The 1989-90 OPC Hockey Sticker Album Project: Packs 25–30

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. 

 

Which were your favorites this time? 

The 1989-90 OPC Hockey Sticker Album Project: Packs 19–24

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.

Annual Pack Rip on the Golf Course

For the past three years, my brother and I have partaken in a fun little tradition: Opening packs of trading cards after a round of golf.

 

The inaugural event featured Upper Deck hockey packs. They were a surprise from my brother, and it was so fun that the next season I decided to return the favor with more hockey packs. And the third season was the wackiest: It featured packs of Pro Set golf cards, my brother's best friend, and a mischievous crow who got in the way. 

 

Would the newest pack rip on the golf course be filled with so much drama?

 

Thankfully, no. The packs were safely tucked away from any curious critters until we finished the round.

 

It was my brother's treat this time, and he went back to hockey. Instead of Upper Deck, it would be Stadium Club. Both packs were from the 1994-95 season.

 

I mentioned to him that I'd stopped collecting cards by 1994-95, but that I'd certainly know a lot of the players inside those packs. Back then I was a high school kid, playing hockey and soaking up as much NHL action as I could. He was looking forward to hearing stories about some of those players, so we got right into it. 

 

He let me choose which pack I wanted, and I made my selection. Here are the cards that were inside my pack: 

 

 

Nothing special with the first three cards out of the gate, but my brother did enjoy the Hartford Whalers logo that Sean Burke is sporting on his jersey. Who can argue? It's one of the all-time classic NHL logos.

 

 

 

We've got two Hall-of-Famers with Neely and Ciccarelli there. I mentioned to my brother that Cam Neely played a role in the film Dumb and Dumber, and when he said, "Oh yeah?", I asked him if he remembered the character named Sea Bass from the truck stop diner scene. Immediately he saw the resemblance, and he laughed.

 

  

  

 

 

Back to standard here with Bobby Boucher's brother (not really), a checklist, and Kevin Hatcher's actual brother. 

 

 

 

 

And we finish up with a nice Chris Gratton card from the Great Expectations subset. Overall, nothing fantastic, but a couple of good stories and laughs.

 

 

 

Now let's see my brother's pack.

 

  

Bam. Hall-of-Famer Ron Francis starts it off, and over on the right there's a great shot of Esa Tikkanen hoisting the Stanley Cup. Mr. Tikkanen was a big-time yapper and chirper, and would often try to throw his opponents off their game by using a sort of incomprehensible hybrid language of Finnish and English that Wayne Gretzky referred to as "Tikkanese".

 

 

 

It's difficult to make it out from the scan, but Brent Grieve's card has a gold foil stamp on the left-hand side that commemorates the date of his first career hat trick. There are 15 of these such cards scattered throughout the set. That's a nice little touch from the folks at Stadium Club. 

 

As for Derek King, about a year or two before this card was released, I attended a local summer hockey camp on Long Island, and he surprised us kids with a visit one day. It was pretty cool to be on the ice with an Islanders player, especially one who was just about to hit his prime and start scoring 30+ goals a year. But boy oh boy, did his equipment stink! He'd skate past you, and a couple of seconds later you'd get the vapor trail. My brother got a kick out of that story, for sure.

 

But let's get back to the photography, which certainly did not stink. Check this card out:  

 

 

 

 

It features Steve Larmer blasting a slapshot. No card border. Just the white ice in the background. You can almost hear the sound of the shot echoing through the arena. Stadium Club was really nailing images like this, even at the beginning of their history.

 

And speaking of nailing it . . . 

 

 

 

It's a hit!

We didn't know what kind of insert we were dealing with, so my brother flipped the card over.
 

 

 

After a little bit of scanning, we found the answer toward the bottom of the card.

 

Topps Stadium Club Finest! 

 

According to the pack wrapper, the odds of pulling one of these is 1:12. Not too bad.

 

As for The Russian Rocket, man, was he exciting to watch. Knee injuries kept him from reaching some big milestones, like 500 career goals, but he's still a no-doubt HOFer. Check out this formula:

 

437 goals in 702 games played = 0.62 goals per game

 

At the time of this writing, that's the 5th highest average of all time in the NHL. For an idea of how impressive this is, here are a few other players who have lower goals per game averages:

 

Wayne Gretzky: 0.60

Alex Ovechkin: 0.59

Brett Hull: 0.57 

 

If you've never seen Pavel play, please search for some highlights on YouTube. Entertainment guaranteed. 

 

Let's get back to the card backs now. Here's an example from a base card:

 

 

  

Lots of color, and photos, and fonts. Even so, it's almost a little tame for the time period.

 

And here's the rest of my brother's pack:

 

Two HOFers in Dave Andreychuk and Mario Lemieux, both cards coming from the Power Players subset. The back of each card in this subset discussed how the players performed on the power play. Interestingly, there are only six players featured in this subset—two defensemen and four forwards. In any case, it was a nice way to finish.

 

Even without the Bure Finest card, there's no doubt that my brother's pack came out on top.

 

So that's another pack rip in the books. There's still a lot more golf to be played this season, so I'm thinking we might have to do a second pack rip at some point. Maybe we'll do baseball next. Or golf again.

 

What do you readers and collectors think of this little tradition? Do you have any pack-ripping traditions of your own? Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading! 

The 1989-90 OPC Hockey Sticker Album Project: Packs 13–18

 

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! 

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 sticker! 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 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 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!