Time to Defend

 The Kitchener Rangers' defense of the Memorial Cup starts tonight with a home game against Owen Sound. Given the cyclical nature of the CHL, and them going all-in last season, there is a little chance of that happening. Still, there's always the greatness of last season to make a fan upbeat.

To celebrate the banner(s) being raised tonight, here's a whole bunch of Rangers alumni cards.

It is an easy decision to open with these two Nick Spaling items. He's returning to the team this season, having moved from player in the late 2000s to an assistant coach this season. He was a part of the team when they won the OHL championship in 2008, but the team lost to Spokane in the Memorial Cup finals.

I'm a bad Canadian. I've never once bought a pack of cards at a Tim Hortons to go alongside with my donuts. For shame.

You have to turn this over to realize this card features Wendell Young. He was the only player to win the Memorial, Calder and Stanley Cups. He was joined by Mike Richards as the only other to accomplish the feat, with both winning the first part of the trio with Kitchener. 

Here's the latest result of my taking advantage of e-pack cheapness to add a pair of Jeff Skinners to the collection.

Dominik Kubalik started his career with enough success to warrant a lot of appearances both in base cards and inserts. 

Usually when I do one of these, I usually decide to go through their sportlots inventory and just add a bunch of cards of a random PC player. Here, that's Radek Faksa. Considering how he's played all his career with the Dallas Stars, it is nice to get a couple that aren't Dallas cards, even if that Texas card technically is associated with Dallas.

See, there was a reason I mentioned Mike Richards earlier! This was part of a trade I had when I unloaded a patch card that didn't really hit any of my PCs. I guess I could complain that the Flyers swatch isn't immediately obvious as one, since it would look so much better in orange. 

The other major card in the trade was this John Gibson. In spite of what it says on the card, this isn't a rookie. It's a flashback card from 19-20 Clear Cut (a one-card only encased release) done in the style of the 14-15 Ultimate design. Gibson's rookie release season was the previous season, so I do wonder why it isn't in that design. I'll probably end up freeing this from the magnetic case in favour of the binders.  

And that's a recap of alumni.

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 19.3 - Repacks in the Mail

 I'm back to it with a the football repacks provided in the TMM mailer. 

While there was more variety in terms of the repacked content in these ones, that doesn't end up being true with these first two. The same packs. The same type of inserted cards - 2021 Absolute Retail. Among these and the next two, the only constants over every repack were Score-A-Treat and the '21 Absolute.

There's SAGE content in the repack. And not even that sweet spot of strangeness of cards like that Ronnie Hillman or Brett Smith. So, while I will can everything, I'm not going to do individual comments, because what can I really say about generic unlicensed stuff?

I might have to replace my scanner sooner rather than later, since that Maxx Crosby in the first post was a bright yellow parallel. Sage also looks to have done the one-per parallel thing, with Silvers showing up there. Thankfully, CJ Stroud waited a week to reach the Next Level against the Bills. 2002 SAGE are delightfully hideous. There was probably some kid who pulled that McCarthy card and thought they had the future of the Vikings in their hand.

Oops.

 

Teddy Bridgewater: Backup Listener is probably my favourite ad featuring a football player. Justin Fields was the non-scanning yellow parallel here. A shame, since it would have looked nice with it being a "Now With" Steelers card. For those that like odd collation, two of the three SAGE packs saw me get both the base and the silver parallel, for Kayshon Boutte and Evan Stewart. Given the jersey, I guess that Elway counts as a colour match parallel.

Nothing too noteworthy, but still a fun break! That's all I ask for!

There you have it!

Bills! Bills! Bills!

There may have been games already, but the season doesn't really start until your favourite team kicks off. So, to celebrate that, here's all the Bills cards I've acquired through either COMC or sportlots.

I had this card on my wantlist at the side for a bit. While I would have been happy with any version of this card, getting a parallel in one of the team colours was even better. Damar's on-field return was better, but this sufficed.

Mitchell Trubisky spent 3 seasons with the Buffalo Bills, in the role of "If Josh gets injured, we're screwed". But, he did play all but the first snap in the 2025 finale, beating the Jets, and getting this Instant card out of the deal. That was his only Buffalo card. 

I don't know if Andre Reed would consider this particular photo to have him appear Photogenic, but this is a really great photo choice.

I had the Josh Allen from this insert set show up a month and a half back, and lamented that it wasn't from this game, when he scored his passing/receiving TD on the same play. I already had this one on the way, and it does cover the joy of that snow game, so I'm halfway there.

There is a Panini Instant card out there. Hint. Hint. Card #185. Hint. Hint.

And here's one more snow game, on the road to losing their first of four straight Super Bowls.

Here's an odd one. It looks like regular Prestige, but was actually from a standalone release with 6 cards. It looks to be connected with some type of medical facility. But, I have managed to acquire 5 of the 6 cards in the set, including the extra card linked. I just need the Sammy Watkins to finish it. Again, hint hint.

The grand finale is some new faces to the collection from 2025 releases. And half of them are still with the team as the 2026 kicks off. It took Christian Benford until last season to get cards, 3 years after the 2022 draft. Such is the life for 6th round defenders. Is Sean McDermott the first Bills coach to get a pack-pullable card outside of Marv Levy? Does that 'Updated' Joey Bosa count for the collection despite the actual card on the bottom. And now I have a Brandin Cooks card if I ever want the warm interception memories.

But hey, new season and new opportunities for disappointment!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 18.9 - Cubism

 I promised myself I'd finish this cube before the season kicked off. And I have!

It is nice to finally start one of these with an OL card.

Wow! Just the card that every football fan wants to pull - the card of a team CEO. That Richard Dent would seem to be a part of a Junkyard Dog Defense portion of the 2004 All-Time Fan Favorites set. I guess it technically is, but Dent was the only Bears card in the set. As for Lewis Billups, he's another contender for the biggest dirtbag in the cube. The longest segment of his wiki entry is the "Legal Problems" section. Lots of domestic violence, and culminating when he died in a car crash where he was the driver (going over 100mph) and also killed his passenger.

That's the final Curtis Martin card in the cube. While 11 appearances of the same player doesn't seem like too much, when it is 250ish cards from the 1980s through the early 2010s, it does seem a lot for one player, especially when all the cards come from the same team. Not a Patriot or NCAA Panthers card among them. Also - Punter card!

3 straight 1991 Pro Set cards makes for some interesting collation.  Because Malachi Dupre would end up with the Bills, and since he didn't get any cards where he'd be pictured with the team, I'm totally calling this card for the Bills binder.

Moving towards the finale. Lawrence Taylor lands in my non-existent RSO PC.

Ending with an insert, with the Steelers breaking out a weight room themed celebration against the Rams.

And there you have it! Several years after acquiring it, I finally show it off. With the interesting collation (lots of Curtis Martin and 1988 Dolphins) I'm surprised it took so long for me to start working my way through it. I do have a hockey one acquired about a year ago, so that will probably end up here in 2029 at that rate. But as long as I got some interesting cards out of it, and some filler for future outgoing mails, I'm happy with this break.

There you have it!

Minor 2/14 Additions

 I'm returning to the 2/14 content of my most recent COMC shipment today, and breaking up the baseball content by showing minor league cards in today's post. I also have a Team USA and a Perfect Game card, but since they're not minor league cards, I'll show them off when I get to the rest of the baseball.

Here's Vicente Garcia. The design on this is all sorts of hideous, but it does act like a reverse of the jersey, so there does seem to be some sort of reasoning behind it.

Also, I was convinced this team played in Salem, Oregon. At least there I could believe there was a logic behind naming the team 'Avalanche'. Nope. They played in Salem, Virginia. A state famous for such natural disasters.

Syracuse has a Baseball Hall of Fame, and this card comes from a Syracuse Skychiefs set that salutes its members. This is where I point out that the 2/14er on the card, Red Barrett, does hold the record for throwing the fewest pitches over a complete 9-inning game. That record of 58 is one of those "never be broken" ones.

Other than obscure printing variations and buybacks, I've pretty much run out of major league options to add John Marzano cards to the collection. So, here's a pair of minor league ones. He's currently at 74, with a couple more sitting in my COMC inventory. 

Callix Crabbe's numbers also jump by 2 with this pair. The star-spangled Ogden Raptors card was the first of his baseball career.

Ending with these four players making their collection debut. I get to mention Salem, Oregon for the second time in this post, and legitimately this time, as that is the Salem referenced on the baseball card, and with an appropriate team name for the location too. 

And there you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 20 - Comfort Food

 With my posting the contents of the 250+card cube over the past two months or so, as well as the Repacks in the Mail, it has been too long since I posted some Dollarama hockey repacks.

So here's three of 'em! One of each. The first two were bought over the past week or so, the final one has been in hand for several months.

Grabbing this particular repack was an easy decision with a mid-level base card of a Kitchener Rangers card as the opener. Anything else was a bonus, and there is some envelope filler for a future mailer to Ann Arbor. Even if inserts aren't expected from this, the regrettable, never-ending Portraits insert doesn't really feel like a bonus.

The Value Bundle's contents.

Starting with the HOFer pack. Just wait a few months, and it won't be just a single HOFer contained within.

Since Mike Van Ryn was a former coach in Kitchener, I could totally add cards of his to that collection. But, it is a dupe, so it will instead be part of the next envelope addressed to Ann Arbor. That's Bobby Holik on the final card, for those don't want to wreck their eyes trying to interpret the foil text.

An insert from this year's Extended shows up within a couple months of the product's release date? Wow. That's so unexpected I won't even complain that Brady's descent into persona non grata with the Sens kinda wrecks the greatness of acquiring such a recent Sens card in a repack. 

Finally, the Stadium Club pack. The best thing about these is you can play the game of "Who has the oldest, and newest rookie card shown on the back?". This game is complicated by the fact they don't use O-Pee-Chee as an option, only Topps entries.

It didn't matter with the oldest. Don Beaupre's 1981 card predates Grant Fuhr's OPC rookie by one season, and his Topps one by several more.

But it does with Tim Sweeney, who did have earlier OPC cards, but gets the always-interesting self-referential rookie card.

That was a super interesting repack. Will one containing entirely inserts/parallels surpass it?

Johnny Gaudreau cards feel so different after his passing. 

Shininess! It would be better if this were from a season later where it would be a Utah Mammoth card vs a Utah Hockey Club one.

BO-RING!

Interesting to end this on a pair of Calgary Flames cards from the Canvas inserts. Rene Bourque's trip to McMahon stadium before a Heritage Game easily beats the more generic card that completes a Tkachuk brother 1-2 within the repacks.

But it isn't enough to give this the nod over the middle Value Pack.

There you have it!