Black Friday!!!

I went to Out of the Box Sports Cards on my lunch break and took advantage of the Black Friday sale.  They had hobby boxes of 2017-18 MVP for $25, but I bought enough of that crap, and I pretty much pulled the same cards out of the two boxes I bought.  I decided on 2018-19 Team Canada that was on for $60 since I hadn't bought any yet.

Here's what I pulled:

5 Red Parallels #/225

4 Program of Excellence

2 Provincial Prowess

1 Base Jersey

3 Premium Swatch Autographs #/199

Wow.  I'm not going to complain about pulling 3 Premium Swatch autos.  The Raddysh and Fortino are definitely patches.  I'm unsure about the Ellis.  It looks like the puck from the Team Canada logo, but it feels like part of the jersey.  My favourite card is the Drake Batherson Provincial Prowess.  He looks very impressive since his call up to the Sens, and I hope to get it signed.

$20 off and 3 big pulls.  Definitely a win.

The "Other" Card Show

I went to the local card show last week to see what was there.  It kind of sucks, because it takes place during the same weekend as the Toronto Expo.  I still found some stuff.  I got a base set of 2017-18 Upper Deck Series One for $3 and a set of 2014-15 OPC Platinum for $30.  Last show, the guy selling the Platinum set wanted $40 for it.  The show before that, he wanted $50.  I guess if I waited for 3 shows, I could've gotten it for free.  Someone had a jumbo box of 2014-15 OPC Platinum for $90, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Rainbow Parallels

Retro Parallels

Retro Rainbow Parallel

Black is numbered /100

Traxxxxx, or whatever the hell these are called.

White Ice #/199 (though it looks more greyish to me)

Blue Trax #/65

Black Ice #/25 (again, looks more grey or silver)

A couple of nice looking die-cut inserts.

A couple of rookie signatures (Blue Duclair is #/25)

This box was a lot more fun to open than I thought it would be.  I was actually excited to see what was in each pack.  Love the base and retro design, as well as the die cut inserts.  2 hard signed autographs per box is a nice touch.  Not sure how rare the blue trax are, but considering I pulled 5 and they're numbered to just 65, I'm a little surprised I pulled that many.  I was just glad I didn't pull any redemptions.

I Hate Deco Pens

Last week, I went for the Sabres as they were leaving town.  It turned out there were "handlers" for Casey Mittlestadt and Rasmus Dahlin, so they were a no go.  They all left at once so I had to pick and choose.  Phil Housley and Jason Pominville were the first two I recognized, so I went for them.  And that was pretty much it.  It was more than what some guys got.  Could've been worse, and I appreciated them taking the time to sign, but not really worth the time.

Phil Housley x 1 (Jets puck)
Jason Pominville x 2

Sorry, no picture, but you're not missing out on much.

On Saturday, I went for Rouyn-Noranda.  It was windy as hell, so I waited in my car.  The bus pulled up early so Krista and I scrambled out of our respective vehicles to get inside.  Beth wasn't there, and Krista and I don't follow the Juniors as much so we weren't sure who was who.  Two guys came over and signed the stuff we had.  Then Dany Sabourin came around and asked who had stuff for him.  I was surprised because the Goalie Coach typically doesn't travel with the team, though he does other things.  Beth eventually arrived and got all of her stuff done.  I don't really do this often, and I need to brush up on recognizing Junior players.

Peter Abbandonato x 2
Felix Bibeau x 2
Tyler Hinam x 2
Rafael Harvey-Pinard x 1
Dany Sabourin x 5 (Gave one to Krista for her goalie collection)

After that, we drove to the Briere-Somethingorother Complex in the east end as a Junior A team that Felix Potvin coached was in town for the weekend.  We arrived fairly early and had about an hour to kill.  He signed all of my items, but three didn't turn out because I didn't know how to properly prepare a deco pen.  I went back the next day to have the three cards re-done, and he ragged me a bit until he saw the erased gold markings on one of the cards and remembered.

The Remparts were in town on the weekend too, so a chance to get Patrick Roy was available.  I wanted to wait until after the game, but the power went out at the arena with two minutes to go in the second period.  There were about 15-20 people waiting, which is a lot less than normal.  They called the game at 7pm, and the power came back on 10 minutes later.  Patrick came out and signed one for everybody.  I was hoping to get Drew's set card done, but he was signing in black so I got my magazine done instead.  It actually looks good in black.  Now to relax for a few days.

More Junior Hounding

Froze my ass off waiting for the London Knights after the game.

Adam Boqvist x 3
Liam Foudy x 1
Dale Hunter x 7
Matthew Timms x 1

Eventually found the hotel for the Sudbury Wolves too, after 8 tries!

Macauley Carson x 1
David Levin x 1
Jake McGrath x 2
Cory Stillman x 5
Peter Stratis x 1

Weekend Hounding

On Friday, I did the Drummondville Voltiguers before the game.  They came all at once and missed a bunch of players, including Joe Veleno who was the one I wanted.  I got Steve Begin, who signed all three cards I had.  He was a signing machine when I used to go to Montreal to hound the Habs and various visiting teams.

Speaking of which, the Habs were in town and I had the rare opportunity to hound an NHL team in Ottawa.  I went in the morning to see if they were practicing, but it turned out they weren't.  I got Nikita Scherbak and Noah Juulsen, so it wasn't a wasted trip.  I went back later and got most of the big guys.  A bunch of female Habs fans showed up, so I did better than I thought I would.  More to add to the collection.

Drummondville

Steve Begin x 3
Olivier Rodrigue x 1

Kanay Dyainz

Karl Alzner x 2
Joel Armia x 2
Philip Danault x 2
Max Domi x 2
Jonathan Drouin x 1
Charles Hudon x 3
Noah Juulsen x 3
Artruei Lehkonen x 2
Victor Mete x 2
Kirk Muller x 3
Antti Niemi x 2
Carey Price x 1
Nikita Scherbak x 3

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

I took the summer off because I plan on going back to school for accounting in January, not to mention trying to find a job.  I wasn't really doing any hounding or ttm requests (got 3 successes during the entire time).  Anyways, got to hang out with Beth the last little while, so here are the details.

October 10th  Moncton @ Gatineau

Got to meet original Sen Darren Rumble, who is the coach of the team.  He signed my cards that I had and we spoke about the expansion years and the current shit show.

Mika Cyr x 1
Jeremy McKenna x 1
Darren Rumble x 5

October 10th Kingston @ Ottawa

We went to the hotel and waited for the players and coaches to come out.  Michael DiPietro was pretty chatty and signed everything we had.  After the players signed, we went over and got Trevor Letowski, who seemed to be in a good mood and asked if I had anything for Mike Weber, who was an assistant coach.  I didn't have anything since I didn't realize he was a coach.

Luke Boca x 1
Curtis Douglas x 1
Michael DiPietro x 3
Trevor Letowski x 4 (Beth gave me hers)

October 10th & 11th LA @ Ottawa

Went to get the Kings later after we got Kingston.  It turned out that they were having a team dinner, which was both a good and bad thing.  I didn't have to stay out in the cold all night (didn't bring a jacket) but most came out all at once.  Missed a bunch of players when Dion Phaneuf was trying to find a spot to sign on my photo.  Got about 4 players total.

I went back the next morning (it was an afternoon game) to try and get the rest of the players.  The only guys I missed were the players I got from the night before, Michael Amadio, Paul Ladue, Dave Lowry, and Tanner Pearson.  One of the Kings executives seemed to have an issue with people getting autographs (there were four of us, and only 2 of us getting signatures).  Security tried to get us to move but Steve kindly reminded him that it was a public sidewalk.  Security didn't really care, or try to stop us since there were only 4 of us and we weren't causing trouble or rushing the players.

Peter Budaj x 3
Jack Campbell x 2
Jeff Carter x 1
Kyle Clifford x 1
Drew Doughty x 1
Derek Forbort x 3
Adrian Kempe x 2
Anze Kopitar x 1
Ilya Kovalchuk x 1
Trevor Lewis x 3
Alec Martinez x 1
Jake Muzzin x 3
Nate Thompson x 2
Tyler Toffoli x 1

October 12th Women's Hockey and the AHL

Beth and I went to Place Bell in Laval to scout the arena to see where the players enter and exit.  Did well with the women and Binghamton.  The Laval Rocket were a bust because we didn't know where they entered and didn't figure it out until after.  We got some of the Montreal players in the garage.  Then we went to the bus for the Calgary players.  They pretty much ran off off the bus (they might have been late since the start time was moved a half hour earlier).  Then we went to the Binghamton bus to get the Devils' players.  Then we tried to scout the parking lot to see where the Laval players parked, but no luck.  We killed some time by having supper and came back and went in the building and found where the players came out (which would've been handy when we were looking for the Laval players).  So we stayed waaaaaaaaay later than we planned.  We got the rest of the women's players there.  Someone from the Montreal team tried to get Genevieve Lacasse to hurry up and go, but she was like, "It's good, we're friends" referring to Beth.

Binghamton

Nathan Bastian x 1
Mackenzie Blackwood x 1
Sergei Brylin x 3
Michael McLeod x 4
Eric Tangradi x 4

Calgary Inferno

Brianne Jenner x 2 (One smudged)
Rebecca Johnston x 7
Halli Krzyzaniak x 6
Brigette Lacquette x 3
Blayre Turnbull x 1

Montreal Canadiennes

Erin Ambrose x 2
Melodie Daoust x 2
Hilary Knight x 1
Genevieve Lacasse x 4
Marie Philip-Poulin x 5
Laurianne Rougeau x 3 (She walked right up to us without us asking)
Jill Saulnier x 2

Remembering Bob Probert

8 years ago today, hockey lost one of the toughest, but troubled, players to ever play.  While boating on Lake St. Clair with his family during a heat wave, he started complaining of chest pain and quickly collapsed in the boat.  His father-in-law, who was the police chief in Cornwall at the time, tried to give him CPR, but to no avail.  Soon after being rushed to a hospital in Windsor, Bob Probert died of a heart attack at age 45.

Early in his playing career, he was a feared player for his talent and toughness.  In the 1987-88 season with the Red Wings, he recorded 29 goals, 33 assists, and a whopping 398 penalty minutes.  All of those would be career highs.  Unfortunately, he also had his share of issues as well.  In 1989, he would be arrested for cocaine possession at the US/Canada border and would battle drug problems for the rest of his playing career.

I never got his autograph during his playing career, but his mood would vary from accommodating to down right hostile at the drop of a hat.  In fact, according to Dave Sliepka, he gladly signed for one person hounding the Blackhawks at a hotel in Dallas in 2001.  When a group of people ran up, however, he went ballistic and started cursing at them like a Chef in a dinner rush.

In January 2010.  I decided to go and try to hound the Old Timers' Hockey challenge that was taking place at the Civic Center.  I got all of my stuff together and noticed Probert was on the list.  After reading what had happened in Dallas 9 years prior, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I went against my better judgement and put six of his cards on a page.  Waiting in the arena, I saw him walk through the door after putting out a cigarette.  A friend of mine went up to him and signed a couple of items.  Then when he took one look at binder, he noticed I had his 1988 O-Pee-Chee rookie at the top of the page.  He asked if that was his rookie, and I told him yes, and he asked if he could have it, and I gladly gave it to him.  He then signed the rest of my cards and was very chatty with me everyone there.

After the game I asked if he could sign a couple of more things for me.  At first he looked like he didn't want to, but he recognized me (I was the only person at the game wearing a Joe Sakic Quebec Nordiques jersey) and remembered the rookie card I gave him and he had no problem with it.  I then asked if he could take a picture with me.  I had always wanted to get a picture of me and a well known fighter in a head lock and I asked if he would do it.  And he said, "Sure, no problem," and he put his arm around my neck and my friend snapped the picture (seen below).  I was hoping to get him to sign it when the Old-Timers tournament returned the following winter, but sadly I would never get that chance.

Rest in Peace Probie.