Jonas Andersson-Junkka Autograph Card

Yet another twin post with Sal's ''NHL Busts'' series! This time around, Jonas Andersson-Junkka!

Drafted 104th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1993, Andersson-Junkka only played one season in North America, in 2000-01 for the AHL's Syracuse Crunch. He played until 2003-04 in Europe, collecting between 0.25 and 0.5 points per game, on average. He's seen here wearing an airbrushed version of Team Sweden's jersey, with the three crowns on the front of the jersey taken away, and a generic 'SWEDEN' taking their place; he has represented his home country in both the U-18 and U-20 (World Juniors) tournaments.

The card is from Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set (card #), and is numbered 198/4500 (Sal's is #1776). It can usually be found for cheap on Ebay, although some sellers dream about making $10 out of it.

Leland Irving Autograph Card

For six years, Leland Irving has been considered the Calgary Flames' top goaltending prospect, the one who will take over for Miikka Kiprusoff when he decides he's had enough. He even played 7 games last season, keeping a decent .912 save percentage (with a 1-3-3 record and 3.19 GAA, but still...) in the NHL.

This season, however, the Abbotsford Heat are leading the AHL, and with Danny Taylor and his 3-1-1 record and 1.97 GAA in 5 games, and Barry Brust's 1.00 GAA and .962 %, Irving has only seen action in one game so far.

Still, he's only 24, and he's paying his dues in the AHL. And he doesn't have to live with the burden of being The Next One and yet failing time and time again, for five years, to win a playoff series. Then again, the Flames boast one of the five best goalies in the world and haven't even made the playoffs since the 2008-09 season. But as a first-round pick (26th overall in 2006). he'll get all the chances he needs to make a lasting impression.

This card is from In The Game's 2011-12 Between The Pipes set (card #A-LI in the GoalieGraphs insert sub-set), and boasts a sticker autograph (in black sharpie) next to Irving in the Heat's white jersey.

2 Kevin Bolibruck Autograph Cards

How do you one-up legendary hockey card guru Sal when you've been following and duplicating his ''NHL Busts'' series of hockey autographs?

You see his Kevin Bolibruck, and you add another...

First, ''his'', from Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set, (card #5), numbered 1793/4500, sporting his hometown junior team Peterborough Petes' white (home) jersey, with its logo hidden for copyright purposes:

And secondly, from Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft Day set (card #4), a wholly different set of 4500 signed cards (this one numbered 2350) for/of relative nobodies, wearing the Petes' dark blue (away) uniform:

Bolibruck was drafted twice: first by the Ottawa Senators in the 4th round (89th overall, 1995), then by the Edmonton Oilers in the 7th round (176th overall, 1997). In the meantime, his rights had been acquired by the Chicago Blackhawks, but since he failed to sign a pro contract with either the Sens or Hawks, he was eligible for draft again after a two-year hiatus.

While he never did play in the NHL, he did spend 5 seasons in the AHL and has been playing in Europe since 2003-04. He is currently back in Italy's top league with the Pontebba Sport Ghiaccio, with whom he won the 2008 Italian Cup.

Scott Gomez Jersey Card

If you read yesterday's post about Tomas Plekanec, you realized that was but one of the two swatch cards I got in that trade...

The second one is of the Montréal Canadiens' much-maligned ''fourth-line'' center Scott Gomez, from In The Game's 2002-03 Action (Ruby Jersey, #M-25), featuring a nice red piece of game-used jersey and shows him wearing the New Jersey Devils' white (then-home) uniform.

Say what you will about his cap hit and inability to score (except for empty-netters, and even then...), the guy is quick, swifty, and an adept passer. He's also a Stanley Cup champion, and has one trophy Sidney Crosby and Wayne Gretzky never got their hands on: the Calder, as rookie of the year (in 1999-2000).

He's also a good citizen, and a great tipper, as can be attested by many of my service-industry friends who've been lucky enough to serve him.

Tomas Plekanec Jersey Card

The Montréal Canadiens' top center is playing with fellow Czech superstar and good friend Jaromir Jagr for Jagr's HC Kladno during the lock-out. Jagr has knocked on the Habs' door for the past two summers, eager to play alongside Tomas Plekanec, only to be turned down both times.

Not only could the Habs have used Jagr's 19 goals and 54 points, but he could have lent a steady hand at Plek's right, where a total of 9 wingers took their chance throughout the season; the left flank was just as much of a revolving door, as the Canadiens chose to keep their top-producing line of David Desharnais, Max Pacioretty and Erik Cole intact, leaving their best center without a designated winger for pretty much the whole season.

If only for that reason, I wish Plekanec a long lock-out, so he can enjoy playing with a quality winger for as long as possible, as head coach Michel Therrien has already said he'd leave the Habs' ''first line'' intact.

This card (#GJ-TP) is from Upper Deck's 2010-11 Series 1 set (the Game Jersey sub-set), and features a swatch from and picture of the Habs' white (away) jersey. I got it in the mail on Wednesday, part of a trade with Brad from Cards From The Crease, a one-sided trade this time as I received two jersey cards and some 20 Habs cards and stickers, while I merely sent him a Mario Lemieux 2010-11 Ice Kings card from Donruss (by Panini). I do plan on giving more when I'm done unpacking my cards from my late-summer move. And maybe get into trading more, in general.

Five 2012-13 Score Pack Breaks

I bought (and reviewed) two boxes of Panini's 2012-13 Score two months ago, and was relatively satisfied, as I usually am with this low-end product.

Today, I walked past a dollar store and was curious to see if they still sold packs of last year's product, or if they'd ''upgraded'' to the current season's... and they had, so I bought 5 packs.

Here's the breakdown:

Regular cards: 22

'Gold' parallel: 5, including two members of the Columbus Blue Jackets in almost identical positions:

Hot Rookies: 2 I already had, ''big name'' Chris Kreider, and one Hab - Gabriel Dumont.

The Franchise Retro: 1 - Ed Giacomin.

First Goal: 1, Brayden Schenn

Team Score: 1

Season Highlight: 3

Montréal Canadiens (my home team): 2, including 1 rookie (Dumont)

Not so bad, all in all, a few Edmonton Oilers, alternate uniforms, good players.

Chad Allan Autograph Card

For the second straight day, here's a twin post with one of (ultimate hockey card blogger) Sal's, ''NHL bust'' Chad Allan, seen here in the 1990s Saskatoon Blades uniform (somewhat loosely based on the St. Louis Blues' mid-nineties foray into integrating the colour red to the blue-and-yellow); the Blades have kept some of the same colours throughout the years, but the yellow is now relegated to ''third jersey'' status and looks more like the mid-2000s Buffalo Sabres' jerseys than the Blues'...

Nowadays, the Blades use mostly all-blue uniforms:

Picture taken from the Blades' website

But back to Chad Allan, a third-round pick of the Vancouver Canucks (65th overall) in 1994 (ahead of Sheldon Souray, Chris Drury, Milan Hejduk, Marty Turco, Daniel Alfredsson, Bryce Salvador, enforcer/comedian André Roy, Tim Thomas, Evgeni Nabokov, Tomas Vokoun, Steve Sullivan, Richard Zednik, Sergei Berezin, Tomas Holmstrom, Dick Tarnstrom, and Kim Johnsson - most of whom are either still active or former All Stars).

A decent-sized defensive defenseman, Allan played 5 seasons with the Blades, followed by 5 seasons in the AHL (four with the Syracuse Crunch and one with the St. John's Maple Leafs), and then 8 more in Europe; he also played a half season split between Europe and the UHL (formerly the IHL), for the Kalamazoo Wings.

This card was also from Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set (card #1!!!), and is numbered 1314/4500. Notice how the logo was airbrushed out and instead replaced with a generic rendering of the city's name, because SR didn't have the rights to reproduce CHL/WHL logos... I like how it was signed in (very) thin blue sharpie.

Lou Body Autograph Card

 Once more, a post similar to Sal's!

From Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set is card #4, Harvard Crimson's ''consistent defensive-minded rearguard'', Lou Body, numbered 1234/4500 - yes, that's one-two-three-four. It was signed in (very) thin blue sharpie.

What's funny is that the year before this card's issue (i.e. the one he's supposed to be pictured in), Body was actually playing for the ECHL's Richmond Renegades; he stopped playing for Harvard University in 1993-94.

Undrafted, Body stopped playing organized hockey after the 1995-96 season after a second consecutive 24-point season with the Renegades.

Rod Brind'Amour Autographed Card

In yet another post inspired by The Iron Lung's quest to showcase autographed cards from all of the NHL'S 1000-point guys comes this sweet Rod Brind'Amour in-person autographed card I'd forgotten about but found while unpacking cards while moving this summer.

It's card #84 from Upper Deck's 2006-07 SP Authentic set and sees him wearing the Carolina Hurricanes' pre-lockout (notice the absence of shoulder piping or NHL logo in the neck) red (away) jersey, with the captain's ''C''. Oddly enough, I got it signed in blue sharpie at a game between the 'Canes and the... Ottawa Senators, in Brind'Amour's birthplace of Ottawa, between 2007 and 2010. Ottawa is a two-hour drive or so from Montréal, so sometimes when I want to catch a game, I'm willing to travel and save almost 50% off ticket prices (the Bell Centre's prices are among the league's most-expensive).

My previous post about him was relatively complete in telling his tale, except I failed to mention he currently stood at #46 on the all-time NHL scoring list with 1,184 points (452 goals, 732 assists) in 1,484 games despite never scoring 40 goals or gathering 100 points, but with two Frank J. Selke trophies as the league's best defensive forward. Some wonder if that makes him Hall Of Fame worthy, I say the two Selkes and 2006 Stanley Cup speak in his favour and put him ahead of the likes of Mats Sundin (in this year) and Eric Lindros (hopefully never in), but he's far from a shoe-in.

Craig Billington Autograph Card

Craig Billington had a decent career as a backup goalie in the NHL, mostly with the New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche, but also with the Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins and Ottawa Senators. Well, it wasn't so great in Ottawa as he went 11-41-4 (not a typo...) with a 4.59 GAA and .859 save % in 1993-94 and 0-6-2 with a 4.07 GAA and .867 save % to start off the 1994-95 season, but he had his best seasons with the Avs after that, backing Patrick Roy, with GAAs in the 2s and save percentages above .900.

Unfortunately for Billington, he missed out on many Stanley Cups, joining the Avs between their two, and having left the Devils before theirs.

As a junior, however, he was quite successful, winning two World Junior medals (gold in 1985, silver in 1986) and being named top goalie in 1985, as well as OHL All Star Game MVP in 1984-85.

After his playing career, he joined the Avs' front office staff; he is currently their VP of Player Development.

This card (#S151), signed in thin black sharpie, was found as an insert in a pack of Upper Deck's 1995-96 Be A Player set, where they would airbrush team logos from jerseys because they didn't have the rights to display them. If you look closely, he's wearing a Bruins black (away) jersey, but not only is the logo absent from his chest, they identify him as playing for ''Boston'', without naming the team.

Pat Peake Autograph Card

Pat Peake is one of the unluckiest hockey players of all time, and possibly the highest-rated, most-injured prospect of the 1990s - yes, ahead of Brett Lindros. Because of an OHL career that saw him post 317 points in 162 games with the Detroit Compuware Ambassadors / Detroit Junior Red Wings franchise, he was drafted in the first round by the Washington Capitals, 14th overall, in 1991.

The Compuware Ambassadors is a minor-league program spanning all levels (from novice to junior A) owned and supervised by Peter Karmanos, the current Carolina Hurricanes' owner who likes to promote people from inside his own organization (current-day GM has been with him since the Ambassadors' days). After failing to purchase and move two teams to Detroit, Karmanos was awarded an OHL expansion team which he named after his program., who in turn is named after his company Compuware. After a couple of years, at a moment when both teams shared the Joe Louis Arena, Karmanos renamed the team the Junior Red Wings, after their NHL counterpart; the Ambassadors program remains the same to this day. But when Karmanos purchased the NHL's Hartford Whalers, he changed his junior team's name again to become the Detroit Whalers, and then moved them to Plymouth, Michigan (better economic conditions) where they are now known as the Plymouth Whalers. To this day, the (junior) Whalers have only retired one jersey number, that of their all-time leading scorer... Pat Peake's #14.

In 1993-94, the Caps dressed Peake for 49 games, during which he scored 11 goals and added 18 assists for a respectable 29 points; in the lock-out-shortened 1994-95 season, he went 0-4-4 in 18 NHL games, but caught up in 1995-96 with 36 points in 62 games. However, more impressive was his never-ending string of injuries (quoted from this CNN/SI article):

Playing in the Ontario Hockey League in 1992-93, Peake missed three weeks of the regular season with a separated left shoulder and most of the playoffs with a fractured right ankle. As a rookie with Washington the next season, he was sidelined for 14 games with torn rib cartilage, six games with a bruised right shoulder, two games with a sore right ankle and two games with the flu. In '94-95 Peake contracted mononucleosis and played in only 18 games.

The following season Peake took a high stick to the throat and missed 10 games with what was termed "fractured thyroid cartilage." He was also scratched from five games with a sprained right knee, three games with a sprained left shoulder and one game with kidney stones. In the playoffs Peake shattered his right heel and needed extensive surgery. The mangled heel kept Peake out of the Caps' first 67 games of 1996-97. His comeback was complicated when a television fell on his right hand, breaking a bone. Peake returned to action last March 29. He played four games, then suffered a concussion in a car accident and had to sit out the rest of the year.

Peake missed the first 16 games of this season with a combination of lingering pain in the heel, flu symptoms and what he calls "anxiety about getting healthy." He dressed for a Nov. 8 game against the Oilers and got enough ice time to tear several tendons in his right ankle. He hasn't played since, but the Capitals expect him back within a month.

He actually never played pro hockey again, officially retiring in 1998.

This card is from Classic's 1991-92 Draft Picks set (of which the regular-issue card is #12), was signed in blue sharpie and is numbered 239/1100. I got it in a trade for a Petr Nedved Pro Set draft card, of which I had literally hundreds, in the early 1990s.

Andrew Peters Autograph Card

After he signed with the New Jersey Devils in 2009, I lost track of Andrew Peters who, for 5 seasons, had been the Buffalo Sabres' resident tough guy. It turns out he only played 29 games for the Devils (no points, 93 penalty minutes) before being bought out, then passing through the Florida Panthers and Vancouver Canucks organizations without playing an NHL game with them, and barely playing two AHL games with the Rochester Americans before being let go for skipping a curfew. He was then persona non grata everywhere and opted to retire at age 30.

It's hard being an NHL enforcer; many resort to taking drugs or alcohol to escape from the physical pain and depression brought on by doing a job no one else wants to, usually as the lowest-paid player on the team, and often seen by teammates as the one guy who cannot help the team come back from a large deficit by scoring an opportune goal. Peters has admitted to taking (possible, so far unproven) performance-enhancing drug Androstenedione (a steroid that acts like a growth hormone) for a few seasons before Congress made it illegal, but substance abuse of other kinds are not a rare occurrence in these guys' lifestyles. (Not implying anything, just saying.)

As is often the case with these tough guys, Peters was also known for his big heart, always willing to play a charity game, and spending time with childrens' foundations in Buffalo and Rochester.

This card was culled from a pack of Upper Deck's 2006-07 Be A Player cards (it's card #AP in the BAP Signatures insert set) and shows Peters wearing the ''new'' version of the ''old'' Sabres uniform; I like the yellow/gold stripes on the modern one better, but could definitely do without the jersey number in front, which to me is un-hockey-esque.

Zach Boychuk Autograph Card

The Carolina Hurricanes' first-round pick (14th overall) in 2008, Zach Boychuk has yet to make a name for himself in the NHL, with a total of 18 points (7 goals) in 72 games over 4 seasons, but there's always that chance that it could be just because he's been playing with the Hurricanes all this time, where all quality wingers play with Eric Staal and all the other centers have to play with third-liners (at best).

And while Boychuk has had trouble consistently playing above the point-per-game ratio in the AHL as well (while playing, again, with the Hurricanes' prospects...), he did have a great 2010-11 season with the Charlotte Checkers when he went 22-43-65 in 60 games.

Also, I'm always happy when a player scores his first NHL goal against Martin Brodeur, which he did in February 2010.

He won gold at the World Juniors for Team Canada in both 2008 and 2009.

This card shows him wearing the Hurricanes' white (away) jersey, and is from Upper Deck's 2010-11 Artifacts set (card #AF-ZA) and features an on-sticker autograph in blue sharpie. Notice how his jersey number (11) falls right in the middle of his signature!

Bruce Driver Autograph Card

While I'm on the subject of 1995-96 Be A Player cards by Upper Deck... here's Bruce Driver, the long-time (and one-time captain) New Jersey Devils point man who won the Stanley Cup with them in 1995 but then decided to finish his career with rivals New York Rangers right after.

It's card #S147 in the collection, signed in black sharpie. He hasn't changed one bit since the picture was taken:

Then again, he stays in shape by coaching a women's high school team and plays goalie in a recreational league, so I get it. But I'm still impressed. In the same time span, I went from looking like Chris Cornell to Kevin Smith - and I was a goalie to begin with.

Phil Housley Autograph Card

Once again, I was inspired by a post from fellow blogger Sal Barry for this one, seeings as his Gary Suter card features the same uniform as this Phil Housley card - a lock-out tournament, NHLPA uniform, full of sponsors. It's from a set I've featured often, Upper Deck's 1995-96 Be A Player collection (this is card #S72), which had an NHLPA licence but not one from the NHL, so players were depicted either in NHLPA garb, national team uniforms, or their NHL uniforms with the logo airbrushed out. It is signed in thin black sharpie that is hard to see at first through the red and black of the uniform (and John Vanbiesbrouck's pads), but is quite clear after you've seen it once.

Housley was one of the best offensive defensemen of his era, and perhaps one of the 10 best American defensemen of all time (a case can definitely be made for his contemporaries Chris Chelios, Brian Leetch, Mathieu Schneider - although he is half-Canadian -  and Gary Suter as well).

When this card was made, he was a member of the New Jersey Devils, but his cornerstone seasons were spent with the Buffalo Sabres and Winnipeg Jets; he also played with the Washington Capitals, Calgary Flames (twice), Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs, which whom he played just one game, which happened to be his last. He was a member of the 1996 World Cup-winning Team USA.

He is a member of the American Hall Of Fame and ranks among the highest point-producing Americans of all time, despite being a defenseman.

Brian Rolston Autograph Card

Brian Rolston turned out to have made a pretty good career for himself, enough that he played for the same team twice, well, twice - once (well, twice...) with the New Jersey Devils, and now in his second stint with the Boston Bruins.

A formidable two-way player who should have won a Selke trophy at least once, his booming slap shot is so heavy he usually mans the point on the powerplay, in addition to centering the penalty-kill. He's the type of guy you want on your team to man the third (used to be second) line, as his experience in key games and determination know no boundaries. He's won a Stanley Cup with the Devils, as well as a Tampere Cup (1993), a World Cup (1996) and an Olympic silver medal (2002) with Team USA.

He has reached the 30-goal plateau on four different occasions, and been near the 60-point mark seven different times, with a career-high of 79 (34 of them goals) in 2005-06.

He's one of the main reasons why the Minnesota Wild were so difficult to play against after the last lock-out, so it's ironic this one, should it last as long, could put an end to his career, as he has surely slowed down in recent years and can no longer play 20 minutes per game which, frankly, shouldn't be his role anyway. On a team like the Bruins where he's behind Patrice Bergeron and Tyler Seguin on the depth chart, third-line minutes, second unit PP (40 seconds or so), and second unit PK (30-40 seconds or so) should enable him to reach the 35-to-40-point mark without putting the burden of making others produce while shutting down the opposition.

He was a part of two major trades in his career; first, in 1999, he was traded by the Devils to the Colorado Avalanche for, essentially, playoff juggernaut Claude Lemieux (draft picks also went both ways), then the Avs traded him to the Bruins in 2000 with a first-rounder and Samuel Pahlsson and Martin Grenier for Dave Andreychuk and Ray Bourque.

Many will remember him for taking a slap shot that made Jean-Sébastien Giguère duck, with the puck passing over his head for a game-winning goal in 2007-08; I also recall his 2-goal, 2-assist (on two goals by Yanic Perreault) performance at the 2007 All Star Game in a 12-9 win for the Western Conference, where the MVP of the game was Daniel Brière from the losing team when either Rolston or my favourite player Joe Sakic (4 assists, +6) would also have deserved the title.

This card from Classic's 1994-95 Draft Picks set (card #33 in the Autographs checklist, numbered #1891/2400) sees him wearing the Albany River Rats' uniform, when they were the Devils' top AHL affiliate. It was signed in blue sharpie.

Peter Ferraro Autograph Card

Twin posts for twin brothers... you might have a sense of ''déjà-vu'' if you're read my earlier post about Chris Ferraro...

Peter Ferraro was a blue-chip prospect, a can't-miss minor league superstar who just fell short, perhaps because he was always paired up with his twin brother Chris; not only did they become only the second pair of identical twins to play on the same NHL team, they ended up doing so on three different occasions, first with the New York Rangers, then the Pittsburgh Penguins, and lastly the Washington Capitals (always in the same division)! They also played together for the AHL's Binghamton Rangers, Providence Bruins, Syracuse Crunch, and Portland Pirates, the SEL's Sodertalje SK, the DEL's Düsseldorfer Eislauf-Gemeinschaft Metro Stars, and the ECHL's Las Vegas Wranglers.

While his brother was chosen in the fourth round (85th overall) in 1992, Peter was selected in the very first round (24th overall) by the Rangers after scoring 153 points in 71 games of high school hockey. He then went on to have a 50-point season (one less than his brother) in 36 games for the University Of Maine Black Bears before making the leap to full-time Team USA the following year. He was named to the 1992 World Juniors All-Star team.

He also ended up with 591 points in 620 AHL games (a lot more than Chris in both categories, but both twins were near the point-per-game mark), but only 24 points - 9 goals - in 92 NHL games. He won the AHL's Jake A. Butterfield trophy as playoff MVP in 1998-99.

He is pictured above with his Team USA jersey, part of Classic's 1994-95 Draft Picks set (card #21 in the Autographs checklist, numbered #635/4875). It was signed with (a dying) blue sharpie. I actually traded for this card to have the pair, I think it was for a signed Tom Draper card I now regret no longer having.

Chris Ferraro Autograph Card

Chris Ferraro was a blue-chip prospect, a can't-miss minor league superstar who just fell short, perhaps because he was always paired up with his twin brother Peter; not only did they become only the second pair of identical twins to play on the same NHL team, they ended up doing so on three different occasions, first with the New York Rangers, then the Pittsburgh Penguins, and lastly the Washington Capitals (always in the same division)! They also played together for the AHL's Binghamton Rangers, Providence Bruins, Syracuse Crunch, and Portland Pirates, the SEL's Sodertalje SK, the DEL's Düsseldorfer Eislauf-Gemeinschaft Metro Stars, and the ECHL's Las Vegas Wranglers.

Chosen in the fourth round (85th overall) in 1992 after scoring 196 points in 83 games of high school hockey, he went on to have a 51-point season (one more than his brother) in 39 games for the University Of Maine Black Bears before making the leap to Team USA (juniors), where he had 42 points in 48 games. He also ended up with 435 points in 443 AHL games, but only 16 points in 74 NHL games. He won the AHL's Fred T. Hunt trophy for sportsmanship (usually awarded to the ''best - or most patient - veteran'') in 2002-03.

He is pictured above with his Team USA jersey, part of Classic's 1994-95 Draft Picks set (card #10 in the Autographs checklist, numbered #1761/4770). It is signed in blue sharpie.

Brad Brown Autograph Card

Brad Brown was one of many bizarre first-round pick of the Montréal Canadiens. A defensive defenseman, the 6'3'', 220-lbs North Bay Centennials rearguard was chosen 18th overall in 1994, ahead of such other players as Vezina and Hart winner José Theodore, Stanley Cup winners Mathieu Dandenault and Patrik Elias,  All Stars Sheldon Souray, Chris Drury, Milan Hejduk, Marty Turco, Daniel Alfredsson, Tim Thomas, Evgeni Nabokov, Tomas Vokoun, Steve Sullivan, Dick Tarnstrom, and Kim Johnsson, role players Shane Hnidy, Sergei Berezin, Tomas Holmstrom and Mike Peluso, Olympian Richard Zednik, as well as a former teammate of mine, enforcer Sylvain Blouin.

Brown is seen here wearing the Centennials' Boston Bruins-like white (home) jersey, except the team's logo has been airbrushed out and replaced by a generic rendering of the city instead, because the card brand's manufacturer had a license to display the players but not the teams, just like The Score Board did with this Joe Thornton card. The logo actually looked like this:

The team was sold in 2002 and moved to Michigan to become the Saginaw Spirit, Stephen Colbert's favourite OHL team (and the reason why the team's secondary mascot is named Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle).

This card (#6) is from Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set; like the Score Board set alluded previously, it is a set of numbered signed cards (this one is #1441 of 4500) the brand included in boxes of repackaged common cards from worthless sets (such as the second-year Pro Set, Pro Set Platinum and Parkhurt cards) to entice people to pay around $1 per pack of 7 cards not worth a penny each.

The cool part of it is you get to learn about ''prospects'' who will likely never set foot on an NHL rink, but once in a while, you get a Thornton, or a Brown, who did manage to play 330 NHL games, most of them with the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild, but also a few with the Habs, Buffalo Sabres and New York Rangers. He retired after the 2008-09 season, which he finished with the AHL's Quad City Flames.