2016 World Cup Figurines Review

Last September, I purchased three 2016 World Cup of Hockey figurines by Imports Dragon, and I must say I was let down a bit. I mean, I get that they didn't have a lot of time to produce and market them, but still, some of their flaws show a definite drop in quality from the ones I'd purchased years ago from McFarlane Toys.

Back in the day, McFarlane made awesome sports-related toys, as well as film-related and music-themed ones; I had Slash from Guns N' Roses, Angus Young from AC/DC, Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead, all of Metallica, Freddie Kruger from the Nightmare On Elm Street films, Little Nicky from the Adam Sandler movie, Michael Myers from the Halloween series, Eric Draven from The Crow, Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft from the remake, Edward Scissorhands, but the highlights were my hockey figurines, including four of Patrick Roy (red and white Montréal Canadiens uniforms, and burgundy and white Colorado Avalanche uniforms), a couple of Wayne Gretzky (black Los Angeles Kings uniform, white Edmonton Oilers with the Stanley Cup), P.K. Subban (Habs red), Miikka Kiprusoff (red Calgary Flames uniform), Saku Koivu (Habs white), Mats Sundin for some reason (Toronto Maple Leafs blue, with a crooked pin under his skate), four of Joe Sakic (white Avs uniform, burgundy and alternate as well, and Québec Nordiques blue), Cristobal Huet (Habs red), Chris Chelios (Canadiens red), and Jose Theodore (Habs red, which I had him sign the base of).

Most of them were stolen, so I tried moving on, although I have purchased smaller ones of comics/film characters Batman and Black Widow in the past couple of years, which got me started again. My favourite of the three hockey ones is, of course, that of my favourite goalie (and by far the best of the tournament), Jaroslav Halak, sporting Team Europe's white (away) uniform, in a butterfly/glove save stance:

One thing I don't like is they are too rigid to change positions, yet fragile enough that you feel they might break if you tried, so I left his glove arm bent towards the back:

I'm not certain how realistic his waist size is, here... And here's the back:

Where I have the biggest issue, however, is with the otherwise pretty Tomas Plekanec (wearing the Czech Team's red uniform) and Andrei Markov (Team Russia white):

Their faces are their own, but the bodies come from the exact same mold, they just painted different uniforms and numbers on them:

McFarlane had a habit of re-using a player's mold for different teams and/or uniforms - OF THE SAME PLAYER; they didn't recycle them on their entire line.

Also, the Plekanec is missing his captain's "C":

And here's the Markov on its own:

They're worth it for how nice the uniforms are on their own, basically Adidas versions of their usual international jerseys, but decent ones. However, the toys themselves don't compare favourably to their predecessors, although I will readily admit that even McFarlane's quality had gone down when they started making too many per year.

McFarlane series 1-10: 9/10
McFarlane series 11-33: 8/10
Imports Dragon World Cup: 6.5/10

Edit, June 9th, 2017: According to the pictures on this Beckett Hockey page, they seem to have five player molds and three goalie molds. It's still incredibly lazy.

Trader/Collector Hall Of Fame: Sal

Last week, I arrived to a box that contained this:

9 figurines making up 69% of Provigo's 1989-90 Montréal Canadiens figurines set, namely Bob Gainey (23), Bobby Smith (15), Mats Naslund (26), Brian Skrudland (39), Stéphane Richer (44), and Russ Courtnall (6), as well as the still-wrapped Petr Svoboda (25), Mike McPhee (35) and Craig Ludwig (17).

Now I just need to get my hands on Patrick Roy (33), Guy Carbonneau (21), Shayne Corson (27) and Chris Chelios (24). It would have been easier, back in the day, to get my hands on the latter two if I was a good looking girl or a policeman after 3AM (I kid, I kid).

The figurines were sent to me by the best trader and collector out there, Sal. He sent them as a token of appreciation for my ''participation and help'' into writing his most recent piece in Beckett - fulfilling my life-long dream of having my name in the Beckett, though I thought it'd be as a player! - but, really, all I did was reminisce about collecting these in my childhood, and playing with them.

Every collector I write to, trade with, whose blogs I read, every single one of them has at least one, sometimes half-dozens of instances where Sal helped them out and sent out way more than was expected or even necessary. Or just freely. Most of us have this karmic thing were it all probably evens out - give a little more here, receive a little more there - but I'm fairly certain Sal's karma point extend way beyond the hobby, because he just gives and gives and gives. Perhaps we should all hire him.

That is why I nominate him for the Hall OF Fame, should there ever be one.

Again, thanks, Sal.