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! 

That Crow Just Stole My Pack of Cards!

Have I got a story for you.

A few weeks ago, my brother booked our first round of golf of the season. His best friend from childhood was going to join us, and when the three of us get together, it's always a great time.

 

Unbeknownst to either of them, I'd picked up some loose packs of golf cards over the winter, so I thought I'd add to our good time by bringing some of them to the course—one for each of us to open. After all, I'd done a couple of pack rips on the golf course with my brother in the past, and I knew his friend would be into it as well.

 

So, before we teed off, I brought out the packs. This time, they were 1991 Pro Set PGA Tour golf cards. The guys got a kick out of them, and we agreed that we'd open the packs at some point during the round—maybe as a little break after the first 9 holes.

 

Excited about the day, we got started. It was cold, windy, and rainy, but it didn't matter. We were just happy to be back on the course together. Some less-than-stellar scores on the first couple of holes didn't even faze us. Neither did the chilly and damp air.

 

After a little while, however, the good vibes began to diminish. Scoring proved to be really tough. By the time we reached the 6th green, those golf packs were the last thing on our minds.

 

Then, as we were finishing up on the green, my brother noticed a crow standing at the edge of one of the nearby bunkers.

 

"What does that crow have in its mouth?" He asked.

 

We all looked over. It was something shiny.

 

At that moment, the crow dropped the shiny object and started pecking at it. And that's when my brother realized what it was.

 

"That's my pack of cards!"

 

It turns out that while we were reading our putts, that sneaky bird had swooped down toward my brother's golf cart, noticed the shiny foil wrapper, picked it right up, and flew over to the green—almost as if to mock us. Immediately, my brother's friend jogged over, hoping that little jerk of a bird would drop the pack and fly away.

 

Well, it did fly away. But it did so with the pack firmly secured in its beak.

We didn't have time to snap a picture of the culprit, but it's quite likely that right now, in a crow's nest on that golf course, there's a shiny green and gold pack of 35-year-old golf cards.

Miffed at the events that had just transpired (including some missed putts for par), we walked back to our golf carts. That's when I noticed a plastic container turned upside down on the ground near my golf cart. It was the container that housed my peanut butter sandwich.

 

That pesky crow had tried to get into that, too! 

 

Thankfully, it couldn't open the top, so my sandwich was safe.

What an experience. 

 

But if you think that's all, just wait. Because a bit later in the round, another crow swiped an unopened hand warmer packet from my brother's cart and flew up into a tree with it. These little pickpockets were everywhere!

I guess we've got to give credit where credit is due. I mean, on both occasions we were completely oblivious to the thievery that Heckle and Jeckle were getting away with. It's a pretty good racket, when you think about it. They wait for golfers to leave their carts, and then they sneak down to root through the items inside, taking whatever they can fit in their beaks before the golfers return.

 

Ultimately, what it meant was that our hands would be a little colder, and we were down to two packs of cards. And that wasn't going to work. Thankfully, I had a few more packs of golf cards at home, and we were all planning to go there after the round for lunch anyway. I told the guys about the extra packs, and they were happy to hear it. From there, it was back to golf—keeping an eye out for any crows the rest of the way.

 

And that's how it happened.

 

Now let's talk a little bit about 1991 Pro Set PGA Tour golf.

 

The set is made up of a whopping 285 cards, which means that even back in 1991, avid golf fans wouldn't have recognized some of the professional golfers they found inside of packs. But there are still some good players in the set, for sure. 

 

Rookie cards include Fred Funk, Jeff Maggert, Brad Faxon, and US Open Winner Lee Janzen. You can also find plenty of notable stars of the era, like Payne Stewart, Davis Love III, Mark O'Meara, Fred Couples, Greg Norman, Fuzzy Zoeller, and Ray Floyd. And don't forget about some of the legends who were playing on the Senior Tour (now called the Champions Tour), like Tom Watson, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, and Jack Nicklaus.

 

Oh, and perhaps the biggest card of all?

 

A John Daly rookie card. 

With that being said, let's finally get to the pack rip and see what we found.  

 

I'm not going to show every card. There are 12 in each pack, which makes 36 golf cards in total. That's too much to look at here, even for me. Instead, I'm going to show the best three cards that each of us pulled. Choices were based on the skill level of the player, the look of the photograph, or the awesome 1990s clothing and hairstyles on display. (Or, if we're lucky, all of those criteria.)

 

Let's get to it.

 

First, here are the top three from my brother's pack.

 

 

Gary McCord has the sweet CBS Sports baseball cap, the striped polo, and the mustache. Blaine McCallister is wearing a straw hat that could only be from the '90s, while Sir Bob Charles is sporting the classy sweater-vest and visor combination.

 

Next, here are the top three cards from my brother's friend's pack.

 

Wayne Levi shows us that visors and multi-stripe polos were a popular choice back then. Don Bies is grinding hard to read a putt. And there's the man, Arnold Palmer.

 

 

And here are the top three cards from my pack.

 

Brian Claar gets a nice action shot for his card, blasting the ball out of a bunker. Charles Coody and his caddie read the green in a classic pro golf image. And there's a Lee Trevino Player of the Year card. Woo-hoo!

 

I thought I might take home the "Best Mustache" title with that Brian Claar card. Check out the back for a different view.

 

 

But when my brother pulled out that Gary McCord card and we saw the handlebar, we knew it was over. Just look at this thing.

 

 

As for the other cards, I think I'll call it a draw between Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer. But it's important to note that 1990 was Mr. Trevino's first year on the Senior Tour, and he absolutely steamrolled it to earn Player of the Year honors. Check out these stats from the back of the card:

 

• #1 in eagles made (14)
• #1 in scoring average (68.89)
• #1 in greens in regulation (76.7%)
  
• #1 in putts per GIR (1.736) 
• #3 in driving accuracy (74%)
• #4 in driving distance (267.9 yds)
• #5 in birdies (379)
• #5 in sand saves (53.1%)
  

 

As for how we did on the golf course?

The scores are not worth mentioning. Earlier in the post I alluded to the weather. Well, to elaborate, we teed off around 8:45 that morning. It was 39 degrees Fahrenheit. Windy. A little rain. And it actually got even colder during the middle of the round. Overall, it was just a rough day out there. We hardly saw another golfer anywhere on the course the entire time. In a way, that was amazing. In another way, it told us that maybe it just wasn't a day to be out playing golf for five hours.

 

Regardless, we had a great time, and we'll talk about the day for a long while. The pickpocket crow story just tops it off.

Now some questions for you readers:

 

Do you have a favorite golf card of the bunch?

 

What do you think about these pack rips on the golf course? Do we have a fun tradition in the works?

 

Let me know in the comment section, and thanks for reading. 

 

Packs at the Golf Course: I Return the Favor

Around this time last year, my brother surprised me after a round of golf with a couple of packs of hockey cards. They were both from the early 1990s, which was right around my peak hockey card–collecting time, so the nostalgia levels were high. 

 

Right then and there, I took one pack and he took another, and we opened them. Only two or three stars showed up inside, but it was still a fun experience.

Well, this is the time of year when golf season and hockey season overlap, and a few weeks ago I found myself thinking about that pack rip. I figured that the next time my brother and I played golf, I'd go into my stash of early '90s hockey packs and return the favor with a little surprise after the round.

 

When he surprised me, it was one pack of 1990-91 Upper Deck and one pack of 1992-93 Upper Deck.

 

This time, I split the difference.

That's 1991-92 Upper Deck. Many would argue it was the best hockey set of the year, far and away. And I'd agree. Just looking at those foil packs reminds me of a monthly card show back then that was held at a local Holiday Inn. My hockey buddy and I would walk over to the show, buy some packs, and then head back to my house where we'd open them and play NHL Hockey on Sega Genesis. Man, those were fun times.

 

Fast-forward more than 30 years, and let's have a look at the cards my brother and I pulled from those two packs.

First, my brother's pack.

The first card out of the pack was part of the popular Canada Cup subset, which contained quite a few notable rookies and stars. I mentioned to my brother that Mr. Garpenlov went on to have a serviceable NHL career after coming over from Sweden. He replied by saying that those uniforms definitely looked Swedish. In the middle there we have goalie Bill Ranford, who won the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP) with the Oilers in 1989-90. As for Russian legend Igor Larionov, look—he's doing battle with another legendary Russian player, Sergei Fedorov! Great action shot from a pretty cool and unusual angle.

Next up we've got Rob DiMaio. Yvon Corriveau, and yet another great Russian player in Sergei Makarov. More excellent action, don't you think?

Dan Quinn was a very good hockey player (and golfer). He even played in some professional golf tournaments after finishing his hockey career. In the middle, Mr. Zalapski shows off the classic Whalers logo, and look on the right! It's a Russian legends hot pack with the addition of Alexander Mogilny! My brother actually saw the back of the Mogilny card first, and got a kick out of the subject matter, considering where we were standing at that moment:

He's on the golf course!

Last three cards of the pack: Marty McSorley was a protector for Wayne Gretzky, both in Edmonton and Los Angeles. I like how Upper Deck showed him doing what he did best on the card front. And we finish off the pack with two looks at team Canada's uniforms. Two very solid players, as well.

 

Oh, and at the back of the back, you have the NHL All-Star fan ballot insert. As you can see by the text on the front, this card takes us back to a time of 1-900 numbers. $0.95 for the first minute, $0.55 for each additional minute. Yeesh. You'd better choose your all-stars quickly.

Now here's my pack.

 

 

We started off hot with a Zigmund Palffy rookie card and a Brett Hull/Eric Lindros Canada Cup checklist. Palffy was a superstar on Long Island during my college hockey days in the late-1990s, putting up 40+ goals a year for a while there.

Nothing too memorable here, although Dave Tippett was an excellent defensive forward who had a long playing career. He coached in the NHL for more than 20 years, as well.

Adam Graves helped Bill Ranford and the Oilers (see above) win that Stanley Cup in 1989-90. He then went on to the Rangers, where he was a big part of their 1994 Stanley Cup season. Ulf Samuelsson was known to be a big hitter and rough guy. See that Stanley Cup patch on his right shoulder? He helped the Penguins to their back-to-back cups in 1990-91 and 1991-92. As for Michel Petit, I remember him playing for the Rangers when I first got into hockey around 1989 or so.

That Brett Hull insert came out of the pack with the back of the card showing. Before we started the rip, I'd told my brother that Mr. Hull had signed a small number of the cards, which were then randomly inserted into the packs. We were hoping this would be one of them, but alas, it wasn't to be. Nice Cooperalls, though. Tom Barrasso was the starting goaltender on those Cup-winning Penguins teams with Ulf Samuelsson. As for Tomas Forslund, he played just a couple of NHL seasons in Calgary before going to Europe and playing in the Swedish and German professional leagues.

Pretty good pack, overall. And instead of the All-Star fan ballot, I found this at the end of the pack:

 

One of the randomly inserted holograms! You can't go wrong with Ray Bourque, who won the Norris Trophy (top defensive player) five times during his career.

This was a pretty fun pack rip. I think my brother and I might have to make this an annual tradition—at least one pack per year, that is.

Do any of you have a pack-ripping tradition, either on your own or with family and friend collectors? What's your favorite card from the two hockey packs?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!