Opening day

By now you've all heard the news about the MLB lockout ending and a 162-game season set to start April 7. I was hoping to celebrate this by picking up some packs of 2022 Topps at my local Target but the trading card section is still stuck in the pandemic, covered in non-sports kid stuff. 

I'd considered asking the cashier if they kept any baseball (or football) cards at the customer service center.. but his register froze while ringing up the customer ahead of us. I was going to wander up to customer service when my daughter found these for me:

There was a small section of the trading card aisle that was barren, except for five fat packs of 2021-22 O-Pee-Chee and an open box of 2021-22 Upper Deck MVP. Flippers don't want this stuff, and I wouldn't either if there were any other options (like the new 2021-22 Upper Deck flagship perhaps?)

Beggars can't be choosers, amirite? This was the first time I'd been able to pick packs off the shelf since late 2019! I have no idea what they cost, or if anything decent could be found in these packs (no Wander Franco for sure) And to be honest, I don't have room in my hockey card boxes for new stuff. I'll have to be selective about what I keep, and add the rest to my TCDB tradelist. I'll worry about that later. It's opening time!

Pack one:

Meh. Nothing grabs me out of this pack. I just met a guy at work today who saw my New Jersey Devils jacket and said "I'm from just outside of Philadelphia. Can we still be friends?" I told him "Why not? Both our teams suck this season."

Pack two (or three in the scan):

Canucks hot pack. I'll probably keep the Pettersson and offer up the other two on TCDB. Getting a new Nico Hischier is nice. I'd still like to see some more production from the former #1 overall pick, but at least he's healthy. Foolish flippers missed out on a chance to pull this fantastic Jan Jenik RC! Ka-ching!

Now for the O-Pee-Chee pack:

Two Connors and a Crosby! This is actually the second time I pulled a retro parallel of Sid the Kid in a single fat pack. A few weeks ago I went walking at the "pond" park down the street. The pond was frozen and a group of guys were playing hockey. I watched them for a few minutes and stepped away far enough to take a couple pictures.

Pond hockey might be a common sight where you live but I'd never seen a game in my area. From far away it looked like one of the guys was wearing a Pat LaFontaine Islanders jersey. I couldn't think of anyone else with a navy blue #16. Then I got closer.

Sasha Barkov? In this area? Cool!

By the time I was ready to leave the park a police officer had parked her car on the walking path and calmly told the boys that they couldn't play hockey here. I couldn't blame her; at one point the puck slid away from the thicker ice in the background toward the thin ice in the foreground. The guy retrieved it safely, but it was close to falling in water. And if the ice started to crack under his weight...

Anyway, back to the pack:

Decent selection here. The Talbot is my fave, I love that Wild jersey in North Stars colors. Bernier was signed by the Devils in July but is still pictured as a Red Wing because Upper Deck is way behind on updating their checklist. Flagship Series 1 wasn't released until March and somehow they still couldn't manage to fit any Seattle Kraken cards in the set. Also, David Krejci retired from the NHL and is playing in his native Czech Republic this season. And Jordan Staal looks to be playing in front of maybe 500 people. Can we move the Hurricanes to a market that will actually support them - like, I dunno... Hartford? 😜

Best of the rest. I liked Braden Holtby in Washington; he's now a backup in Dallas. I did get a Kraken player (if not a Kraken card) in Ryan Donato. Joe Shlabotnik has made nearly an entire team set in far less time than it takes for Upper Deck to produce one packed-out Kraken card. Jason Spezza is closing in on 1,000 career points. And by "closing in on" I mean "crawling toward". Aaron Ekblad is having a career year; if he played for a media darling like Detroit or New York he'd be the front-runner for the Norris trophy. 

I had planned to visit my mom in Connecticut tomorrow but since I said those plans out loud there is a bomb cyclone expected to hit the northeast. Which means I'll have to postpone my visit at least another week. It also means I'll have time for another post this weekend. Stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

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