Theo Fleury: Two Autographed Cards

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

This weekend is the Hockey Hall Of Fame's annual induction celebration, which as usual sparks a bit of controversy as to who gets in and when, and also who doesn't. This year, for example, Carey Price gets in on his second attempt, while fellow Vezina winner Pekka Rinne gets in on his first ballot. Who deserved it first/most, if at all? And whose place are they taking? Didn't Jose Theodore also win the Vezina and Hart trophies in the same season? Aren't Jaroslav Halak's statistics pretty much exactly the same as Price's? Price, regular season and playoffs (from HockeyDB):

Halak, regular season and playoffs (from HockeyDB):

And what about Keith Tkachuk? Two 50-goal seasons at the beginning of the Dead Puck Era, a 40-goal season prior, and another 40-goal season right in the midst of it. But no 100-point seasons, not a point-per-game average, no individual hardware, no Stanley Cups; he was, however, the first American to lead the NHL in goals (with 52, in 1996-97). So... U.S. Hall Of Fame? Certainly. Hockey HOF? Where do you set the bar?

Tkachuk was a physical force who scored goals at a time where there were a handful of others like him: Eric Lindros, John LeClair, Todd Bertuzzi; he posted 1065 points (538 goals, 527 assists) with 2219 penalty minutes in 1201 regular-season games, as well as 56 points (28 goals, 28 assists) in 89 playoff games. He was also part of the Team USA squad that won the 1996 World Cup. Lindros was inducted in the Hall with just 865 points (372 goals, 493 assists, with 1398 penalty minutes) in 760 regular-season games, but also 57 points (24 goals, 33 assists) in 53 playoff games, with a Cup Final; LeClair has three 50-goal seasons and a Stanley Cup (not in), and Bertuzzi topped at 46 goals (not in either).

Theoren Fleury was a feisty 5'6" winger who scored 51 goals in 1990-91, and hit the 40-goal mark three other times, the 100-point mark twice and 90 points twice as well; he has 1088 total points (455 goals, 633 assists) in 1084 games (with 1840 penalty minutes) as well as 79 points (34 goals, 45 assists, with 116 penalty minutes) in 77 playoff games, winning the Cup in 1988-89. He also won gold with Team Canada at the 1988 World Juniors and 2002 Olympics, the Canada Cup in 1991, and a silver medal at the 1991 World Championships. All of this while battling depression and alcoholism due to having been sexually assaulted by coach Graham James in Juniors, as had fellow NHLer Sheldon Kennedy.

But regardless of the obstacles he overcame to perform (and win) at such a high level, shouldn't Fleury's numbers by themselves be appreciated and wouldn't they stand alone as comparables to at least Lindros and Tkachuk? Star goaltender Marc-André Fleury (Vezina winner, three-time Cup winner and two more Cup Finals, no relation to Theo) will be eligible to enter the Hall in November 2028; wouldn't it be a great time to also induct his homonym, who finished top-five in Hart voting twice and top-five for the Selke as well? Consider this my resounding "yes".

While he represented both the Colorado Avalanche and New York Rangers in the All-Star Game, he did it five times with the Calgary Flames, which is why this is the way I remember him most, in their red (away) uniform, as seen on card #386 from O-Pee-Chee's flagship 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee set:

And a close-up, from card #282 of OPC's 1991-92 O-Pee-Chee set:

He signed both in black sharpie at a 2010 book signing for his autobiography, Playing With Fire, a must-read.

I couldn't be prouder to have him represent #14 in My Flames Numbers Project.

My Flames Numbers Project

I have hinted at it before, but after my Montréal Expos Numbers Project and all my hockey ones (my Habs Numbers Project, my Oilers Numbers Project my Sens Numbers Project, my Canucks Numbers Project, and my Nordiques Numbers Project), now's the time to do the same for the Calgary Flames.

The Flames won the Stanley Cup in 1989, the only visiting team to ever win it on Montréal Canadiens home ice. They have been in Calgary since 1980, but the franchise started out as the Atlanta Flames in 1972. For my project, I think I'll focus on the Calgary era only. It may evolve over time but for now, that'll be my goal.

Speaking of goals, the point of this project is to feature memorabilia from players who represent each uniform number ever worn in team history; ideally, for the purposes of displaying it upon completion, it'd be nice to have those all be signed cards; however, because I'm far from rich, sometimes these may be other types of signed items, or even jersey cards.

So far, I have featured the following 46* players for 39 numbers:

1: Tyler Moss: check!
3: Ladislav Smid: check!
5: Mark Giordano: check!
6: Bob Boughner: check!
7:  T.J. Brodie (also wore #66) and Steve Bégin (also wore 26): check!
8: Joël Bouchard: check!
9: Lanny McDonald: check!
10: Roman Cervenka: check!
11: Gary Leeman and Mikael Backlund: check!
12: Jarome Iginla (twice): check!
13: Michael Cammalleri: jersey card check!
14: Theo Fleury: check!
16: Cory Stillman and Shean Donovan: check!
18: Matt Stajan: check!
20: Gary Suter: check!
22: Ron Stern and Craig Conroy: check!
23: Sean Monahan: check!
25: Willie Plett and Joe Nieuwendyk: check!
26: Steve Bégin: check!
27: Ed Beers: check!
28: Robyn Regehr and Émile Poirier: check!
29: Joel Otto and Akim Aliu: check!
31: Réjean Lemelin, Rick Wamsley, Ken Wregget and Curtis McElhinney: check!
34: Miikka Kiprusoff: check!
35: Henrik Karlsson: check!
37: Trevor Kidd and Leland Irving: check!
38: Ben Street: check!
40: Fred Brathwaite and Alex Tanguay: check!
41: Dustin Boyd (also wore #16): check!
42: Mark Cundari: check!
44: Chris Butler: check!
47: Sven Baertschi: check!
48: Greg Nemisz: check!
53: Derek Morris: check!
57: Émile Poirier: check!
59: Maxwell Reinhart: check!
60: Markus Granlund: check!
61: Oleg Saprykin (also wore #19): check!
66: T.J. Brodie (also wore #7): check!
67: Michael Frolik: check!
93: Sam Bennett: check!

captains: McDonald, Nieuwendyk, Conroy, Iginla and Giordano.
*some players appear twice, and therefore count as two.

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.