Ryan Whalen Autograph Card

Once in a while, I like to buy a mix-and-match re-packaged grab-bag of mixed sports (I do prefer those with guaranteed 'hits' because I'll usually try to find out more about the usually-unknown player I'll score while I'm a it). One such pack gave me this card a little over a year ago:

It's from the Cincinnati Bengals' sixth-round pick in 2011, Ryan Whalen of the Stanford Cardinal (no 's') football team. It's from Upper Deck's 2011 Sweet Spot set (card #47, signed on-sticker in blue sharpie).

As every football season starts, there is always more action behind-the-scenes and in the news than on the field: Fantasy Leagues, free agent signings, pre-season injuries and roster cuts (NFL salaries, unlike in the NHL, aren't usually guaranteed, and cut players don't count against the salary cap), and of course the never-ending debate over whether College athletes should be allowed to take money selling their likeness (they currently are forbidden to), since everyone else does, from the schools themselves and the NCAA selling their jerseys, card companies selling their faces and names, TV networks paying all sides while profiteering from ad revenue...

It's relatively easy to argue for both sides: on one hand, the schools usually give athletes full scholarships, missing out on admission fees, providing the athletes with services such as dieticians, medical staff, training facilities, free food and housing and the like. The salary is the education - worth tens of thousands of dollars in the American system -  and the school makes that money back through, well, making that money back on the players' backs.

On the other hand, star athletes are much more in demand than pretty much every other students - including lesser athletes. They are asked to appear in school promos, press conferences, media interviews - all of this mixed with time on school benches and training. They don't have the same peace of mind not ability to enjoy College as most other students have. In theory.

In the end, athletes may get a little something, but giving them too much would result in class-action suits where past players would also want a chunk of change; also, if the pendulum swings too much the other way, full scholarships may only be offered for the top-tier, bankable athletes, and those from lesser-viewed positions (linemen in football, for example) or less popular sports (track and field, water polo) may be more affected than those in baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

But back to Whalen. He played 4 games in 2011, and 9 in 2012. His best game last season was against the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he caught 4 balls for 31 yards (a 7.8 average). He has yet to score a touchdown.

Rick Tocchet Autograph Card

Power forward: a rare type of hockey player who possesses both the skills of a sniper (capability to score goals) and a grinder (hard-nosed role player who hits opponents in order to retrieve the puck and/or extenuate them). Usually among the most respected in the dressing room.

Examples: Jarome Iginla, John LeClair, Keith Primeau, Todd Bertuzzi, Cam Neely.

And Rick Tocchet.

I'll forever associate Tocchet to the Philadelphia Flyers, because he spent his first 7 1/2 and last 2 1/2 seasons with them, but he might like to have a special thought for the Stanley Cup he won with the star-studded Pittsburgh Penguins in 1992.

He ended his career with 440 regular-season goals, 952 points and 2972 PIMs (yes, nearly 3000!) to go with a 52-60-112 production in 145 playoff games (471 PIMs), a Cup, another Finals, and a Conference Finals with the Flyers in 2000 in which he managed 11 points in 18 playoff games near the end of his career. He was also a four-time All-Star.

He amassed 150 penalty minutes or more (three times near the 300 mark) in his first 9 seasons ending his streak with 252 in 1992-93, nearing that plateau again in 1997-98 (157) and 1998-99 (147) as a member of the Phoenix Coyotes. That's just about where this card comes in, their original ''coyote on peyote'' white (home) uniform:

It's from Pinnacle's 1997-98 Be A Player (127 in the set) signed on-card in black sharpie. Apart from the autograph, the cards are exactly the same as the regular version, so you always had to be extra careful when opening packs to look for the 'special' ones. I've seen people open a pack in a store, get one auto and throw the rest away, and of course there'd be another one in it!

On a lesser note, he played a year and a half for the Los Angeles Kings, two half-seasons with the Boston Bruins and 13 games with the Washington Capitals, but non-hockey fans will mostly remember him from having run an illegal gambling ring while an assistant coach in Phoenix (one of his high-profile clients was Janet Jones, Wayne Gretzky's wife) while hockey trivia aficionados will remember his short head coaching stint with the Tampa Bay Lightning in which he merely won 53 of 148 games, finishing 5th and 4th of the worst division in the league, back when the franchise was a joke.

Craig Janney Autographed Card

There are two ways to look at the great career Craig Janney has had in the NHL. The first one would be to look at it as the story of a New England kid (born in Hartford, CT) who went to Boston College, got drafted in the first round by the Boston Bruins, became their first-line center, played in Olympics, World Championships and a Canada Cup, and mid-career fed Brett Hull amazing passes that made him (Hull) one of the most prolific snipers in NHL history, helping Janney finish at nearly a point-per-game pace.

The other way to look at it would be to compare it with Hull's previous star center - that he was traded for - the undrafted, never-played-for-a-national-team Adam Oates, who ended up in the Hall Of Fame on the strength of 1420 career NHL points - nearly double Janney's total.

And yet both sides would be correct.

Janney was the best American passing center of his time, which gave him access to national teams; he had 8 incredible seasons as a first-liner, and three as a role player, and only with the Bruins did he play for a legitimate contender. Oates started as an elite second center, and moved up the ladder to superstar status pretty quickly to also end up with 8 - albeit non-consecutive - dominating seasons, but on the Canadian depth chart, always fell behind Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, and Mark Messier - a list to which you are free to add the likes of Ron Francis, and Eric Lindros for some years; but Oates played for 19 seasons in total, and even his on-paper neglected teams made decent runs for the Cup, such as the 2003-04 Edmonton Oilers.

Longevity counts.

I truly respect Craig Janney. No one can take away his 563 assists or 751 points, nor his 110 points in 120 playoff games.

Plus, on this card, he's wearing the nicest St. Louis Blues uniform of all time:

It's from Upper Deck's 1993-94 Upper Deck (Series 1); it's card #303 in the set, part of the Team Point Leaders sub-set. He signed it in black sharpie in the mid-to-late 1990s after a game against my hometown Habs. He was playing for a team I didn't like, so either the San Jose Sharks or Phoenix Coyotes.

Notice how the twirl from his 'g' and the dot on his 'i' almost make it seem like he's wearing jersey #75...

Oddly enough, when I unpacked this after my move, I decided to put it in my ''keepers'' binder and start seriously collecting him, at least enough to fill a plastic sheet of ''special cards'' of his, so I looked for some on Ebay... all I saw were three signed cards, all three this exact same one, ranging from $1 to $15.

Jarrod Skalde Autograph Card

Because I am a gullible person who believes what he reads on hockey cards, I was convinced Jarrod Skalde would have a great, long, flourishing career in the NHL, perhaps the New Jersey Devils' first, real star offensive leader. Basically, I thought he might go on to become Patrik Elias.

In the early 1990s, every set from every manufacturer had a rookie/''future superstar'' card with his name on it - sometimes both in the ''regular'' (Series 1) and ''update'' (Series 2) versions, then one in every set the following year showing his impressive point ratio (1 assist in one NHL game, 3 goals and 5 points in 3 AHL games) to prove that he was a sure-fire, blue-chip prospect.

It seemed he was a steal having been drafted in the second round, 26th overall, ahead of Patrice Brisebois (30th), steady defensive defenseman Bob Boughner (32nd), Canadian Olympian Rob Zamuner (45th), best defenseman of his era Nicklas Lidstrom (53rd), four-time Stanley Cup winner, Selke winner and Olympian Kris Draper (62nd), multiple 100-point man and Selke winner Sergei Fedorov (74th), Aaron Miller (88th), Dan Bylsma (109th), Hall of Famer Pavel Bure (113th), 25-to-30-goal man Donald Audette (183rd), Olympians Vladimir Malakhov (191st) and Arturs Irbe (196th), and two-time Cup champion Vladimir Konstantinov (221st).

I have asked for his autograph three or four times in my teens, and will feature those cards some day, but I'd like to concentrate on another one for now, one that shows him with the old-school San Jose Sharks teal jersey:

It's a signed insert from Pinnacle's 1997-98 Be A Player set (card #198), signed on-card in black sharpie. How would a future Devils superstar end up playing in San Jose, you might ask? It's actually more complicated than that. Brace yourselves...

After bouncing around from New Jersey and the AHL's Utica Devils for three seasons, he was demoted to the IHL's Cincinnati Cyclones to finish the 1992-93 season, then was picked by the start-up Anaheim Mighty Ducks in the expansion draft, but he split the season between the NHL and the San Diego Gulls.

The 1994-95 lock-out was of no help to him, so he spent the season with the Las Vegas Thunder with such players as Radek Bonk and Alexei Yashin, managing to put up 75 points in 74 games, bringing his then IHL statistics to 60 goals, 81 assists and 141 points in 135 games.

So back to the AHL it was for the 1995-96 season, first with the Baltimore Bandits, then the Saint John Flames when the Calgary Flames traded for his rights. He even played a game with the big team, going scoreless. He also spent the following season in St. John, combining for 59-76-135 in 133 games.

He signed with the Sharks as a free agent prior to the 1997-98 season, and that's when it got crazy. Not only did he spend time in both the IHL (Indianapolis Ice) and AHL (Kentucky Thoroughblades), he may have broken the NHL waiver wire:

• 1998-Jan-08 Claimed off waivers by Chicago Blackhawks from San Jose Sharks
• 1998-Jan-23 Claimed off waivers by San Jose Sharks from Chicago Blackhawks
• 1998-Jan-27 Claimed off waivers by Dallas Stars from San Jose Sharks
• 1998-Feb-10 Claimed off waivers by Chicago Blackhawks from Dallas Stars
• 1998-Mar-06 Claimed off waivers by San Jose Sharks from Chicago Blackhawks

Apparently, the Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks had a little thing going...

And that was just the beginning...

In the next 10 years, he would play in 6 different leagues despite taking a whole year off. He played in the NHL (Sharks, Atlanta Thrashers, Philadelphia Flyers), AHL (Thoroughblades, Chicago Wolves, Philadelphia Phantoms, Utah Grizzlies, Springfield Falcons, San Antonio Rampage), IHL (the Grizzlies 5 years before their move to the AHL, the Orlando Solar Bears - yes! - and the Bloomington PrairieThunder), the Swiss-A league (Lausanne),  the Swedish league (Leksands IF) and Austria (Jesenice). All in all, he has played for 8 NHL teams, 9 AHL teams, 7 IHL teams in two different incarnations of it, as well as Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.

As The Beatles said in Norwegian Wood, ''This bird has flown''. He is the epitome of the journeyman player. He now coaches the Cyclones, and has led them to the third round last season.

Aaron Palushaj Autograph Card

Aaron Palushaj will start the upcoming season with his fourth NHL team despite having had the best year of his career with 9 points in 25 games with the Colorado Avalanche to go with his 10 points in 25 AHL games with the Hamilton Bulldogs.

Indeed, the Avs - possibly through Patrick Roy, who had seen and heard of him through his friends with RDS' analysis team for Montréal Canadiens' games, Palushaj was let go by the Avs and signed a two-way contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. My guess is he forces their hand and plays between 5 and 10 minutes per game for them all year.

He had originally been drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the second round, 44th total, in 2007. He was sent to the Habs in exchange for since-departed Matt D'Agostini.

Despite being an accomplished playoff performer (and the Bulldogs' all-time-best playoff scorer), he was never used as an offensive weapon in the Canadiens' arsenal, instead playing sparse minutes on fourth-line duty, though at 5'11 and 185 lbs, he may be a tad small for an energy player.

At least I have this on-card, blue-foil autographed insert card of his to remember him by:

It's from Panini's 2011-12 Donruss Elite (card #207, with the mention that he's a Rookie) and is signed in blue sharpie.

I got it in a trade for another autographed insert card, possibly a common player from the Minnesota Wild (I recall the colour green).