Dustin Tokarski Autographed Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

I was a fan of Dustin Tokarski's for pretty much his entire pro career, having written about him after sending him cards to sign as well as after pulling a jersey card. And so I wish I would have written about him on the day where he announced his retirement in early September, but I was in the midst of my Season Previews and didn't want to mix anyone up.

He will now serve as a Carolina Hurricanes goaltending scout; the Canes were the last NHL team he played for (6 games in 2024-25, with a 4-2-0 record, 2.18 GAA and .902 save percentage with one shutout), but he spent last year traveling the world, playing 2 games with the AHL's Grand Rapid Griffins (1-0-0, 1.92, .929), 5 games with the DEL's Löwen Frankfurt (0-5-0, 5.48, .834) and a terrific run with the ICEHL's HK Olimpija Ljubljana: 1 regular-season game (0-1-0, 2.97, .900) and 10 playoff games (5-5-0, 2.04 and .934).

He's won everywhere he's played except the highest level, from a Telus Cup (Midget/U-18, 2026), Memorial Cup (2008, including the tournament's All-Star Team, Best Goalie and MVP honours), World Juniors gold (2009, Team Canada), and two Calder Cups (2012 with the Norfolk Admirals and 2019 with the Charlotte Checkers).

Here he is wearing the Admirals' white (home) uniform on card #162 from In The Game's 2010-11 Heroes And Prospects set:

He signed it in blue sharpie about ten years ago, during his time in the Anaheim Ducks / San Diego Gulls organization.

Ricky Starks Wrestling Mat Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

I don't really follow wrestling, but back when I was more active as a musician and hung in the same circles as models and extreme sports athletes, it was one avenue where they could pursue additional work outside of catwalks and photoshoots, as the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) expanded its scope to storylines that were more in tune with Hollywood movies and HBO-style TV: more violence, selling sexualized fantasy, and intertwined scripts over a longer period of time.

And while I never got into watching matches or shows and paid more attention to the women gaining a bigger piece of the pie, some of their male stars like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, John Cena and Dave Bautista made their way into mainstream culture, providing validity to the theory that there is quality acting and things to admire from participants in the "sport".

In that time, other leagues like WCW (World Championship Wrestling) have tried to eat into the WWE's dominance, to varying degrees of success, and the current contender is AEW - All Elite Wrestling, who were headlining Montréal's Centre Bell for the first time last July.

It seems there is a lot of movement of talent going from one stable to the other, with the likes of Penta, Royce Keys, Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, and Jade Cargill going from AEW to WWE, and Andrade, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Mercedes Moné, and Adam Copeland going the other way (usually at the end of their contract with one promotion).

One such rover is Ricky Starks, who used his real name in NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) and AEW but now goes as Ricky Saints in WWE, in their NXT brand; he made the move in 2025 after a brief stint in Game Changer Wrestling (GCW). Here is a variant of card #45 from Upper Deck's 2023 AEW set featuring a grey swatch of ring mat:

It is numbered 4/50 and falls under the Red Mat sub-set.

Brent Ashton Autographed Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

When I was a kid, say grades 3 to 6, I lived near downtown Montréal and the mythic Montréal Forum, where the Montréal Canadiens played. Of course, the entire school rooted for the Habs, and Patrick Roy was my boyhood idol, but the rebel in me needed to go against the grain, so I started rooting for the Québec Nordiques. We're talking 1986-1990, so the Nordiques were on their way to a very bad place, and there were many reasons why players didn't want to play there, from the team bottoming out to many American products not being available in the smallish town to the fact that at the time, Québec was a majority-French city where even the team's contracts were drafted in French first.

One player who was rumoured to be part of that mindset at the time was Brent Ashton, but not only is it very difficult to find any corroborating evidence of that today, but he denied it himself when he signed this card (in black sharpie) at a trade show roughly 15-20 years ago (and initially re-signed with the team for four seasons):

It's card #181 from Topps' 1986-87 Topps flagship collection, showing him wearing the best uniform in sports, the Nordiques' blue away uniform.

Do you know who didn't want to play in Québec, though? John Ogrodnick, the guy Ashton was traded to the Detroit Red Wings for.

My Nordiques Numbers Project

You're probably used to it by now, what with my Habs Numbers Project, my Oilers Numbers Project, my Sens Numbers Project, and my Canucks Numbers Project, but I decided long ago that I would also have one for my favourite team growing up, the Québec Nordiques.

As a reminder, the goal is to have an autographed card of a player representing each jersey number worn/used by the franchise. If I can't find an autographed card, autographed pictures, postcards or jersey cards can count.

Originally founded as a WHA team in in 1972, they joined the NHL with the New England/Hartford Whalers, the Oilers and the Winnipeg Jets when the WHA folded with the agreement that four teams would merge with the NHL, pending a transfer fee and the loss of their superstars whose rights belonged to existing NHL teams.

Because the franchised relocated to Denver to become the Colorado Avalanche in 1995, it's a tad harder to complete this set than my previous ones, because it gives me a limited number of years to access and fewer players having the chance to wear certain jersey numbers.

I'm starting this project with the mindset of limiting myself to the 1972-1995 time period, ignoring the Avs part of the team's history - and also skipping over former teams based in the same city, such as the Stanley Cup-winning Québec Bulldogs.

Here's the list of those I have featured here thus far:

1. Ron Tugnutt and Richard Sévigny: check!
2. Sylvain Lefebvre: check!
4. Paul Baxter: check!
5. Réjean Houle and Brent Severyn: check!
6: Craig Wolanin: check!
7: Robbie Ftorek and Lane Lambert: check!
9: Réal Cloutier and Brent Ashton: check!
10. Guy Lafleur: check!
12. Chris Simon: check!
16. Michel Goulet once: (and twice) check!
18: Marian Stastny and Mike Hough: check!
19. Michel Dion (also wore 30): check!
21: Randy Moller: check!
22. Ron Sutter: check!
28: Tony Hrkac (also wore #40): check!
30. Michel Dion (also wore 19): check!
31. Stéphane Fiset: check!
32. Dale Hunter: check!
33. Mario Gosselin: check!
36: Adam Deadmarsh: check!
40: Tony Hrkac (also wore #28): check!
41: Doug Smail: check!
44: Mario Marois: check!
48. Scott Young: check!
49: Kip Miller: check!
51: Andrei Kovalenko: check!
55: René Corbet: check!
59: Dave Karpa: check!

That's 27 numbers. Some will be harder than others to acquire (Peter Stastny's 26 and Joe Sakic's/Owen Nolan's 88), but I'm actually fairly confident with this one. This and the Habs one, fittingly, should near completion before I get bored with having these projects!

Wesley Sutton Jersey Card

(team and product links go to sponsored Amazon products, player links go to related pages on my blog, news links go to source pages)

The Montréal Alouettes closed the 2026 regular season in first place of the Eastern Division with a 14-4 record, despite resting most of their starters in recent weeks. Their next game is the Eastern Division final, next Saturday at 3 PM, against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

One player who has been consistent year-to-year for the Als is 30-year-old defensive back Wesley Sutton, from Chandler, Arizona. In 14 games this season, he has 43 defensive tackles, one sack for a seven-yard loss and two interceptions. His best season was in 2022, when he had 79 tackles, 4 sacks and one interception. He was part of the Grey Cup-winning team in 2023.

I am proud to add him as #37 in my Alouettes Numbers Project with this card:

That is the Game Jersey version of card #77 from Upper Deck's 2024 CFL set. It shows him wearing the Als' current dark blue (home) uniform, matching the swatch that is included on the card.