Kickoff!

 The CFL kicks off tonight with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats hosting the Montreal Alouettes. Always trying to stay topical, I had to look through my to-be-posted box for something appropriate. Fortunately, I had a pair of Game-Dated Moments cards from last year that had yet to appear on the blog.

Bo Levi Mitchell is coming off back-to-back seasons where he was the Eastern nominee as the most Outstanding Player. He still didn't get a base card in the 2024 release, but made up for it with 2 base cards and a checklist 1/2 appearance last year. And a trio of Game-Dated Appearances. 

Kenny Lawler didn't even get those. This was his only card over the past two seasons. He just re-upped with the Tiger-Cats for 3 more seasons on a million dollar deal, making him the top-paid WR in the league. Maybe that will get him back into the sets.

So, with a hearty OSKEE WEE WEE, there you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 14 - Another Hat Trick

 

Time for 3 different Dollarama repacks.

As before, I'm going to recap these in order of cost. Showing off a Hurricanes card and a Golden Knights card in advance of the Stanley Cup Finals is about the most interesting thing here, especially with Jesper Fast blocking the alternate Jets unis.

All cardboard content in the Value Bundle.

Looking at the 2000s pack to start, and I will always believe that Peterborough Petes cards, outside of local sets, which should have some variety, should have the featured player wearing the classic maroon jerseys. I know I complain about the bland, colorless backgrounds on SP Authentic, but here it feels worse, as the player looks to have been shrunk too.

These usually seem to contain two recent cards, and three from the early 90s. When the oldest is a 1993, it at least feels different. Even if 21-22 does show up to rain on the parade. 

A couple unexpected sets here. Considering it is an e-pack exclusive, Compendium always feels out of place in a lower end repack, especially when it features a major name.  Metal Universe also seems off for these, even if I've already shown off one as the visible cards. It's Jaccob Slavin on that hard to read card, BTW.

I won't show off everything in the Parkhurst pack, but here's a few highlights. The Potvin was probably the best of the bunch. Schlegel was a local guy. There's a couple mask binder cards, and Bob Probert is a fine choice to pair with the other horizontal card to make the scan a little more evening.

A shiny rookie to start the Picks pack. Even if this is in the cheap-o range at COMC, it is of a player who still played in the NHL in 25-26. That's a plus!

A Sens card! And it is a parallel as well! To be specific, it is a blue parallel out of 2023-24 SP Retail. That's enough for me to proclaim this repack the winner of this unofficial battle. But there's still a few more cards left.

Now that is a shiny parallel. It is out of 2022-23 Ice, and the oranges are the second most common of the hobby parallels behind the greens. 

Another rookie appearance. Sanford is now playing overseas, but he was part of a Stanley Cup winning team while in the NHL, lifting the trophy as a member of the Blues in 2019.

That's an unexpected ending, even if I've found numbered cards in these before. This one isn't just a blue parallel. This one is a ROYAL blue parallel. That classier than the mere blue parallel that appeared earlier. 

Even if the opening pack was pretty blah, there were still some keepers as I went through everything, and that's all I ask!

Before the Big Game

Despite showing off a couple cards following their victory in the OHL Finals, I still had a few Rangers alumni cards which I hadn't appeared yet. As usual, I blame incompetence on my part. With the Memorial Cup final tonight, it is the ideal time to show them off.

It isn't just the fact these two cards come from my beloved 13-14 Rookie Anthology that has me leading with these two. Frank Corrado is in Kelowna for the Memorial Cup. He's on the TSN broadcast team for the tourney, doing the between-the-benches duty.

Kubalik's OHL career was pretty similar to Corrado's. He started off with the Sudbury Wolves (and was his teammate there for a part-season) before being traded to the Rangers for a part season to end their junior career. He has returned to Europe to play after stints in Chicago, Detroit and Ottawa.

It might not be an exact colour-match parallel, but this Yellow Taxi parallel is close enough to the gold color in the Ducks logo for me to call it such. Gibson was traded from the Ducks this past season for 2/14 baby Petr Mrazek and a couple draft picks and he was almost enough to will the Red Wings into the playoffs.

So, as I await the puck drop, there you have it!

With Apologies to my Trade Partners

 While I'm sure you'd have liked these cards, unfortunately, there's something about them that made me want to keep them.

While one might see the Michigan logos that Connor O'Halloran and think this 2023 Elite Extra Edition card was one I picked up for a future mailer to Ann Arbor. That would ignore the "Toronto" on the bottom, and also his being born just down the road in Mississauga. (Home of the Raptors 905!) Maybe if I get a second one.

It's a little less obvious here, as one would need to look it up to see which Los Angeles it was that Jakob Wright was with. It is the Dodgers, but such a legible signature is bound to end up in my penmanship binder instead. 

Although searching COMC for his auto does show that he did make things a little shorter for some, but not all, of his Bowman options. 

No guilt here, as I picked up two of these. One to send, one to keep. It isn't too bad signature-wise, since I can read some of the letters and it does look interesting aesthetically. Plus, his name is Mairoshendrick, and that is a definite add if there is ever an East-West bowl for baseball.

There you have it!

More Forgotten Wax

 

I still have a small stack of those Pacific Plus  packs, and this time, I'm adding in a baseball pack instead of hockey this time. I've also got about 4 more left of those. And 7 Pacifics.

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Starting with baseball. I've started to appreciate accents showing up in player names. Without showing off the rest of the cards, Mel Hall will be the worst person to appear in this post. I'll say that assuming that Sax wasn't convicted of all those murders in New York. Mel is offset by the greatness of Jay Buhner's bubble blowing, and the back of Assenmacher's card.

That's the ticket!

 A photo of someone appearing to be hit by a pitch. What an honour for Van Slyke to be gifted with a cardboard memory like that. Mike Devereaux wins the battle here with a great shot down the line.

It really feels forced to have a Bash Brothers themed card and have Ruben Sierra as one of them. No shame to Ruben, but could UD at least tried to have another nickname for this card? Jerry Browne might have a less flattering photo choice than the Van Slyke.  We're still in the era of random pack collation for UD with Finley making a dupe appearance. Those Homerun Heroes were one-per in this type of pack. 

A few keepers in this! Now to the gridiron!

Pack 1:

Even if it is a dupe, I do have to acknowledge an appearance of 2/14er Harry Colon. We've also got infield dirt, back-to-back Dexters and an appearance of a plyer with their position listed as Wide Receiver, but him certainly looking like he's returning a punt/kick in the photo. A miss for an opportunity at a dual position card.

The second half isn't as interesting, aside from noting the Johnsons had nine months, and the best they could do was 'John', to paraphrase a Bobby Heenan one-liner.

Pack 2:

Bills content! I don't know if it was a bad thing for Cornelius Bennett that his appearance was delayed until the update portion of this set, or if it was a good thing for the Bills that they were so loaded at the time that he had to wait until the high numbered portion of it. The Tom Tupa card has a hint as to his future. 

He'd make the Pro Bowl, and also win a Super Bowl, as a punter - and Pacific had the forethought to include his punting skills as the fact on the back.

Even with three seasons as a Giant to start his career, it is hard to imagine McCaffrey as anything other than a member of the Broncos. There's also a future Super Bowl MVP to close things off, and someone who parlayed that into a position on lists of the worst free agent signings of all time. But those lists won't change his status as the MVP of Super Bowl XXX.

There you have it!

My Latest MST3Ked Movie Autograph

 

From Season 13, The Gizmoplex Season,  it is Doctor Mordrid himself, Jeffrey Combs! 

Combs had done a bunch of B-ish movies and was a fairly regular player in the Star Trek universe. His auto here is from a show called The 4400, which I remembered only the name of and couldn't tell you anything about the plot. 

With his movie resume, I was somewhat surprised that Mordrid was his only appearance in a MSTed movie, especially considering some of the movies used in the Netflix/Gizmoplex years. Dr Mordrid was best remembered for being an attempt at doing a Dr Strange movie, but doing so after losing the rights to actually do one in between the first time pen went to paper for a script, and its actual filming. I wouldn't call it good, but it did actually feel like and look like a movie. Always a plus considering some of the washed out prints that would sometimes be used.

And there you have it!

2026 Adventures in Repacks - Part 13 - Scans of Long Ago

 It may have been a couple months or so, but these scans have from a pair of Dollarama Value Park been sitting in the folder for too long.

Here's what was in the first one.

The opening card, Brian Wesenberg, is interesting because he'd never play a game in the Ducks system. He'd play in 1 NHL game with the Flyers. Cards of one gamers are always fun. That Rick Green would have been more fun if it was of Bill from the Red Green Show, as opposed to a hockey player.

The Canadian Pack could have provided the best of the repacks, but that Brandon Sutter is a 2/14 dupe.

I realized after looking at the scans for this post, that I neglected to highlight the 1993 Leaf back.

So, here's it courtesy of the TCDB scan. It is easier than trying to find it 2+ months later. Let's party like it is (Expo) 1986! 

Nothing too noteworthy here.

Here's the other one's contents.

The Canadian Pack is a far more interesting than the previous one as there are different sets, uniforms and eras represented. 

Cam Neely is enough to elevate this sorta dull 90s pack over the just plain dull 90s pack earlier. 

Here's that hit! It really doesn't matter who the featured player is, a hit is a better item to find instead of a few toploaders. Being a Hall of Famer is even better. It is also a 'traded' card, as despite the Red Wings photo, the blue on the borders indicate something else. That's another plus for oddness. The colour doesn't matter for the swatch, since both could conceivably show up on a Rangers relic too.

Finally, the second 5 card pack. The only thing of note can be found on the back of one of the cards.

A regrettable 90s hat choice. Berg never made it beyond the AHL, which was too bad for him getting a mainstream card with a less ridiculous photo on it.

There you have it!

The Champs Are Here!

 The Kitchener Rangers won the Robertson Cup this week as the OHL Champions, following a sweep of the Barrie Colts. Surely I have at least one card around that I haven't shown off before to celebrate it. Right?

How about a couple '82s of a pair of future Hall of Famers? That'll suffice!

And if that won't suffice, here's a scanner-bed worth of some of my favourite cards in that mini collection. No repeats! My favorites, naturally, being the combo cards that double-up on the alumni with autos, then relics. I realize that the Coffey doesn't contain either, but how can I pass on an octopus appearance?

There you have it!

2/14 Diamond Content

Back to the 2/14 collection today, and I'm showing off all the new baseball additions to the collection.

Here's the most recent additions to the collection. This was a solo PWE order from sportlots. This is the first contender for next year's "2/14 calendar year" best of  post. It may only be 1/4 Mitch Farris, but that's still enough to count it form the collection. Although I do hope he'll have a less obnoxious candidate.

From the newest to the oldest, and all the way back to 1960 for this Leaf entry. With this 5th card of his, I'm now the top collector of Tom Borland at tcdb. Short of acquiring a buyback, this is probably where my acquiring of his cards is going to end.

TCDB is strange with how it counts variations, so this being listed separately there means that this naturally counts as a separate card from the other, more basic entry in this set. I'm keeping the slip of paper with the card in the binders, since how else will I remember which is which?

Sanchez's cards are among the stranger ones in the collection, since all his cards list his birthday at 2/26, but practically all online sources list it as 2/14. It's a reverse of former Atlanta Falcon Jessie Tuggle, whose cards list him as 2/14, but there are various results from online sources. Both of their cards count for the collection, though. Also, the Tacoma Tigers were not affiliated with Detroit at the time of his minor league entry, but as the colours would indicate, they were an Oakland affiliate. The actual Detroit card is a Tiffany entry.

Nick Pivetta's 2025 move to the Padres earned both a photoshop special in Series 2 of flagship, and a probably-not version in Update. This is the former, which should have rendered an Update base appearance unnecessary. But it does give me a lot more cards to potentially acquire.

Topps Now are always fun additions to the collection. A lot of people were intrigued by Yermin's 5 hit debut, to the tune of 6,571 cards. His early success and later faltering made me pick up this for about 60 cents. The Optic is a "Red Dragon" parallel, and is /110. 

Brooks Lee's content increases by three. That blue parallel works so perfectly with the City Connect jersey. While I do appreciate that they did use different photos on the Fortune 15 card, I wish they'd used an image with a less "D'UH" facial expression with the smaller one.

More parallels here with Nolan Schanuel. The middle is a Magenta parallel, and is the third and final of the serial numbered cards in this post. The third one is an Easter Tin Green Leaf Foil parallel. That's some verbosity!

Dave Dravecky is the king this time around with 5 new cards. Those Topps and Fleer ones were cards I was certain I had in the collection, but tcdb told me otherwise. The postage stamp was listed as an item at tcdb, so it does count. Size-wise, it is about the size of two Topps Micro cards. So, not the smallest, but probably the thinnest.  Maybe the Larry Seiple Sunoco stamp would rival it?

There you have it!