetch Future Star sticker back. We're definitely chipping away at completing the sticker back subset!
Pack 29
Two pretty good additions to the album here, with Mark Messier on the left and Dave Gagner on the right. Mr. Gagner is one of Gregory's favorite players, wearing one of his favorite uniforms.
Pack 30
What a way to finish! Chris Chelios is another one of young Gregory's favorite players, so it'll be nice to put his base sticker in the album. Next to Mr. Chelios, there's another two sticker backs needed to complete the subset. As for the bottom row, it's a Patrick Roy All-Star sticker and a Vezina Trophy sticker. The Vezina is awarded to the goalie who's judged to have been the best in the league across the season. Guess who won it in 1988-89? Yep, Patrick Roy.
Gregory hasn't checked every single sticker from these six packs against his album, but he has a pretty good feeling that a lot of them are needs.
Favorite Page
Another completed page, and this time it's the New York Rangers!
Now here's the updated summary for the set build:
Main Set (182 total panels)
New panels: 31
New duplicates: 5
Total panels: 140
Total duplicates: 40
Panels needed: 42
Set completion: 77%
Future Star/All-Star Backs (34 total)
New backs: 6
New duplicates: 0
Total backs: 27
Total duplicates: 6
Backs needed: 7
Set completion: 79%
That's some good progress! Gregory has 18 packs to go, and he's pretty psyched that he's more than three-quarters of the way to completing both the sticker album and the sticker back subset.
Best Stickers
The Brian Leetch Future Star sticker back, the Al MacInnis All-Star sticker back, and the Patrick Roy all-star subset sticker.
A few months ago, I shared some awards from my high school hockey days. As fun as it was to look back on those times and link them to card collecting, I also briefly lamented at the fact that many of us didn't keep detailed records of our sporting experiences back then, and how I wished I had more mementos from that time.
It's because we're talking about an era before the internet, and before every local sports league was posting scores and stats on websites, down to its youngest age groups. It was also a time before every parent recorded every second of every game on their phones and then shared highlights all over their social media pages.
Recreational hockey leagues like ours provided a simple schedule printout at the beginning of every year, and kept paper scoresheets for each game, but that's about all. After the game was over, those scoresheets likely went into a file cabinet, and who knows where after that?
It's a shame.
But guess what?
Recently I decided to rummage through some more boxes in the attic, wondering if I could find any other keepsakes from my young hockey days. I knew I didn't have any jerseys from way back then. I wish I still had a couple of them, but it wasn't a big loss. (The jerseys were one-color lightweight mesh, with a screen-printed sponsor's logo on the front and a simple number on the back. It was the same for every team, aside from the color. Very basic. We received a new one every year.)
What I was really hoping to find, at the very least, was a photo or two.
Well, within about 10 minutes of rummaging, I found a couple of 3-subject notebooks from my high school days.
I was on the right track.
Not long after, I found a manila folder containing some doodles and notes from the same time period.
I had some goofball tendencies, for sure.
And then I found another folder.
Do you see the pink, yellow, and white sheets that are peeking out from the right-hand side? That's what got me excited.
They're examples of those printed-out hockey schedules I mentioned earlier!
I didn't find a schedule from my freshman year, but the pink one was from my sophomore year, and the yellow one was from my junior year. As for the white one, that's something different from my senior year. We had a pretty cool coach that season who actually kept track of our stats, and wrote out the totals at the end of the season! (I'm not going to show them here on the blog, because they include some personal information like phone numbers and names of friends.)
In any case, the initial hit of nostalgia was strong. The
schedules contained a separate row for each game we played, including the date,
time, location, and opponent. Just looking at the names of the different hockey rinks we traveled to brought me right back to those glory days.
And as I looked over each page, something else kicked the nostalgia into overdrive:
Next to each game, in the margin, there were
hand-written notes from young Gregory! I included any goals or assists I scored,
along with some notes on how I played. It was so much fun to read through them that I decided to transfer everything over to Word documents.
First, here are my high school hockey stats:
NCHL Record
Season
Team
GP
G
A
PTS
PIM
1991-92
No data available
1992-93
Devils
13
6
9
15
0
1993-94
Lightning
15
6
9
15
0
1994-95
Devils
12
5
7
12
2
Totals
40
17
25
42
2
Hey, a point-per-game player is not bad!
I didn't have a big shot, but I was a good setup guy and had some speed. My best skill may have been anticipation. I killed penalties a lot, and was the kind of player who stole passes, blocked shots, got the puck out of the zone, and tried to keep it there. I really enjoyed those aspects of the game.
As for that missing first year of stats, I think our team was called the Flyers. And it would be my guess that my personal stats weren't as solid. I'd
only been playing hockey of any kind (i.e., roller hockey) for a couple
of years at that point, and I had a lot to learn about positioning and skating. I had a lot to learn about everything. So
maybe it's not such a bad thing that my scoring stats don't exist for
that first year.
Regardless, I was determined to improve, and the season schedules provide evidence of how I maintained that determination over the years. Here are a few examples of the notes that I wrote to myself after each game:
1/3/93: 0G, 0A Could have done better.
12/28/93: 1G, 0A Game-tying goal. Good forechecking on penalty late in the game with 3–2 lead.
1/10/94: 0G, 0A Good game. Good, hard work. Almost a couple of assists.
1/24/94: 0G, 1A O.K. Need to get in a better mindset.
1/31/94: 1G, 1A Got in a better mindset! Nice goal.
I'm so glad I took those notes. They provide such a fun look at the ups and downs throughout the seasons.
To the Moms and Dads Out There
Now that I'm older, it completely stuns me to look through those hockey schedules. Many of the games didn't start until 8:00pm—or even sometimes 9:00! And quite a few of them were held at outdoor rinks throughout the county, with almost no indoor seating for spectators.
I'm trying to imagine being a parent like my mom. You come home from a long day of work, get dinner ready, and then instead of relaxing, you have to get your winter coat back on, drive your teenager to a game, cheer from a cold seat, and get home around 10:30 or 11:00pm, only to go right back to work the next morning.
There was one week during the 1993-94 season when we actually had three consecutive games during the week—Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Dang! I definitely don't remember such a rigorous schedule.
So to all the moms and dads out there who support their children with their sporting endeavors, an enormous thank you.
Fun News
I did find one photo.
There I am, likely during one of those weeknight games, on an outdoor rink. It sure seems like I'm wide open.
When I zoom in and look closely at some of the equipment I'm wearing—specifically the gloves and the skates—I'm going to conclude that this was my first season of rec league hockey. 1991-92. Freshman year of high school. I'd really love to find more photos, but for now I'm happy to have at least this one.
And like I mentioned in the hockey trophy post, I'm happy to have played most of those seasons with a few of my high school friends. That senior year—when our coach tabulated all our stats—was a good one. The four of us finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th in team scoring. (I was 3rd.) It felt good to represent our high school like that.
Other Fun Stuff
Here's a clip featuring the video game my hockey-loving friends and I would have played the most:
And here are a few more hockey cards we would have been excited to find in packs. (Brands
like Finest, Flair, Upper Deck SP, and Leaf Limited had joined the
party—each with some inserts that were rather scarce for the time.)
1992-93 Score USA Greats #8 Brian Leetch, 1993-94 Upper Deck Silver Skates #R6 Steve Yzerman, 1993-94 Stadium Club Finest #1 Wayne Gretzky
At this point of the post, it's almost too easy to say something like, "Where does the time go?" or, "It feels like just yesterday". But you know what? There's a reason why so many folks say things like that.
It's true.
Those were such fun times, and looking back on those stats and the hand-written notes has filled me more so with good energy than with sadness or a longing for a time gone by. I'd love to go back, sure, but in quite a few ways I still am that teenage kid inside.
And I'm proud of high school Gregory for his laser focus. There can be a lot of distractions in high school, not to mention all the chemical and biological stuff going on inside your body as you go through adolescence. But high school Gregory was determined to play hard and improve his skills on the ice, and to work equally hard in school. He wouldn't let anything stop him. Good stuff.
As for collecting? By the time I reached my senior year, I'd lost interest. And that means I missed out on many of the inserts, autographed cards, and relics that would flood the hobby in the mid- to late-1990s.
But it was fine. I had a new challenge coming up the next year:
College hockey tryouts.
I know I've got at least a few mementos from that time. Could be a mission for my next rummage through the attic.
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.
Summer is over, and the schoolyear is about to start for young Gregory. About a month after that, the NHL season will be here. While he waits, he's got more sticker packs to open. He's mostly excited about that.
You see, after the pack-opening debacle from last time (6 new stickers, 30 duplicates), Gregory is a little gun-shy about opening more. But that feeling only lasts for a minute. He's still learning a lot about the game, after all, and he's excited for more stickers—even if lots of them turn out to be duplicates again.
Gregory takes 6 packs from the bottom right this time, and gets to work.
Pack 19
It's a pretty good start! Mario Lemieux is one of the biggest stars of the game, and last year he came up one point short of 200. Ron Francis is pretty good, too. So are those Whalers jerseys. And on the right, it's a "Future Star" sticker back that Gregory needs for the set. Best of all? No duplicates!
Pack 20
Thanks to his hockey-loving friend at school, young Gregory not only knows the name Joe Nieuwendyk, he also knows how to pronounce it (NOO-wen-dyke.) That Trevor Linden Future Star sticker back is another welcome addition. In his rookie season of 1988-89, Linden totaled 30 goals and 29 assists for 59 points. He was named to the all-rookie team, and finished second in the rookie of the year race to Brian Leetch.
And hey—another pack without duplicates.
Pack 21
Speaking of Brain Leetch, there's his rookie base sticker! Young Gregory has also noticed that Patrick Roy seems to have a lot of different stickers in the set. This one celebrates his Vezina Trophy win (most valuable goaltender). On the right is Ray Bourque's all-star sticker back. He'd been named an all-star every season of his career to this point.
And guess what? No duplicates for a third straight pack! Could the streak keep going for a fourth?
Pack 22
Yes indeed! And better still, Gregory found the Trevor Linden base rookie sticker inside. Then he flipped the stickers over to check the backs, and wow! There's fellow New Yorker Joe Mullen on one, and The Great One on another. Sweet pack.
Pack 23
Yet another all-star sticker back, plus a Steve Yzerman base sticker. (Young Gregory figured out how to pronounce that name as well.) "Stevie Y" finished the previous season of 1988-89 third overall in league in scoring, with 65 goals, 90 assists, and 155 points. Only Gretzky and Lemieux had more points. And if the pack wasn't good enough, there was also a Brian Leetch rookie subset sticker inside!
Pack 24
The Tony Granato rookie base sticker was a nice one to find. And finally, in the last pack of the round, Gregory pulled a duplicate with that Masterton trophy sticker. (The Masterton is awarded to the player who best exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey. For the previous season of 1988-89, it went to Tim Kerr of the Philadelphia Flyers.)
There was also another duplicate in this pack, but those were the only two of the entire round. Can't be upset about that.
Favorite Page
Young Gregory finished his first page! It's the Philadelphia Flyers.
So, how do we stand on set completion now that we're halfway through the box?
Main Set (182 total panels)
New panels: 34
New duplicates: 2
Total panels: 109
Total duplicates: 35
Panels needed: 73
Set completion: 60%
Future Star/All-Star Backs (34 total)
New backs: 8
New duplicates: 2
Total backs: 21
Total duplicates: 6
Backs needed: 13
Set completion: 62%
Best Stickers
The Mario Lemieux base sticker and the Brian Leetch rookie base sticker. Let's also add the Ray Bourque, Joe Mullen, and Wayne Gretzky all-star sticker backs.
Overall, this round was great, and young Gregory is psyched that he pulled almost zero duplicates after the experience with the previous 6 packs. At the same time, he wonders about the next 6 packs. I mean, he's had a round with almost zero duplicates, and he's had a round with almost all duplicates.
Which were your favorite stickers this time?
Share in the comment section, and thanks for following along.
A few months ago here on the blog, I shared an image of the one Little League trophy that I managed to hold onto for all of these years, along with a picture of young Gregory Ninepockets in the batter's box. The trophy was a little bit weathered from years spent in garages and attics, but I was able to clean it up pretty well, and now it resides in a much more pleasant, temperature-controlled environment.
The whole thing generated a pretty strong sense of nostalgia, and it pushed me a few years forward on Memory Lane. Here's the brief story.
From the very start, I was a baseball kid. Every spring, the prospect of a new Little League season generated that special combination of nervousness and excitement inside of me. I loved to play, and practice, and learn. Baseball was just a huge deal for me. But during my last year of Little League, I met a new friend who introduced me to another sport: Ice hockey. And I took a shine to it.
Now I was well aware that baseball was—and always wouldbe—my first love. So it wasn't like I was going to ditch it completely for hockey, or anything. However, this new friend and all his brothers played hockey all the time. Whenever I went over their house, it was hockey everywhere. Equipment bags everywhere. Sticks everywhere. Jerseys everywhere. I started to really enjoy being in that environment, and learning as much as I could about the game. I even started collecting hockey cards for the first time!
On top of that, I began playing the sport—first in the street, wearing sneakers, and then on rollerblades. By the time 9th grade came around, that was it. I was hooked, and ready for high school–level ice hockey. Full equipment and everything. Thanks to a generous and hard-working mom and dad, I did play four full years of high school ice hockey.
And so, after finishing up that post about the Little League trophy, I thought back to those high school hockey days. I knew I had some awards from that time tucked away in a box somewhere.
That's where this post comes in. Because I found them.
Now before you scroll down and start assuming too much about my hockey skills, I'll tell you that these awards came from a recreational county league that anyone could join. Our high school didn't have a hockey team, and although the county did certainly have travel teams, I'd only been playing the sport for a couple of years at that point, and didn't quite have the
abilities to match those guys. A few of them played in our rec league
for fun, and I reallyhad to be on my game if I wanted to keep up with them on the ice. You could tell
they were on a different level.
Anyway, here's the fun stuff that I found in the box, year by year.
Freshman Year
1991-92 All-Star Game Plaque
The "Executive Classic" is the name the league used for its annual all-star game. I think most seasons there were between 6 and 8 teams in the league, and each coach submitted the names of a few players for the all-star game. I was very happy to be selected my first year, and it was nice of the league to hand out a little plaque like this one to each player who participated. The plaques are fairly small—around 5 inches by 7 inches.
Sophomore Year
I didn't find an all-star game plaque for the 1992-93 season, and I really don't remember whether or not I was selected. I do know that I didn't deal with any injuries or missed games, so maybe I had an off year, or maybe our team had a lot of good players that season who were selected in front of me.
Junior Year
1993-94 All-Star Game Plaque
Back in the saddle for the all-star game. You can see that the league changed up the plaque design a little bit. And that's not all for my Junior year. Check this out:
1993-94 All-Star Game MVP Plaque
I was the the all-star gameMVP! If I remember right, I had 2 goals and 1 assist in a victory for our side. And my Junior season was even better still, because. . .
. . . our team won the league championship!
I really don't remember a whole lot about the season in general, but I do remember that we had an excellent squad, which included a couple of travel team players. And although I don't remember the final score of the championship game, I think it was pretty close for the first couple of periods.
Senior Year
1994-95 All-Star Game Plaque
I wrapped up my high school playing days with another all-star game appearance. A couple of my classmates were rec league all-stars over the years, as well. It always felt great to represent our high school in that way.
And playing with those classmates is what I remember the most about those days. There were four or five of us in the same grade who all loved the sport, and we joined the rec league year after year. From what I remember, the league always tried to place us on the same team, which made things really fun. The day after a game, we'd get together in school and talk about how we played, and who we were playing next. The fact that we were such a small group only made it more special.
As for that friend who introduced me to ice hockey a few years prior? He was one of those classmates on the team. We ended up developing such good chemistry on the ice that we often played together on the same forward line. And guess what else? He was a card collector like me. That made things even more fun!
Here are a few cards that we would have been excited to find in packs around that time.
1991-92 Upper Deck #21 Teemu Selanne, 1991-92 Upper Deck #AW9 Mario Lemieux, 1993-94 Topps Premier Black Gold #7 Wayne Gretzky
They take me right back to those high school hockey days. And I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but how cool is it that a few little pieces of cardboard can help preserve such great memories? I only wish we documented more of our hockey experiences and kept more physical mementos from that time.
What about you readers and collectors?
If you played any sports or were part of any clubs in high school, do you still have some trophies, awards, or other mementos?
I want to hear some stories! Share in the comment section.
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.
Young 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 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!
