Mark Borowiecki: Two Autographed Cards

They call him "Borocop" and the nickname proved to be truer than ever today, as Mark Borowiecki of the Ottawa Senators thwarted a theft in Vancouver ahead of tonight's game against the Vancouver Canucks.

Essentially, a man stole something from the back of a vehicle, tried to flee with it on a bike, BoroCop ran after him, clothes-lined him, wrested him, retrieved the bag and called the police. And this being Vancouver, the police have a word of warning:

As this did happen on Dec. 1, it’s the start of the holiday season, we are going to see more and more parcels in the back of vehicles and the front of vehicles. We’re asking people: keep your property in your car safe, keep it secure and out of sight.

I hate that we're there, in this day and age, that someone's stuff is only theirs until someone else takes it away and where folks are being spied on by the State and the police are militarized yet no one ever seems to catch petty criminals.

At least there are god people like Borowiecki, who we can watch 82 times a year perform his craft of defending his own zone and looking like a superhero on a card like #347 from Panini's 2011-12 Pinnacle set:

It's a dark, silver foil in the same vein as Upper Deck's Black Diamond series.

Here he is on the more classic card #486 from Upper Deck's 2016-17 Compendium Series 2 (Blue parallel, which one gets for redeeming 10 "regular" base cards on E-Pack) set:

Both feature him wearing the Sens' white (now-away) uniform; he signed them during the 2017-18 season in blue sharpie.

Mark Borowiecki Autographed Card

(As per years past, this is a twin-post with my "regular" blog, where I predicted the Ottawa Senators would finish eighth in the Atlantic Division in 2019-20).

Earlier today, Mark Borowiecki, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Ron Hainsey were named the alternate captains of the Ottawa Senators, and for the second straight season, no one will get to wear the "C", as the captaincy remains vacant since the Erik Karlsson trade at last year's training camp.

My guess is Borowiecki, Pageau, Brady Tkachuk and Thomas Chabot are the front-runners to carry the torch in the future, but the Sens may feel Chabot or Tkachuk is the leading candidate at the moment but too young for the time being, as they are still on their ELC (rookie contract).

Borowiecki has never played a full 82-game season so far in the NHL; his career-best was the 70 games he suited up in in 2016-17, which enabled him to lead the league in penalty minutes with 154, which in turn led to his starring on this "Retro" variant of card #594 from Upper Deck's 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee set and League Leaders sub-set, which he signed in blue sharpie last season:

I mentioned it previously, but this bilingual card (and entire set, truth be told) is very poorly translated, because the French text, Les Dirigeants De La Ligue, does not translate to League Leaders but instead to League Managers.

Barring an extremely generous lottery win, I fail to see how a 30-year-old stay-at-home defenseman with a $1.2M cap hit playing for the Sens could also have the means and find the time to own a team and manage it.

That being said, I like the Sens and have for a long time. And while I live in the heart of Montréal, they're the most affordable local pro hockey I have, as the Habs are out of range and boring (plus I boycott them for a variety of reasons including the P.K. Subban trade and the re-hiring of Claude Julien), the Laval Rocket isn't much cheaper, and at least the Senators' players are endearing and nice, and making the trip there allows for a mini-vacation (I usually make a weekend out of it).

I'm extremely confident that the bunch of kids GM Pierre Dorion has put together will be the foundation of a very good team down the line, and I hope the young veterans who are leading them now (Borowiecki and Pageau chief among them) will be still there to watch them shine five years from now.

Mark Borowiecki Autographed Custom Card

After initially having been thought of as a two-way defenseman, Mark Borowiecki has found a niche on the Ottawa Senators' bottom-two pairs as a defensive-minded blue-liner who dishes out punishing hits, earning the nickname "BoroCop" as well as upwards of 100 penalty minutes in the past three seasons, including a career-high 154 in 2016-17.

He will not be suiting up against the physical Boston Bruins tonight, however, as he suffered a leg injury in the last game; 22-year-old rookie Ben Harpur will take his place, bringing a bit more skill to his game and having reportedly worked on adding some aggressiveness to his play with the Binghamton Senators this year.

Borowiecki, also a Sens home-grown player, won the Calder Cup with the Baby Sens in 2011. Of note that after a four-year exile, Binghamton is now coached by Kurt Kleinendorst, the same man who brought them their AHL title back when BoroCop was manning their blue line. Full Circle, I like that.

Borowiecki slots in perfectly as #74 in my Sens Numbers Project with this custom signed card from Ottawa-area collector BG's 2015-16 Custom Set:

It shows him wearing the Senators' white (away) uniform, fighting for positioning and puck control along the boards.