hockey?

believe it or not, i used to be a pretty big hockey fan.  i was born into it, and attended many kings games while growing up in southern california.  i was at the 1981 all-star game at the fabulous forum (the first time i saw wayne gretzky play) and was an inaugural season ticket holder for the mighty ducks of anaheim and the minnesota wild.  i still have a pretty good luc robitaille card collection, as well as a few other stars of the 1990's.  and, with the stanley cup being won last night by the blackhawks, i figured now was a good time to show some puck stuff.

i have a bunch of random, more common hockey cards heading to captain canuck (once calgary dries out) in the hopes that they might be worth a dodger or two in trade.  one card that i almost held on to was this 2000-01 topps stadium club card of scott stevens.

that's about as pretty as modern day cardboard gets.

i did hold on to a couple of cards, though, and have decided to include them in my heretofore baseball only memorials collection.

one of those cards is this 1993-94 upper deck bryan mccabe world juniors subset card

as you can see, he's wearing a 'tdk 14' memorial patch.  the problem is, i am not sure for whom this patch is being worn.  trevor kidd was alive and well (and still is today) back then, even though he was no longer on the canadian junior team having last played for them in 1992.  if anyone has any knowledge regarding this patch, i would love to know more about it.

the other hockey card making it's way into my memorials collection is this 2002-03 upper deck top shelf jason allison card

allison is wearing the red, white, and blue 'am' patch in honor of kings' scouts ace bailey and mark bavis who were passengers on united flight 175 out of boston on september 11, 2001.  theirs was the plane that was hijacked and flown into the south tower of the world trade center in the terrorist attacks that day.

i used to have a kings jersey like the one allison is wearing on that card, and i had hoped at the time to add the patch to it, but never did.

i don't plan to add all memorial patches from other sports to my collection, but if anyone has a 2001 cowboys card showing the tom landry fedora patch or a maple leafs card with a good shot of the king clancy patch from 1986-87 i'd be interested.

finally, since this is a baseball card blog, i will tie today's hockey theme together by showing off some cards from upper deck's 2002 superstars release.

here's a ziggy palffy/shawn green jersey card

and another palffy, this time with adrian beltre.

note the 'am' memorial patch on ziggy's jersey, as it is on felix potvin's on this potvin/paul loduca jersey card

potvin will always be a maple leaf to me.  when i think of king netminders, i think of rollie melanson, kelly hrudey, jamie storr, and robb stauber.  and the failed grant fuhr experiment.  rogie vachon was before my time, unfortunately.

here's the last card of mine from the '02 superstars set that i will showcase - a shawn green/wayne gretzky/kobe bryant jersey card

this card is begging for sandy koufax instead of greenie.  i really thought that the kings were going to win the stanley cup back in 1993 with gretzky, but stickgate and patrick roy were too much to overcome.  while i was happy to see luuuuuuuuuuuuc raise the cup in detroit, it was even nicer to see him lift it (although in street clothes) with the kings last year.

don't count on seeing any more hockey (or basketball) for that matter.  unless i have a king clancy patch to show off.