Stan Smyl: Two Autographed Cards

Last month, the Vancouver Canucks introduced their new captain, Bo Horvat, and while I do not currently have any of his memorabilia, I did have a couple of signed Stan Smyl cards I could feature, so here we are.

By the time I got really interested and invested in following hockey - and I dove right in, learning the current and career statistics of every player in that era as well as those of a select few Hall Of Famers by reading the daily stats before going to school from 1987 until 1995 - Smyl was past is 60-, 70- and 80-point seasons and settling into the role of a checking elder statesman who ran into injury trouble, prompting three consecutive nominations for the Masterton Trophy, but also bringing his points-per-game average from the 0.85-0.90 range to a still-respectable 0.75.

He's the one from whom Trevor Linden learned to supplement his talent with the will and ability to also take on a leadership role, a skill set that enabled him to be the team's President of Hockey Operations for a little over four years.

"Steamer" also embodies the "classic Canucks" look, in my opinion, with the black "skate" logo uniform, pretty much with this pose and picture, on card #283 from O-Pee-Chee's 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee set:

And what about this picture, taken 20 years ago (notice the team's 20th Anniversary patch on the left shoulder), still playing close to the net in the danger zone at age 32, a year before retiring, on card #374 from Score's 1990-91 Score Canadian (Bilingual Edition) collection:

That's a young Mark Fitzpatrick he's about to come into contact with.

He sent me these two cards at an old address I forwarded my mail from about a year ago, and I just fell upon them last weekend.