Gilbert Dionne: 6 Autographed Cards (Part 2)

        (continued from the previous post)

Gilbert Dionne's true rookie card, however, is this one, from Upper Deck's 1991-92 Series 1 set (card #448, part of the Star Rookie sub-set), showing him not just wearing the Montréal Canadiens' white (home) uniform, but also #22, which he has never worn in an actual game:

I had written him at home on March 3rd, 2014, and received all cards back on September 15th, 2014, a cool 195 days later, signed in black sharpie, with his uniform number (45) tagged to each - even the cards where he's sporting #22. This brings my 2013-14 statistics to 34/74 cards returned.

I respected him so much as a member of the 1993 Stanley Cup-winning Habs team that I even went to see him play with the IHL's Cincinnati Cyclones in the late 1990s.

He played three full seasons and bits of two others in Montréal, scoring 60 goals and 130 points in 196 games; he was part of the infamous trade that sent Éric Desjardins and John LeClair to the Philadelphia Flyers for Mark Recchi, but barely played 22 games with the Flyers over two seasons, not scoring a single goal and just having seven assists to show for it; he finished his NHL career with the Florida Panthers, going 1-2-3 in 5 games to finish off the 1995-96 season before settling in the minors and dominating at the AHL and IHL levels. His last two seasons of pro hockey were played in Germany, where he was almost a point-per-game player in his early 30s.