Jim Carey Autograph Card

It had been a while, but I do have plenty of autograph cards from the worst set of all time, Upper Deck's 1995-96 Be A Player series, of which I have already profiled Petr Nedved, Pierre Turgeon, and Brian 'Mr. October' Savage. This time, what many people have come to dub ''goaltending's one-hit wonder'', Jim Carey.

We all know how he was a rookie with the Washington Capitals and won the Calder and Vezina trophies before getting traded to the Boston Bruins and pretty much falling off the face of the earth, but that's not really how things went down.

Being an American, he played College hockey in the WCHA for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers, with whom he was a WCHA All-Rookie, member of the Second All Star Team, and Rookie Of The Year for the 1992-93 season. He was just as good the next year.

In 1994-95, with the NHL lock-out under way, he went to the AHL to play with with the Portland Pirates. The result? Rookie Of The Year, First All Star Team, and Goalie Of The Year, despite the Capitals calling him up to finish the season in the NHL, where he dominated the opposition, going 18-6-3, which pretty much ensured he'd be the Caps' starter the following year, where he was Rookie Of The Year, Goalie Of The year, and a member of the First All Star Team. Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, the team under-performed in 1996-97, and despite his decent individual statistics (2.75 GAA), he lost more than he won (17-18-3) and was sent packing to Boston, as the Bruins thought they could reboot the Massachussets native's career, but Pat Burns elected to go with Byron Dafoe instead. Carey was sent to the Providence Bruins

, in the AHL, and made enough of an impression for the St. Louis Blues to pick him off waivers; unfortunately, a serious inner-ear concussion playing with their AHL affiliate ended his career.

As of now, Carey is the CEO and President of OptiMED Billing Solutions, a medical billing company in Sarasota, Florida. There is an even more complete blog entry on his career here.

This BAP card (# s189) depicts him wearing Team USA's uniform with the ''World Class'' mention, as he was slated to be Mike Richter's backup in the 1996 World Cup. He is sporting a Shark-like mask, holding a Titan stick high, and his trademark Brian's equipment - all reasons to like him at least a bit (I had a similar setup myself).