Sens Season Finales

 As the Senators' season whimpered to an end Saturday, I thought this is as good a time as any to show their content in my to-be-posted box.

4 of the 5 cards that will appear here were picked up because of the "it was cheap thanks to e-pack" factor. This one is the dentist that doesn't recommend Trident gum. While there are several Schastlivy cards in my collection, this is the only Erich Goldmann appearance, and, aside from this card's parallels, my only option when it comes to acquiring one card of every Senator that got one as a member of the team.

While Michael Amadio did make his debut in the team collection out of the recent O-Pee-Chee release, I had this on its way in a COMC shipment before that set's release. I'll give the nod to shininess and call this my first card of his, even if I did have cards of his on either the Kings or the Golden Knights before.

Ullmark had an up and down season in many ways. But as long as he's now in a good mental state, I'm happy with how he's doing.

Bonus back of the card photo. I didn't need the side logo, just the roof to recognize this as a photo from MSG.

I guess I'm ending with a goalie kick. Leevi was the back-up for much of the season. These green parallels are exclusive to e-pack, and available after you collect 'X' base cards. I think it was 10 for the regular base, but only 5 for the SPd veterans/rookies. I'm not really going to make an effort to check.

One more goalie card, and the sole hit of this post. Mads only made a couple appearances with the big club this season, spending it, and all his previous pro seasons, shuttling between the AHL and the NHL. 

But, since his name is 'Mads', can I consider it a card for my MST3K collection? Like Sampo?

I'm thinking about this way too much.

There you have it!

Forgotten Wax

 Just a quartet of wax packs from various sources that I'd set aside and forgotten about. 

Two hockey and two football. I know I didn't pay $1.25 at any point for those two Pacific Plus II packs.

The AHL pack is the only one where I can fit the entire contents of the pack into a single scan. But with everything else at 10 per pack, it sets the tone for some 5 card scans. Despite Milano being a short print, the mascot card wins this one. Interestingly, if you search for 'Hammy' over at COMC, you get a bunch of Andrew Hammond cards too. But not if you search on Hamburglar.

Off to Pinnacle, which was an odd release. There were no stats on the cards - the back consisted of a write-up describing the photo on the front, and how the game the photo represents went. Although it doesn't necessarily translate to success, as among these 5, only Crombeen's team picked up the win in the game featured.

Things are a little better here, as only the Jay Bouwmeester can be traced directly to a loss. While Montreal did lose the Heritage Classic game, the one the press conference shown on the Gorges card was for, or but Josh never took the ice in it.

The Plus II release was very rookie themed. To the point that of the 20 cards over the two packs, only one of the cards was of a player not in their rookie season. That's a rather depressing pair of rookie QBs on the bottom row. 

Mark Higgs was the only player over these two packs that wasn't in his rookie year, although since he never had any NFL-level cards prior to this, it is still considered one of his rookie cards. You can also see how perfectly the colour schemes for teams can work out, as every one of these can go with the team colours, even if not an exact match. Contrast that with Marinovich's entry. 

Bills content! WOO-HOO! And it is a defensive player with the ball for an extra bonus. Also, infield dirt on card. It might be the one thing I miss about the death of the cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadium. 

And if a Bills appearance is wonderful, how about the appearance of a 2/14 baby? Even better, this Jeff Graham is a new entry into the binders. It is my 42nd card of his, and there's always something about pack-pulling a new entry to that collection. Fellow 2/14er Harry Colon is also a pack-pull possibility here, but that wouldn't be new. For other cards, there's more infield dirt, and a second card in Vaughn (Jarrod Bunch was #1) that will add content to a mailer currently on its way to Ann Arbor.

Considering I hadn't shown off these for however long after acquiring them, not bad at all. And I still have a small unopened stack of even more Pacific to show off. 

There you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 10 - Hat Trick

 That means one of each type of hockey repack from the Dollarama.

Here they are!

Starting with the small one. I usually just pick up whichever one is at the front of the hanger pegs, but having a Sens card, and one that isn't from flagship, as the opener, makes buying the first one I see easy. That one isn't a dupe, even it the second one was. As great as seeing the stick bend on the Guentzel is, it is also a dupe..

The Value Bundle contents.

That's some great junk wax star power in the 5-card pack with Hull and Fedorov showing up. For those that don't want to squint at the Metal Universe card, that's Sean Monahan there.

Even they were in the subsets and not the base version, there's some major names in the Score pack. Nothing much outside of these guys, though.

I'd normally be really happy to see that shot of McLeod from the outdoor game pop up. Alas, 'tis a dupe. But it was nice to see some O-Pee-Chee show up to offset the blandness that was 21-22.

Usually, the promised HOFer is some random early 90s entry. But there's that C55 showing up unexpectedly. It is a rare time where the promised inductee is the best card in this particular repack, but here it was.

And finally, the premium pack.

We have a Timmies card to start, and as the visible card in the pack. I'm not sure why the Islanders would choose to use the fisherman jersey for throwbacks, but if the Flames can bring back the flame snot horse, why not the fisherman too?

A Top Rookie? He might have made it further in hockey than I ever will, but his NHL career was 2 games. But if you do have a 50 card insert set devoted to rookies, some will have to be less prominent than others.

For those that want to play the "Guess the Parallel" game, this Brock Faber is a Red Rainbow.

Just as I'm set to pack up a new mailer to TMV, here's a Red Wings insert addition to that bubbler.

And the final is just a base card, but since Auston was considered a Star for the purposes of this set, this was a slight SP. I still need 3 cards to finish this set, all SPs, but this wasn't one of them.

Just a perfectly fine variety of cards for today's post.

There you have it!

2/14 on the Gridiron

Just another post showing new additions to the the 2/14 collection, this time from football. And would be one of the cards in this post that will push me over the 4500 plateau.

Considering that approximately 300 of those 4500 are Jim Kelly cards, it is only appropriate I start with his lone entry. 

Normally, I wouldn't count team cards that include the 2/14 guy as part of the photo as entries to the list. But I'll make an exception when it comes to Lucius Sanford, #57, whose only other appearance in the collection was on a Team Leaders card. His only solo entry is a McDonald's card from 1986. Hook me up!

Jeff Graham sure seems happy to be making his 41st appearance in the collection.

While this card claims this game-used ball is associated with Courtney Brown, his inability to stay consistently healthy makes it doubtful.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba had several insert appearances in 2025 Score, and they were solid additions to his part of the collection. I liked the throwbacks version better with the uniform when I added them, and I still prefer it in hand. The Celebration's photo is just too small.

Here's a nice contrast. I can lead with a pretty high end entry from Jadeveon Clowney's rookie year. To be more specific, this is a Transparencies auto /65 out of 2014 Triple Threads. Given how designs have been lately, I'm just as happy for a pretty nice design and the on-card autograph as I am that they didn't re-use the same photograph for the transparency portion. And on the other hand, there's a card from the past season featuring Clowney on a team he didn't play with this season, but Mosaic was the only option for 2025 and his cards. 

He might not have signed anywhere for 2026, but at least things look more promising better for him right now than fellow 2/14er Alshon Jeffery.

Say what you will about Christian Hackenberg's lack of success at the pro level, it did translate into being able to pick up low-numbered cards of his for far less than the usual for even a middling player. 

There you have it!

In Which I Become a White Sox Collector

 Not officially, mind you. But I was looking through my COMC to-be-posted box, and noticed there seemed to be a lot of White Sox content in there. And that's not counting the Yermin Mercedes additions to the 2/14 collection.

The 2004 release, with its additional silhouette, made for some unique looks for some cards. Aaron Rowand's entry was no exception.

When I think baseball weather, I think "cold enough to require a team logo scarf". And a positively dewy Bartolo Colon.

It might not be a Bo Breaker, but this is still pretty nice.

Heritage is always welcome, especially 2024, and especially if it includes the famous photo of Gossage rocking the shorts. Gossage is also the one of these two most likely to throw another pitch during a MLB game. 

From the casual look to just plain casual.

Say what you will about replays and ABS becoming part of the equation in MLB games, it will prevent images like this from making appearances on cards. The sacrifices we make for accuracy.

All the way back to early Stadium Club for the finale, and Wilson Alvarez saluting his no-hitter. Although you'd have to turn the card over for proof.

See! There it is! Along with more Alex Fernandez shenanigans. And the illegibility of '24 Heritage backs that made for an easy decision to go 18-per with the binder pages.

There you have it!

Rangers Round-Up

 Just a bunch of Kitchener Rangers alum acquired cheaply at COMC thanks to e-packs.

I'm leading with this Mandelbrot Fractal parallel, for the sole reason that this was the only one in this post that didn't have a logical type pairing. The white border used on this Credentials release makes this one of the tamer versions of these parallels.

Young Guns Renewed might have given us some of UD's most garish inserts in recent memory, but at least it sorta also gives one a chance at acquiring Young Guns card of stars for a fraction of the cost of the real ones. 

This was a screw-up on my part regarding the first of these Skinners. I had already acquired that one, and forgot about it. By the time I realized that, I'd already dropped a package on the way to Night Owl. At least I've got an interesting Sabres history-ish insert to start off the next mailer.

Much like with Nikolaj Ehlers over in my 2/14 collection, John Gibson is someone who all my NHL level cards of his are with a single team, and there still haven't been any printed yet with him on his new club.

Here's a pair of silver parallels out of the online-only Ultra release. 

And finally, a couple flagship parallels that are also exclusively online. Smith is the regular silver parallel,  while Faksa is the speckled version. The background makes it harder to tell the difference between the two in the scan, but it does have that quality in hand.

There you have it!

Chronicling

 

Just one pack (out of several) of Chronicles I've had for too long without showing off the contents of.

Here's the opener. I don't mind repeating images that much, but at use different ones on the same side of the card.

Here's the opening run of base cards. That's Moussa Diabate on the Pinnacle card. I'm not sure why they used a design in the base set that was basically the same design as the regular base design in the same release. As always, the Luminance really looks nice with the dark arena spotlighting the player. 

The foil cards. The Banchero is a nice card, I just wish it scanned better.

And the Teal Parallels. That's Christian Braun that was on this particular unreadable card.

Finally, the two Classics entries, which were exclusives.

And since the back included a Did-You-Know factoid, I'll include the backs too. I recall during the Raptors championship run hearing about francophone players speaking French on the court, so Mathurin's language skills might be helpful for his team. 

A fairly average Chronicles pack, with the release's usual rookie-focused checklist.

There you have it!