I figured I would continue to talk about my hockey fandom in this second “Card Thoughts” post for hockey cards. If you missed it you can check out the first about the 1990-91 Pro Set cards.
There are so many hockey terms that you need to learn when you are picking up the sport. The fact that these cards looked like rink again made me think of it. For instance, a “Blue Liner” being a defenseman was something to pick up. Given there are blue lines represented on the card I thought it fit. Here are some of my favorites:
- Biscuit – the puck, I like biscuits so…
- Dump and Chase – putting the puck in the offensive zone and then following it in, but I mean, I just said “dump”.
- Five Hole – between the legs, sure that isn’t necessarily hockey specific these days, but that’s where it came from.
- Long Change – when you change sides in a period and you are farther from your defensive zone, it took me forever to figure this out on my own and its so simple it’s embarrassing to think about.
- Odd Man Rush – a 2-1 (example), or maybe the strangest guy on the team getting a scoring chance.
There are so many more and those are pretty basic in the grand scheme. But the sport definitely has it’s own language. It’s so weird that it makes it really fun to learn.
1990-91 Score Hockey
The last time we looked at hockey we were opening a box of 1990-91 Pro Set hockey. There are a whole lot of similarities between these sets and their designs. Not necessarily the look exactly, but what’s used in the look. Let’s take a look at what we can find:
- Team logo in a circle in the upper left split evenly between the top area and the image
- Company logo in the top right
- Hockey rink themed design but still not really exactly a hockey rink
There are differences, for instance, these aren’t team colors. But it’s still close when you think about the elements.
I’m taking a look at the goalies on this one. Of course I have to start out with a guy from my team in Mike Richter. I loved that dude when I started learning more about hockey. But the other too are really just names I remember as being at least good. But I have to admit that it’s mostly just name recognition for me.
On The Side
There weren’t many of these landscaped cards and maybe that’s why I decided to take a closer look at them. Is it really weird that when you lay it on its side the stripes/lines look completely different? I would think they would look better because they match how you watch hockey on TV with the orientation of the lines. But it just looks funny to me. I would be that’s because there are so many in portrait alignment that you just get used to that.
All that said, I love having the Brett Hull card in this format with the position he’s in. That’s a great action picture of his follow-through and you wouldn’t get that same feeling if it was somehow on a portrait card. In reality though it wouldn’t have made it to a card if it had to be in portrait.
The Name Game
I think one of the things that got me more interested in hockey as a kid, I would say like second level of liking hockey, is the interesting names. Some of that is because hockey is a very international sport and you get names of guys from Scandanavia and Eastern Europe that just seem so different than U.S. and Canadian names. But heck, that doesn’t mean you can’t find great names from those countries.
Dino Ciccarelli and Zarley Zalapski are great examples while Esa Tikkanen is a great version of a name from Finland.
One of my favorite parts of the names with hockey is that so many of them seem to fit the sport or the player’s position. I didn’t have one of his cards but one of my all-time favorites is Jeff Beukeboom. As a defenseman, how could a name with “boom” in it be more perfect.
No Labels
So back in the day “no labels” was something I remember kids saying in the punk scene. I’m trying to remember if it was a reaction to getting labelled as something, or if it was more about not being signed to a label and being DIY. Either way it was my first thought on these cards.
This was still in the beginning of Score, but we know that in 1990 Score baseball and 1990 Score football they created a lot of special cards. These are different, but I wouldn’t say they are special. They look a whole lot like the base cards. I do like the labels they gave them. I think “Speedster” is a little basic, but I love “Banger” and “Shadow.”
A-A-A-All-Stars and Leaders
Here are some more cards that look a lot like the base with only some small changes. I think with the “First Team” cards they are trying to do something like Upper Deck did with their “exposed” cards back around the same time. These feel almost like the delay the Edge uses in a U2 song.
Rookie Types
I know all of these aren’t really rookies. In fact, I don’t know that any of them are rookies. I don’t mean that is not the players rookie card, just that they don’t actually say rookie. There’s “Prospect” which I think would be not yet a rookie, “All-Rookie Team” which would be after you’ve been a rookie, and then “Draft Pick” which is not even a prospect yet. At least that’s how I said it.
But I loved seeing Mats Sundin and even better, Jaromir Jagr in here. Jaromir has quite a look going on.
Championship Moments
I love it when sets include these sort of recap cards from the previous postseason. I think the odd part is all those darn fonts they are using. That and the picture of the Oilers looks a little out of place from a quality perspective. But I love that “Prince of Wales Conference” logo on that Bruins card.
Other Stuff
As always I keep some TTM cards and several unopened packs. The stack of TTMs was definitely a pretty good size. So far it’s been pretty good for me with getting them returned.
This was another pretty fun set to open. I think it got a little old as I opened more and more. That’s most likely because the design doesn’t change much, at least the color isn’t. It looks like a good set for TTMing though. As a for instance, that Mike Ramsey has a great place to sign on the bottom.