Jarome Iginla Jersey Card

I just can't get enough Jarome Iginla jersey cards... or maybe I just own too many. Nevertheless, I felt it was appropriate to mention he got his first point as a member of the Boston Bruins this weekend by showing a pre-captainship card of him with the Calgary Flames:

It's from In The Game's 2002-03 Be A Player  In The Game-Used set (card #GUJ-5); BAP used that specific picture in many sets - I know I have it on their In The Game Action cards as well. This card, while the picture shows him wearing the Flames' black dragon-horse (away) jersey, contains a red swatch that is guaranteed to have been used in a game, but it's unclear which jersey it's from, as all of them (white, black and red) use red.

That being said, he looks great in black, which bodes well for this current season as a Bruin. The one-time Stanley Cup finalist, two-time Memorial Cup winner, two-time Olympic gold medalist, World Cup, World Juniors and World Championship champion, two-time Rocket Richard trophy winner and one-time Art Ross recipient hopes to have his name finally engraved on the most prized team sports trophy of the world before he retires. I wish he would have signed with my hometown Montréal Canadiens, as their odds are almost just as good as the Bruins', except it wouldn't have felt wrong to root for him come playoff time.

Stéphane Da Costa Autographed Card

The new captain of the Ottawa Senators, Jason Spezza, did not play last night, as the team preferred he rest his groin so his minor injury doesn't become a major one later in the season. Instead of shuffling his lines, Paul MacLean just inserted Stéphane Da Costa in his place, between Bobby Ryan and Milan Michalek.

He didn't get any points, but he played well enough, especially considering it was his second NHL game since last February. It looks like the Paris-born, undrafted center is with getting a real shot at spending the year in Ottawa.

I got him to sign this card for me in blue sharpie during the 2011-12 season:

It's from Upper Deck's 2011-12 Victory set (card #238, the Rookie sub-set). He looks a little lost in that picture, but I'm confident he'll do well.

Curtis Pride Autographed Card

Many Montrealers had a soft spot for Curtis Pride, as he became the first deaf person to play in the Major Leagues in nearly 50 years when he appeared in 10 games (9 at-bats) for the Montréal Expos in 1993. He got 4 hits (good for a .444 average) in this 9 plate appearances, which were a double, a triple, a homer, and a single; had he hit them in the same game, he'd have completed what is known as a carousel - each of the four possible types of hits.

He didn't play in the majors in 1994 (the Expos were just too good), but made the team in 1995, logging 69 at-bats in 48 games. He was a substitute for his entire career, never reaching the 100-game mark, and only once registering more than 200 at-bats - 267, in 1996, with the Detroit Tigers. That same year, he won the Tony Conigliaro Award, MLB's trophy for ''players who best overcome adversity through the attributes of spirit, determination, and courage''.

He came back with the Expos in 2001, which is probably when I would have had him sign this card in blue sharpie:

It's from Upper Deck's 1994 Upper Deck set (card #250) and is usually regarded as his official rookie card.

François Groleau Autographed Card

I featured François Groleau about a month ago with a signature card I'd found in a pack; today I bring you an in-person autograph of his that he signed in blue sharpie two seasons ago as a member of the Thetford Mines Isothermic of the LNAH:

It's from Classic's 1993-94 Pro Hockey Prospects set (card #47) and shows him wearing the St. John Flames red (away) uniform; they were the Calgary Flames' AHL affiliate at the time, who had picked him with the 41st overall pick in 1991.

The defenseman had two decent seasons in St. John, going 8-14-22 with 49 PIMs in 73 games in his rookie season, and had an impressive 6-34-40 harvest in 65 games before the Flames traded his rights to the Québec Nordiques. He had a goal and two assists in 8 games with their AHL affiliates - the Cornwall Aces - and another 2-7-9 in 16 playoff games, yet they didn't retain his services, probably because he finished his season well into the minuses despite his fine offensive statistics.

Jochen Hecht Autograph Card

Freshly retired from the NHL, Jochen Hecht plans to finish out his professional career the same way he started it:playing for the Mannheim Eagles in Germany.

A former second-round pick of the St. Louis Blues, Hecht became a regular 50-point producer for the Buffalo Sabres for the first decade of the new century. He represented Germany at the World Juniors and the Olympics. He was the second German-born player to captain an NHL team when the Sabres, in yet another display of lack of direction, had a rotating captaincy for the 2007-08 season.

I assume this card shows him wearing Germany's uniform at the 1996 World Juniors:

It is card #8 in Signature Rookies' 1995-96 Draft 96 set of signed cards to be inserted in packs of random brands/random pack cubes, and was signed in skinny blue sharpie, and is numbered 4207/4500. He was an honest, hard-working, moderately talented top-6 winger in his day.

Hannu Toivonen 8X10 Autograph Card

A former first-round pick of the Boston Bruins (29th overall in 2002), Hannu Toivonen was chosen ahead of Duncan Keith (53rd), Johnny Boychuk (61st), Matthew Lombardi (90th), Valtteri Filppula (95th), Maxime Talbot (234th), Dennis Wideman (241st) and Jonathan Ericsson (291st).

He played 61 games over the course of 3 seasons in the NHL, with a 18-24-10 record, a 3.37 GAA and a .890 save percentage. After years in the AHL farm teams of the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks, Toivonen returned to Europe in 2011, only to come back in North America (in the ECHL) because his team ran into some financial problems.

He can be seen here in the Bruins' white uniform:

It's an 8x10 picture/card from Upper Deck's 2006-07 Be A Player Portraits (the Signature Portraits sub-set, #SP-HT). I had initially found a copy in a pack, but as I was sorting through my things, I seemed to have lost it; to replace it, I purchased this one off Ebay for... $1.25.

Alexandre Volchkov Autograph card

It's been a while, eh? Sorry, I've been really busy at work, and my childhood friend is jailed in Russia, so I kind of have to play news reporter to our other friends...

But back to the reason I'm writing this, Alexandre Volchkov, the player the Washington Capitals chose with the 4th-overall pick in the 1996 draft ahead of such players as Jonathan Aitken (8th), Ruslan Salei (9th), Josh Holden (12th), Dainius Zubrus (15th), Marco Sturm (20th), Daniel Brière - yes that one - (24th), Jan Bulis (43rd), Mathieu Garon (44th), Zdeno Chara (56th) annd Pavel Kubina (179th). Ok, so it wasn't that deep a draft, and the few stars that did emerge were almost-accidents, but Volchkov is nonetheless considered a ''bust'' by most standards.

He had lit up the OHL a bit by accumulating 82 points in 56 games with the Barrie Colts (by comparison, though, Bulis had 102...), but he wasn't part of the league's top-10 in any category...

The card I'm featuring does show him wearing the Colts black (away) uniform, though the team's logo has been airbrushed off for copyright issues:

Here's how I described this set from The Score Board in this post about Joe Thornton:

The card is an insert, signed in blue sharpie, from the 1997-98 The Score Board collection. The way TSB worked, essentially, was they would purchase packs of cards like you and I, from all the other manufacturers, sell the valuable cards to hobby shops and repackage the rest in new packs combining those of all brands (but inevitably more of those they got for cheaper, like Pro Set or Parkhurst), and adding signed inserts of prospects from Canadian junior leagues and American colleges to 'up' the value of their packs.

And so it is that we have this Volchkov card signed in blue charpie. Awesome penmanship for a guy with just 3 NHL games on his resume, though he was still playing professionally in the vicinity of Russia in 2010 (I have no idea where he could be these days, since even Hockey DB stopped listing his statistics in 2003).

Michael Barrett Autographed Card

Michael Barrett was a great hitter. He set high school records with a .624 batting average, then went on to be named the 7th-best hitter in the Gulf Coast league before coasting through the Montréal Expos' farm system, eventually earning a roster spot in 1999 , at 22 years old.

He could be counted upon for 10-15 home runs, 25-30 doubles, 50-60 RBIs and a batting average over .250 in the majors; he won the Silver Slugger award in 2005 as a member of the Chicago Cubs although it wasn't his best season - he hit .276 that year which was only his fourth-best showing, as he once even batted for .307; he had 61 RBIs compared to 65 the year before; it was one of three straight seasons in which he hit 16 homers; and his 117 hits were only his 4th-best career total.

He wasn't one of the greatest of all time, and he never played in more than 134 games, but he was dependable until injuries started taking their toll. That, and he had a temper, having gotten into fights with opponents as well as teammates.

The following card is from Topps' 1996 Bowman set (card #249), clearly stating on the front of the card it's his first Bowman card (he wouldn't make his MLB debut until the end of the 1998 campaign):

That leads me to believe the signature on it (in blue sharpie) is likely from 2000 or 2001, when I had almost stopped paying attention to baseball but would have taken my little brother to the Olympic Stadium to give him a taste of what my childhood had been like (we have a 12-year difference).

As a matter of fact, he gave me all of his cards last Spring, and this one was in the lot. And since I don't actually remember getting it signed, chances are they're from a batch that he got signed on one of our outings. It matches all the other signatures I've seen, just more tightly squished and less rehearsed; I guess he was still feeling it out.

Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers Autographed Card

In a battle with Devan Dubnyk for a roster spot with the Edmonton Oilers since 2007, the team made the tough decision to part ways with Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers - their second-round, 31st overall pick of 2002 - leaving him to pursue free agency in 2011.

He opted for the Anaheim Ducks, but with Jonas Hiller and Viktor Fasth well in place, they sent him to the Minnesota Wild last April. However, with Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding, both of their roster spots are taken as well.

It also marks the third NHL franchise he's a part of where there is another lefty ahead of him on the depth chart, Mathieu Garon having held that position in Edmonton.

This card is is from In The Game's 2007-08 Between The Pipes set (card #17, the Future Stars sub-set); it shows him playing for the Springfield Falcons in the AHL:

Ironically, I also have Dubnyk's signed.

JDD's a fine talent, and he has shown flashes of greatness at the NHL level, usually followed by long bouts of difficulties. If he can work on his consistency a bit, he might have a future as a back-up, if not, perhaps Europe will come calling. Then again, consistency goes both ways: if he could have some stability rather than keep moving from league-to-league and franchise-to-franchise, maybe that would help. In the one season he stayed in the NHL, he managed a respectable 3.26 GAA and .901 save percentage in 48 games - with an Oilers team that went 27-47-8, no less, a last-place team that scored over 100 goals less than the league's best and whose leading scorer - I repeat: LEADING SCORER - was Dustin Penner, followed by two guys who played less than 70 games. With eight players at -18 or worse.

I had sent him this card in 2009 or 2010, care of the Oilers.

2012-13 Upper Deck Series 1 Blaster Box Break

I saw this at the drugstore earlier tonight and was so excited about finding hockey cards there I didn't even bother to check what year they were from... I was hoping for some of Upper Deck's 2013-14 Series 1, but instead purchased a blaster box of 2012-13 Series 1, for $24 (or $2 a pack). Oops.

The box has 10+2 bonus packs, which in normal human terms means 12. Each pack has 5 cards, for a grand total of 60. I'd rather look at it as ''$2 a pack'' than what it actually is... ''40 cents a card'', which it most certainly is not.

The cards look nice, with terrific photography, as evidenced here with a nice selection of close-up pics, alternate jerseys, action poses, while the player is always very clearly front and center:

Except for this oddly blurry Bian Gionta card:

Here's how it broke down:

Regular cards: 53

Young Guns (Rookies): 2

Checklist: 1

UD Canvas: 1

MVP (which used to be a set of its own): 2

Silver Skates (foil): 1

Montréal Canadiens (my home team): 2 (including the Gionta, plus Lars Eller)

Unless I hear from anyone interested, I'll be putting the ''hits'' on Ebay next weekend, since none of them are cards I really feel I need in my collection, except perhaps the Patrice Bergeron canvas, but someone who's actively collecting the set would definitely have better use for it than me.