Sports Cards Ate My Brain

Yes.  Hockey.  I collect everything. My dad grew up a Red Wings fan so I inherited the fandom.  This is just pretty. Gold, on-card autos just pop. Bought one box of Upper Deck series 1 that year and lucked out. Needing money made us sell a card of our favorite paper from our local team.  When we used to have a local team. I paid some top dollar for some UD Black boxes but love the set.

Those of us that have collected cards for a long time (over 40 years for me) all have one or a few players that we seem to get many, many good cards for.  We end up with a decent player collection of someone that we don't actually collect actively. Frank Thomas is one for me but the player that stands out the most is Mats Sundin.  I have a hoard of good inserts of him. Me being lazy, I only have one card scanned but it is my favorite.  A 1997-98 Leaf Fractal Matrix X-Axis Silver Die Cut.  Easily one of the most confusing inserts of the 1990's, the Fractal Matrix set featured different colors and shapes which I still have no interest in actually figuring out. If you're a Maple Leaf or Sundin collector drop me a line and maybe we can work out a trade.

I hit 50 today.  After a major health scare last summer I consider this a major achievement. I was thinking about things I used to like that I no longer even care about and started wondering why I don't watch hockey anymore.  Then I figured it out.... Bonus points to anyone that can tell why, based on these 3 images.

To recap:  These are the cards I would take with me if I could take ten 9-card pages with me to Mars. I decided that each part of my collection cannot have more than one page.  The cards must fit into a regulation page as far as height and width but I am taking liberties with how thick some of the cards are. And now it's time to take the ice: 1980-81 Topps #22 One of the heroes of the 1980 Miracle On Ice, Jim actually started his career with the Atlanta Flames.  I remember watching his first Flames game on TV.  The OPC cards from 1980-81 did not have the USA logo in the top corner.  This set featured black scratch off material over the player's name and are not considered mint if scratched but I had to scratch my whole set because it annoyed me not seeing the player's name on them. 1990-91 Upper Deck #54 No hockey page is complete without the Great One.  I chose this card of Wayne because I really like Upper Deck's first hockey set. ...