Marian Stastny: Three Autographed Cards

Marian Stastny has had an eventful life, let alone hockey career.

Born in Bratislava in the 1950s, Stastny, like the vast majority of Slovaks, existed in a time where he and his family had no space: Czechs and Slovaks had seceded from the Austro-Hungarian empire in the beginning of the century (1918) but did not have time (or did not feel the need) to fully divide the land and form independent governments before the Nazis took them over in the late 1930s; when the Soviets eventually "freed" them from German rule, they simply took over as the "new boss", sending their army in whenever people complained (the biggest show of force being the Prague 1968 invasion, but there were other power plays as well, notably in 1948, 1955, 1960 and 1988).

It took the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 to give them enough breathing room to first remove "communism" as the State's official way of running things (and from the country's name), to becoming a federacy in 1990 and finally holding democratic elections in 1991. By 1993, peaceful secession was adopted and two countries that should have always existed were finally born: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, when Marian and his brothers Peter Stastny and Anton Stastny were playing professional hockey, being in favour of Slovak independence was passible of jail time with two levels of governance being strongly opposed to it: the majority Czech government, and that of the U.S.S.R. Essentially, Slovaks were "owned" by the Czechs who were "owned" by the Russians. They were sub-people, tax payers with little rights.

Hockey is an international sport, however, and the Stastnys were so good that they often faced Team Canada deep in tournament play, and they got to learn how things worked in North America.

During a tournament in Austria in 1980, Peter made a phone call that would change all three brothers' lives, to Québec Nordiques President Marcel Aubut, telling him he and Anton wanted to defect; they didn't invite Marian to come long because he was married with three children, and it was deemed too risky:

The next day, Nordiques President and CEO Aubut and director of personnel development Gilles Leger arrived in Innsbruck, Austria. They began planning immediately to get Anton, Peter and Peter’s wife, Darina, who was eight months pregnant (with their first child, a daughter), to the Canadian embassy in Vienna to apply for political asylum.

Faced with determined Czechoslovakian agents, who quickly realized what was happening, the group needed the help of not only the embassy, but also the Viennese police, Canadian Minister of Defence Gilles Lamontagne, Canadian Immigration Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Hockey Canada’s Douglas Fisher. After a tense dash to the airport, they boarded a flight to Amsterdam and freedom. A connecting flight brought them to Montréal. Peter’s daughter, Katarina, would be born in Canada. 

That version of the story omits a few actual yet unbelievable facts, however, such as an escape through a field to meet up with a car driven by Léger with Aubut in the passenger's seat, all Stastny family members riding in the trunk with covers to avoid detection at checkpoints, and Canadian officials waiting at the airport with the trio's belongings...

The Czech and Soviet governments didn't take too well to the daring escape, so they had Marian followed constantly, his phone lines were tapped and he was barred from both practising law (his would-be day job) and playing hockey, despite being a better-than-point-per-game player in league play and having two World Championship gold medals and a bronze to his name.

Had Peter, Anton and the Nordiques not smuggled money to him, he and his family would have been homeless and bankrupt.

Seeing no other issue, they applied for Canadian citizenship via the legal channels only to see the Czechoslovakian government deny them, so he too called Aubut. To evade the patience of their followers, the family's trip included stops in Hungary, Yougoslavia, and Austria before boarding a flight to Canada.

As the 1981-82 season got under way, the Stastnys became the third trio of brothers to play on the same team at the same time, but with Marian's 35 goals and 89 points, Peter's 46 goals and 139 points and Anton's 26 goals and 72 points in just 68 games, they are clearly the best and most effective band of brothers of all time.

When he was named to the 1983 All-Star Game with Peter, they became just the sixth brother combination to do so. He also assisted on Anton's 100th goal.

Following his five-year NHL career, Marian took a coaching job in Switzerland for two years before moving back to Québec, where he still lives to this day. He sold the golf course and hotel he operated last summer (his Parkinson's has gotten too intense to run a business day-to-day), though he has yet to get paid for it. He's received awards for his business acumen in recent years, too.

And earlier this month, the City of Québec unveiled a, uh... "statue" honoring the legacy of the Stastnys:

It's reminiscent of 1980s table hockey figures, yes, but I feel they deserved something less tacky, less cartoony. We're talking about five adults, three kids and one child-in-womb risking their actual lives and freedom to become the most impactful name of a city and franchise, and here they are with exaggerated traits and inaccurate equipment colouring.

We're a ways away from this:

Still, what a beautiful uniform! That's the Nordiques' classic blue (away) garbs, of course. The card on the left is #295 from O-Pee-Chee's 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee set, while the card on the right is #121 from Upper Deck's 2006-07 Parkhurst collection. The OPC is his rookie card.

You may have noticed up-top that there was a third card featured... that'd be #292 from OPC's 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set:

You might also notice that's Anton, wearing his usual #20 uniform. It's one of those classic O-Pee-Chee errors!

Marian was a good sport and signed all of them at the unveiling in thin blue sharpie, tagging HIS number (18) at the end.

Paul Holmgren Three Autographed Cards

Paul Holmgren has had prominent roles with the Philadelphia Flyers for over 40 years at this point, so many always assume he's one of the all-time greats alongside Bobby Clarke, Bernard Parent, Ron Hextall and Eric Lindros.

That is absolutely not the case.

In 500 games with the Flyers, Holmgren's 309 points don't stand out as much as his 1600 penalty minutes, and he wasn't part of one of the two championship teams, having come in to play a single game in 1975-76, a full year after Philly's last Stanley Cup.

He only surpassed the 20-goal mark twice, scoring 22 in 1980-81 and 30 in 1979-80, and even that was only good for fith on the team, behind Reggie Leach (50), Bill Barber (40), Brian Propp (34) and Rick MacLeish (31). That was a weird season in Philadelphia, as captain Clarke not only posted 69 points (good for fifth on the team behind Ken Linseman, Leach, Propp and Barber) but was also in his first of three seasons as assistant-coach on the team. He played two years past his three-year stint as assistant-coach... not that's a legend.

In case you were wondering where I was going with this, Holmgren resigned as the team's President earlier today and joined the ranks of "advisor" alongside Clarke, his predecessor both as GM and President.

Unlike Clarke, however, "Homer" made a lot of questionable moves that greatly backfired, such as trading young (and heavy-partying) core players Mike Richards and Jeff Carter to make room under the salary cap to sign the second-best available free agent goalie on the market, Ilya Bryzgalov, to a nine-year, $51M contract, a deal that was bought out in the summer of 2013 after two seasons and that will be on the Flyers' cap until 2027. (For the record, I don't think Richards and Carter get the wake-up call that turns them into two-time Cup champions if they don't get traded, so at least there's that).

Oh, and to make room for him on the roster, he traded Sergei Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a second-round pick and two fourth-rounders; Bob, of course, would go on to win two Vezina trophies as the league's best goalie in Columbus and is the only active goalie who can make such a claim. (And yes, Henrik Lundqvist is till playing and just has one to his name).

By the way, the best free agent goalie on the market the year Bryz was signed? That was perennial All-Star Tomas Vokoun, who signed a one-year deal worth $1.5M.

Holmgren is also the one who traded playoff best and projected 30-goal forward James van Riemsdyk (he would hit the mark twice and come close another two in the following six seasons) to the Toronto Maple Leafs for defensive defenseman on a down slide Luke Schenn.

Was he also able to trade away valuable draft picks, you ask? How about the first-rounder who became John Carlson for defenseman Steve Eminger (man, does he ever love those stay-at-home defensemen!), who played a total of 12 games in Philadelphia (0 goals, 2 assists, 8 penalty minutes) before being shipped out?

Then there was the free agent signings of Nikolay Zherdev and the trade for Andrej Meszaros which put the team over the cap, forcing them to trade away a contract - namely that of fan-favourite and playoff hero Simon Gagné, a two-time 40-*goal scorer and one opf the most prolific scorers of the Dead Puck Era - for (you guessed it!) defensive defenseman Matt Walker, who played the final 8 games of his 314-game career with the Flyers. Gagné reached the Cup Final the following season with the Tampa Bay Lightning and won the Cup with Richards and Carter on a mighty Flyer-heavy 2012 Los Angeles Kings squad.

A trade of pests? Sure! Effective checking winger and semi-power forward Scottie Upshall for dirtbag and suspension magnet Dan "Carbomb" Carcillo comes to mind...

And yet he kept failing upwards. Until as team Preseident, he hired Hextall as GM, who did an admirable job stocking up the cupboards with blue chip prospects and getting rid of Holmgren's terrible contracts. Hextall was assitant-HGM on the Cup-winning Kings of 2012 and 2014, so he was more than familiar with the Flyers' roster; it was a marriage that lasted for four seasons, until last Christmas, when Holgmren decided Hextall wasn't bold enough and took his place to finish up the season, until he found his replacement in the form of Chuck Fletcher, the man who saddled the Minnesota Wild with so many bad contracts that they were never good enough to make a dent in the post-season despite carrying not one but two (Ryan Suter and Zach Parise) players on identical 13-year, $98M contracts.

Of course, the first few things Fletcher did was get rid of a third of the defense and, most importantly, sign Kevin Hayes - a middle-six center who had only reached the 50-point plateau once, and that was last year - to an albatross seven-year, $50M contract that includes a no-movement clause that guarantees he will have to take up a protection spot for next season's expansion draft.

Bold. Extremely stupid and ill-advised, but bold.

So, yeah. Holmgren.

This is what he looked like when patrolling the ice in a Flyers uniform, collecting penalty minutes the way some folks do frequent flyer miles:

The card on the left is #105 in Topps' 1981-82 Topps set, while the one on the right is #434 from In The Game's 2004-05 Franchises: U.S. East collection. Both feature him in the classic 1970s orange (away) uniform.

A Minnesota native, Holmgren started out his professional career playing for the WHA's Minnesota Fighting Saints for most of the 1975-76 season, and he returned to his home state at the tail end of his career, suiting up with the Minnesota North Stars for 27 games spread over two seasons, as seen on card #100 from O-Pee-Chee's 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set:

He's wearing the team's amazing 1980s green (away) uniform. I miss those so much.

All three were signed in black sharpie in February 2018 when the Flyers were in Montréal.

Ryan Walter Autographed Card

Sure, I officially made Claude Larose my entry for #11 in my Habs Numbers Project, but throughout my youth, only Ryan Walter was worth mentioning as the number's keepsake, until the courageous and talented Saku Koivu came along and elevated it even higher - on any other franchise, possibly even as high as the rafters.

Walter was a different sort of beast altogether.

After captaining Team Canada at the 1978 World Juniors, he was drafted second overall by the Washington Capitals that year, behind Bobby Smith and ahead of Wayne Babych (3rd), Mike Gillis (5th), Ken Linseman (7th), Dan Geoffrion (8th), Brad Marsh (11th), Larry Playfair (13th), Steve Tambellini (15th), Al Secord (16th), Dave Hunter (17th), Steve Payne (19th), Joel Quenneville (21st), Curt Fraser (22nd), Steve Christoff (24th), Don Maloney (26th), Al Jensen (31st), Tony McKegney (32nd), Stan Smyl (40th), Paul Messier (41st), Curt Giles (54th), Kevin Reeves (69th), Lou Franceschetti (71st), Ted Nolan (78th), Jim Nill (89th), Tom Laidlaw (93rd), Keith Acton (103rd), Paul MacLean (109th), Don Wadell (111th), Jerry Price (Carey's father, 126th), Craig MacTavish (153rd), Kevin Constantine (154th), Bob Froese (160th), Risto Siltanen (173rd), Steve Weeks (176th), Darryl Sutter (179th), Anton Stastny (198th), Viacheslav Fetisov (201st), Chris Nilan (231st), Rick Wilson (232nd), and Louis Sleigher (233rd), in a draft that was heavy on players who would become coaches and managers.

Walter himself would eventually become a motivational speaker and an assistant coach with his hometown Vancouver Canucks in his second career, after experiencing such highs as a player as being made the NHL-record (since broken many times by the likes of Steve Yzerman, Vincent Lecavalier, Sidney Crosby and Gabriel Landeskog) youngest captain in history with the Capitals, posting a 38-goal and 87-point season with them in 1981-82, being traded to the Montréal Canadiens (with Rick Green, for two-time Norris winner Rod Langway, Selke winner and NHL ironman record-holder Doug Jarvis, Craig Laughlin and Brian Engblom) to play with Guy Lafleur and Doug Wickenheiser, getting named to the 1983 All-Star Game, winning the Stanley Cup in 1986 and losing it to the Calgary Flames in 1989, to signing with the Canucks as a free agent at the turn of the 1990s.

Throughout his playing career, he went from playing like a power forward and accumulating penalty minutes from his hard checks to being an offensive force to being a terrific shut-down center and penalty killer. He did it all for the team, and his teams had success when he was around.

He finished his career with 264 goals via seven 20-goal seasons, 382 assists, 646 points and 946 penalty minutes in 1003 regular-season games, and another 16 goals, 35 assists and 51 points in 113 playoff contests, with just 62 penalty minutes in the postseason.

Here he is wearing the Habs' classic red (then-away) uniform, on card #275 from O-Pee-Chee's 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set:

He signed it in black sharpie when Bob Gainey hired him to speak with player prior to the start of the season a few years ago.

Ed Beers Autographed Card

The Calgary Flames aren't doing so well under head coach Glen Gulutzan, certainly not any better than under Bob Hartley the last couple of years.

How bad is it? Well, last night, they suffered their 26th consecutive loss in Anaheim, dating back to when the Anaheim Ducks were known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim...

What do they need?

Better goaltending from Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson, sure. Better defensive play as a whole. More effort. More grind. More classic Flames hockey, where even the star players show some grit, following in the footsteps of Willi Plett, Theo Fleury, Joel Otto and Jarome Iginla.

They might even need to build a time machine and bring back the 1983-85 version of Ed Beers, pre-back injury, the guy who put up 36- and 28-goal seasons for the Flames and posted 210 career points in 250 games.

Beers was like a more fragile Cam Neely, who would hang around in the slot getting cross-checked in the back, accumulating goals and retaliatory penalties in roughly the same amount, except Beers did it for three seasons to Neely's near-decade.

Here he is on card #24 from Topps' 1984-85 Topps set, showing him wearing the Flames' classic red (then-away) uniform, which he signed in blue sharpie:

This card checks off #27 in my Flames Numbers Project.

Réjean Lemelin: 4 Autographed Cards

Réjean ''Reggie'' Lemelin was a consistent #1 goalie for all of the 1980s and the first couple of seasons of the 1990s, until he was almost 40 years old and the Boston Bruins decided to hand the reigns to Andy Moog alone.

But from the days where he dominated in Juniors in the LHJMQ (for the Sherbrooke Castors, i.e. ''Beavers''), his subsequent draft by the Philadelphia Flyers (125th overall in 1974) and his start with the Atlanta Flames, it was clear he would play hundreds of NHL games (he ended up appearing in 507), winning a ton (246, with a career high of 30 in 56 games with the lowly 1984-85 Calgary Flames, while his backup Don Edwards went 11-15-2).

His goals-against average (in the high 3s) may look bizarre nowadays, but he shared the Jennings Trophy with Moog in 1989-90 with a 2.80 - they were just different times. He also played for Team Canada at the 1984 Canada Cup (now referred to as the World Cup).

He reached the Stanley Cup Finals twice, in 1988 and 1990 - both times with the Bruins, both losses to the powerhouse Edmonton Oilers. For Lemelin, Moog, Raymond Bourque and Cam Neely, and because the Oilers had traded Wayne Gretzky and were now led by Mark Messier, I wouldn't have minded so much if Boston had won it in 1990.

Lemelin was more of a stand-up goalie, like many of his contemporaries pre-Patrick Roy. He had a decent glove hand and covered a fair amount of net. While he was with the Bruins (1987-93), I was in the minor hockey circuit, doing my best Roy imitation (all butterfly and glove), and my main competitor in my region was a kid named Yan Lemelin, whose idol was his namesake and had the same playing style. We would always meet in the neighbourhood finals at the atom, pee-wee and bantam levels... and I would always end up victorious, of course. But since the Bruins would also face the Montréal Canadiens often in the postseason even back then, it was like a double rivalry going on, with Lemelin (or Moog) versus Roy at the pro level, and Lemelin versus Hell (myself) in our age range.

And because I knew a guy who really liked the ''real'' Lemelin (Yan and I were acquaintances off the ice), I kind of didn't hate him either. I even followed his coaching career when he was the Flyers' goaltending coach upon retiring (on and off from 1997 until the end of the '00s), but it was a bit weird to see him around so much orange. Black suits him so much better, and so he looks right at home playing for the Bruins' alumni team these days.

I had sent a fan letter and these four cards to his home address on March 31st, 2014, and got them all back today - April 11th, 2014, a mere 11 days later - signed in black sharpie with his jersey number tagged at the end - 31 for the Flames, 1 with the Bruins - wrapped in... my fan letter (I guess it didn't resonate with him that much).

Let's look at the Flames cards first, both showing him with their red (away) uniform:

The card on the left is from O-Pee-Chee's 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee set (card #50), unmasked during a pre-game warm-up; the card on the right is from Topps' 1984-85 Topps set (card #25).

As for the ones showing him with the Bruins' beautiful, classic black (away) 1980s uniform:

The card on the left is from Topps' 1989-90 Topps set (card #40), making snow in front of his net to start a period, while the card on the right is from the company's 1990-91 Bowman collection (card #32), sitting on the bench as the evening's back-up, watching the game.

A great return by an important goalie of an Original Six team, one I got to see a lot of as an Oilers, Habs and Québec Nordiques watcher as a kid.

Lanny McDonald: 3 Autographed Cards

Lanny McDonald was a legend as much for his on-ice play as for his world-class mustache, bushy and flamy-red. The Toronto Maple Leafs made him the 4th overall pick of the 1973 draft, and he arguably had the best NHL career of anyone else chosen that year apart from 1st pick Denis Potvin. Other 1973 draft alumni include Bob Gainey, Blaine Stoughton, André Savard, Dave Lewis and Rick Middleton.

But like many other former Leafs greats of the 70s and 80s, McDonald was mistreated by management - he was traded to the Colorado Rockies just because he was friends with Darryl Sittler, who had refused to waive his no-trade clause, angering GM Punch Imlach. McDonald and Joel Quenneville went to the Rockies for Wilf Paiement and Pat Hickey, prompting Leaf fans to protest outside Maple Leaf Gardens.

McDonald scored 66 goals in 142 games with the Rockies, split in parts of 3 seasons, before being moved to the Calgary Flames. In his first full season with the team in  1982-83, he scored 66 goals - a team record that still stands today. He captained the team for their lone Stanley Cup win in 1989, the only visiting team to ever win the Cup on the Montréal Canadiens' home turf, the Forum. And he did so in McDonald-esque fashion, having been scratched for 3 games, coming back in the decisive game and scoring the goal that would propel the Flames to victory, breaking a 1-1 tie. A world-class moment from a world-class player.

I sent McDonald these three cards and a fan letter - care of the Flames' alumni - on January 31st, 2012 and got them all back signed in blue sharpie on March 29th, 2012. They all show him wearing the Flames' red (away) uniform. The card on the left is from the 1984-85 Topps set (card #26), that I traded 12 Dave Andreychuk cards to get my hands on; the card in the middle is from Topps' 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee set (card #234), which I've had since I was a kid; and the card on the right is from the 1987-88 Topps set (card #20), a card I had the OPC version of as a kid but traded for its Topps equivalent as a teen because, as a Montrealer, American cards were more rare in my neighbourhood. The latter two not only show his wearing the captain's ''C'', but also a patch on the right shoulder commemorating the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

Joel Quenneville: 4 Autographed Cards

I sent Joel Quenneville these 4 cards and a fan letter on January 27th, 2012, and got them back, signed in thin blue sharpie on March 19th, 2012. When I wrote him, Quenneville's Chicago Blackhawks (he's the head coach) were on a steady drop but have since regained form, winning 8 of their last 10 games, one of the losses coming into overtime, thus benefiting from the Seb Hell Bump.

He was born on September 15th - a day after me... in he same year my mom was born, 1958. Drafted 21st overall (in the second round) in the 1978 draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs, he went on to play with the Colorado Rockies, New Jersey Devils, Hartford Whalers and Washington Capitals, but he spent most of my childhood (1983-1990) with the Whalers. He was a tough, puck-moving defenseman who racked up 705 penalty minutes in 803 NHL games to go with his 54 goals and 136 assists.

But that's only half his story: his major accomplishments lie in the coaching department. As an assistant coach with the Colorado Avalanche, he has his name engraved on the Stanley Cup for the magical 1995-96 win. As a head coach, he led to St. Louis Blues to 7 straight playoff berths, before getting fired during the 2003-04 season, during which he was still 29-23-7-2, good for 67 points in 61 games. He won the Jack Adams trophy for the 1999-2000 season.

He then coached the Avalanche for three seasons, after which he became a scout for the Blackhawks. As soon as his deal was signed, everyone knew it was a matter of time before he took the head coaching job there, and it took only 4 games for the Hawks to replace their legendary captain of the 80s, Denis Savard, with Quenneville at the beginning of the 2008-09 season, where he took them to the Conference Finals. The next year, they won the Cup.

With Kevin Dineen (Florida Panthers), Randy Cunneyworth (Montréal Canadiens), and Dave Tippett (Phoenix Coyotes), he is one of 4 current NHL coaches who has played with the Whalers, which is more than 13% of NHL head coaches. Factor in the assistant coaches (such as Randy Ladouceur in Montréal and Sean Burke and Ulf Samuelsson in Phoenix), and the numbers become astounding. They may not have won championships, but they knew about the game, that's for sure.

Now onto the cards:

These cards show the early-80s Whalers green (away) uniform, which included a whale on the shoulders, dating back to the team's WHA roots. The card on the right is from Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set (card #118), showing Quenneville getting ready for a face-off, but the card on the left is really an OPC staple, from the 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee set (card #145): if you look closely, many things on the jersey and helmet look off... that's because he'd spent the previous season with the Rockies and didn't have a picture in the Whalers' uniform yet, so OPC, in all its wisdom, decided to airbrush (paint) a uniform on an existing picture. That's why the W look eerie.

From Topps' 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set (card #77), a rare card featuring the Whalers' white (home) jersey of the early-80s. Back then, the NHL didn't have an exclusivity deal with Getty Images to own all pictures taken in amphitheaters as it does now, so card companies had to hire their own photographers to get material for their products, as they mostly hired guys who stayed around the New York area (where 3 teams call home) and, occasionally, Washington, D.C., which meant very few teams got to be featured in their home (white) jerseys. And very few photographers ventured outside the East Coast's major cities to come to Toronto, Detroit, Los Angeles or Montréal - let alone small towns like Hartford and Québec.

This is the Whalers as I remember them the best - the same green jersey, but without the whale on the shoulders, from Topps' 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee set (card #3). Like all the head coaches I mentioned previously who have played for the team, Quenneville sports the assistant captain's 'A' in this one. Captain Ron Francis has so far declined to take the head coaching job twice for the Carolina Hurricanes, opting for assistant coach and assistant-GM instead.

Murray Bannerman: 3 Autographed Cards

Murray Bannerman is an All-Star-caliber goalie (two AS games) who played all of his NHL career (minus one period) with the Chicago Blackhawks. He started as the legendary Tony Esposito's backup and pretty much took the job away from 1982 onwards.

I sent these three cards and a fan letter to his home on February 10th, 2012 (I could have also tried the Hawks' address, seeing as he still does charitable work with other team alumni) and received all three back, signed in black sharpie, on March 3rd, 2012. Three weeks for a legendary return!

This card is special for so many reasons. The Hawks' jersey, of course, has always been among the greatest in sports, the picture at the bottom with the mustache rules, and catching Bannerman mid-movement, skating from one side of the net to the other, skates in a 'T' like you learn as a kid, reminiscent of the Hanrahan's move in Slap Shot when he's told his wife is ''a lesbian'', before he goes nuts The card itself is from Topps' 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set (card #27), a beautiful set.

As I mentioned before (in this Stan Smyl post in particular), the above card is from the first set I actually collected, purchasing pack after pack, at a rate of at least one per day (35 cents for 7 cards and a stick of gum was perfect for my 8-year old self), Topps' 1986-87 O-Pee-Chee set (card #180). It features Bannerman in an idle position, waiting for play to start again, with a nice view of the brand of equipment he wore (Brown).

Of course, it's nearly impossible to mention Murray Bannerman without talking about his mask, one of the most recognizable in the history of the NHL, as featured in this card from In The Game's 2010-11 Between The Pipes set (card #148, part of the Greats Of The Game sub-set). It features an aboriginal head (not a geisha as some have awkwardly suggested) that is totally in tune with the team's logo. These will soon be framed and hung with my Glenn Hall Autographed Framed Lithograph on a ''Hawks' goalies'' section of my living room wall.

Steve Penney: 3 Autographed Cards

I started following hockey a bit during the 1984-85 season and more seriously in 1985-86, when the Montréal Canadiens won an unexpected Stanley Cup on the strength of a miracle performance by rookie goaltender Patrick Roy.

Before Roy, the Habs' net belonged to youngster Steve Penney, who also hails from Ste-Foy, a suburb of Québec City; Penney tended the nets for 54 games in 1984-85, a rare feat at the time, especially for a rookie.

Speaking of his rookie year, the card below is from Topps' 1984-85 O-Pee-Chee set (card #269), Penney's rookie card:

OPC was good for taking most of their pictures for their cards between plays or during pre-game warm-ups, and in the case of goalies, many without a helmet, sporting a towel around their necks as was customary for back-ups at the time.

The card above is from Topps' 1985-86 O-Pee-Chee set (card #4), the season where Penney got a Stanley Cup, serving as Roy's back-up, although the league forgot to engrave his name on the trophy. Still, the Habs gave him a ring and put him in the team's picture.

Penney was kind enough to include the above card as a bonus, one in which he appears in the team's home (white) uniform, which was almost impossible to get from 80s OPC cards. This card is from the 2008 Molson Export Montréal Canadiens Alumni set, created as a complement to the 1999 set in time for the team's centennial.

Ironically, superstar blogger Sal had the same three cards signed at the beginning of the season.

I sent Penney the two O-Pee-Chee cards and a fan letter explaining that his years with the Habs (and Roy's, of course) were what inspired me to be a goalie as a kid on February 13th, 2012. He added the Molson card, signed all three in blue sharpie with his number (37) tagged at the end, and I received them back on February 22nd. Barely more than a week later! What a guy!