Robert Mayer Autographed Card

I picked up mail from one of my old apartments tonight (where a friend still lives part-time) and was in for a treat, which I'll post in bits in the coming weeks interspersed with players appearing in worthwhile news items and/or whatever transpires in the Stanley Cup Final, but I'll start with one of my favourite signers, goaltender Robert Mayer.

I know it's overkill with four posts in two years (and at least another one coming eventually), but the guy's a really cool dude who goes out of his way to please his fans - and he's a pretty good goalie too. He's shown he was elite in the AHL with both good and awful teams, and he knew he wouldn't have a shot at cracking the Montréal Canadiens' roster with Carey Price manning the net, so the 25-year-old opted to go play in Switzerland in 2014-15 (and the following two seasons), for the sixth-place Genève-Servette Aigles (Eagles), winning the Spengler Cup in December in the process.

On the Aigles, he joined fellow former Habs properties Francis Bouillon, Matt D'Agostini and Tom Pyatt. They're already on their second consecutive Spengler Cup, it'd be nice if they could three-peat next winter.

Either way, I'll be watching.

So this card was in a small padded envelope, from the 2012-13 Hamilton Bulldogs team set (#29, his jersey number, in the collection) by Extreme Sports Cards, showing him in the team's white uniform:

It's signed in thin blue sharpie with his number tagged at the end, and shows him in his signature butterfly-ready base position. He keeps his glove hand high, but he's fast enough to get it down in time to grab the puck should it go lower. At the AHL level, he looked a lot like the 1989 version of Mike Vernon, eating up the puck with his left hand all the time. He's my favourite non-NHL active goalie, in case you couldn't tell from everything I've written about him in the past couple of years.