Javier Vazquez Jersey Card

Javier Vazquez had many highlights with the Montréal Expos.

His first shutout came on my birthday - September 14th - in 1999, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. By his third season with the team, in 2000, he was already the opening day pitcher, and had accumulated 8 wins in his first 11 starts that year, though the team being as bad as it was ended up catching up with him, as he finished with an 11-9 record. The following summer, he led the National League with 3 shutouts.

Following his final season with the team, in 2003, he told reporters he didn't like playing for "a team without an owner who couldn't afford to trade for a player to help down the stretch". That was actually putting it lightly: Major League Baseball actually forbade the team to even recall players from their minor leagues, essentially tanking a playoff-caliber team that finished 83-79 (fourth in the NL East), enabling the Florida Marlins (91-71) and Philadelphia Phillies (86-76) to pass them, and securing the division title for the Atlanta Braves (101-61). It was one of the most unsportsmanlike and deliberate fixing situations I've ever seen - and I follow hockey and the Arizona Coyotes situation.

For the 2004 season, he signed on with the New York Yankees, and many sportswriters saw him as that year's eventual Cy Young winner; he wasn't in contention, but he did play in his only All-Star Game that summer.

He played for the Puerto Rican team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic (while with the Chicago White Sox) and finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting in 2009 while with the Braves. In 2010, in his second stint with the Yankees, he became the third active pitcher to beat all 30 MLB teams.

Still, seeing as I stopped following baseball after he left town, this is how I remember him best, wearing the Expos' pinstriped white (home) uniform:

That's card #DC-JV from Topps' 2003 Bowman Heritage set, featuring a grey game-worn jersey swatch.

Chris Osgood Jersey Card

I'm reading a lot of nonsense online regarding this current Stanley Cup Final pitting the Tampa Bay Lightning's Ben Bishop against the Chicago Blackhawks' Corey Crawford, and how neither is ''elite'' and how it's a return to the days of the 1990s Detroit Red Wings winning the Cup with Chris Osgood in nets.

First things first: Bishop was nominated for a Vezina last year, and has three shutouts this postseason, two of them in Game Sevens. He beat fellow U.S. Olympian Jimmy Howard, outplayed likely Vezina winner and gold medalist Carey Price and matched the best goalie in the world, Vezina winner, gold medalist and Stanley Cup Finalist Henrik Lundqvist to get to the Final. Is he as stable and consistent as Hank? No, but no one save for perhaps Pekka Rinne is.

Regardless where you rank him, he's got to be in your top-10. He's likely in my top-5, where he only surpasses Crawford because the Hawks boast Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook as their top two defensemen. The last time the Hawks won the Cup, Conn Smythe Trophy winner Patrick Kane famously said ''Crow'' deserved the nod - and he wasn't just saying that. Sure, he has his off games, and like many of this current generation, they come relatively more often than goalies in prior decades (every 8 to 10 games instead of every 12 to 15 like in the 1990s), many of them in groups of two or three bad outings, all of them highly-publicized. But in between those sequences are usually 8-game stretches where his save percentage hovers around the .950 mark, where he'll give up a single goal per game while facing upwards of 35 shots, sometimes over 40; he's not a ''pure stopper'', he won't get the shutout, but he'll be spectacular in letting just one in. He might lose focus and turn a 5-1 sure victory into a 5-3 nail-biter with less than 5 minutes remaining, but when the pressure's mounting and he needs to wake up, he pretty much always does. And that's what elite goalies do.

Granted, Osgood never had to do any of that. He finally learned to do a decent butterfly style ten years into his NHL career, whilst with the New York Islanders. He's mostly known for his postseason prowess yet ranks 10th of all time in regular-season wins (401); on the flipside, he played with the 1990s Wings - one of three teams that contended for Cups consistently for more than a decade (with the New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche) and who kept purchasing the most expensive free agents of the Dead Puck Era.

And the Dead Puck Era is also why his career playoff GAA ranks better than Patrick Roy's, who won two Cups (and two Conn Smythe Trophies along with another Cup Final in 1989) before the Devils flipped The Trap into a Cup-winning formula.

He also scored a goal, which ranks him in the Ron Hextall and Martin Brodeur category, with José Theodore and seven others. But his save percentage was below the .900 mark five times in 17 seasons, and below .910 another four times, so while he may have scored once, he got scored on a whole lot more than that. But he has two Jennings Trophies and was a finalist for the Vezina once.

Arguing his case for the Hall is funny, because some folks are passionate about the subject - regardless of which side of the argument they fall on. Ultimately, he's a ''no'' (I mean come on, Rogatien Vachon's not even in it and he played on Team Canada teams at the Canada Cup and has NHL hardware) in my book, but it's a decent argument. For the record, I'd place Theodore as a ''maybe'' and Curtis Joseph as a ''no'' ahead of Osgood. Mike Vernon as well.

Here he is wearing the Wings' classic red (then-away) uniform, from Topps' 2000-01 Heritage set (card #OSJ-CO of the The Original Six Relics, Authentic Player-Worn Jersey insert sub-set), with a white swatch:

It's actually much darker to the naked eye, I guess when I scanned it over a year ago I forgot to play around with the settings.

Jarome Iginla Autographed Card

I (finally, after failing at the 2009 and 2012 All-Star Games) met my former favourite captain Jarome Iginla after a game at the Bell Centre last month, as he had collected an assist in a 4-1 Boston Bruins win over the Montréal Canadiens. He was accepting compliments but the whole team seemed in a hurry to get out of town, and I thought I wouldn't get him to sign for me... but he did.

I told him how for so long, he and Joe Sakic represented the pinnacle of leadership for me (forgot about Saku Koivu, but I wasn't there to make a Buzzfeed list), and how though he's a Bruin now - Montréal's fiercest and biggest rivals - I wouldn't mind if they won another Stanley Cup if it meant his name was to be engraved on it, but that it'd be even better next year with another team (his answer ''let me guess, the Habs?''); then he proceeded to sign this 2001-02 Heritage card by Topps (#40 in the set) in blue sharpie:

It shows him wearing the Calgary Flames' turn-of-the-millennium black uniform with the fiery horse logo - and notice how he wasn't captain yet: it only happened in 2003. Don't let the scan fool you: the card is in great shape (I had a plastic box), but the penny sleeve I put in it afterwards may not have been new.

He has just completed his thirteenth 60-point season and twelfth 30-goal season. He has 560 goals (and counting), over 600 assists, and nearly 1200 points in some 1300 games, plus 32 goals and 63 points in 71 playoff games so far despite rarely playing alongside players of his caliber.

Individually, he has an Art Ross trophy (points leader), two Rocket Richard trophies (leading goal-scorer), a Lester B. Pearson award (now the Ted Linday award as MVP voted by the players), a King Clancy (leadership off the ice and humanitarian contribution) and Mark Messier trophy (best leader) to go with his Rookie Team (1997), First-Team (2002, 2008, 2009) and Second-Team (2004) All-Star nominations and six All-Star Game appearances.

As a team player, he has two Memorial Cups with the Kamloops Blazers, and many gold medals with Team Canada, including at the World Juniors (1996, where he was also the tournament's MVP), World Championships (1997), World Cup (2004) and Olympics (2002 and 2010).

The Hall Of Fame will definitely be calling.

Saku Koivu Jersey Card

It's hard to believe Saku Koivu is already in his fifth season with the Anaheim Ducks, since he was such a huge part of the Montréal Canadiens from his rookie season in 1995-96 until the team's Centennial in 2008-09, often the lone bright spot on offense (and the only Habs player not afraid of the mid-to-end-90s Philadelphia Flyers).

How much of a leader is he? He was the Habs' first European captain for one, but also Team Finland's captain from 1998 until 2010 despite the team counting among its ranks such veterans as Teemu Selanne (the whole time) and Jari Kurri (at first), then Jere Lehtinen. Also, he would have made the team again for the Olympics this year, but withdrew his candidacy days before the roster was announced, having just recovered from a concussion and taking one for the team so it can choose a better-prepared replacement.

While noble, it's still a blow to the team, considering he has led Finland to no less than four Olympic medals (bronze in 1994, 1998 and 2010 and silver in 2002), one World Cup silver (2004) and four top-three finishes at the World Championships (gold in 1995, silver in 1994 and 1999, and bronze in 2008), usually on will power alone.

I think I would name my first-born Saku in is honour.

Which is why I cherish all of my memorabilia of him, including this card from Topps' 2000-01 Heritage set (card #OSJ-SK of the The Original Six Relics, Authentic Player-Worn Jersey insert sub-set) showing him wearing the Habs' legendary red (then-away) jersey, with the matching swatch :

I wrote to him in 2011 to get some cards signed and almost included this one in the lot; I'm kind of glad I didn't, since I never heard back.