Steve Smith Autograph Card

Ironic that I had written a 3-year late post on Steve Smith just last April and that he has now signed to be an assistant coach with the Carolina Hurricanes. Whether he's leaving the sinking Edmonton Oilers ship or if they felt they needed new blood is still left unsaid, but Smith had been an assistant coach there for the past 4 years, and they usually like to employ their alumni in important team capacities.

However, Smith had more impact than just with the Oilers, despite his three Stanley Cups in Edmonton; as a matter of fact, he took the Chicago Blackhawks to the Finals in his very first season there and also played for Team Canada at the 1991 Canada Cup, meaning a significant amount of ''hockey heads'' considered him to be among the six or seven best Canadian defensemen at that time.

And so it didn't come as much of a surprise that In The Game chose to picture him with the Hawks (and the alternate captain's 'A' prominently displayed on his chest) for their 2013-14 Decades - The 1990s set - it's card #A-SSM of the Autograph sub-set, hard-signed in thin black sharpie, though ITG used a low-resolution picture, as they often do:

Still, it's a nice headshot (and fine way to get around copyrights issues), with ample room to sign, and I like that the backs of the cards acknowledges the player depicted on the front:

I split of box of these with two other collectors a couple of weeks ago. I got the three autographs, which may not have been worth what I paid for them monetarily, but totally fit in with my card collecting and blogging, particularly my recent and upcoming posts. Product details and checklists can be found here. We bought ours here.