HOCKEY CUBE - 2006-07 Beehive (Pack Rip) and Other Random Cards

Continuing along with this hockey cube I picked up a little over a month ago, today Ill be showing a rather uneventful pack rip of a product I actually do like. As the title mentions that is 2006-07 Bee Hive produced by Upper Deck.

Just thought I'd scan the wrapper to maybe trigger any past memories of busting this stuff. Inside were four cards and I was not lucky enough to get that one out of eight packs with that Bee Hive Rookie. Instead you could probably guess what I pulled...

Yup, four base cards...yipee! But I do particularly enjoy the bordered design of these cards. You don't see this sort of thing in today's products.

Where the design loses me is the back. I like that they went with a sepia/black and white colour scheme but the actual design of the card doesn't flow well from front to back. If you put the front of one card next to the back of another I would never guess they come from the same product.

If I were UD I would have continued the border on the back and have full career stats. I do really like the "Did You Know?" bubble but if it were along the side in a box kinda like old OPC cards it would have been more symmetrical like the front and less cluttered.

Unfortunately, I have no say in the design process so I'm just gonna have to deal with it.

On to some other random cards. Also included in the hockey cube was a pack of cards I had never seen before and I wish to never see again.

These cards are UG-A-LY! I can smell the cheese oozing off of these card designs. They from the early 90's and feature players from different QMJHL teams. No thanks, next please...

The "Cube" promised 200 hockey cards so that meant after the 5 packs and the Score Rookies and Traded box there were still cards to be fulfilled. So the company throws in a number of random base cards etc. Mostly from the junk wax era...scratch that...ALL from the junk wax era. But, that doesn't mean there weren't some interesting cards.

As you can see above, there is a Chris Gratton RC, as well as a base of recent HHOF inductee Adam Oates. Some neat goalie shots of Barrasso and Riendeau. Last but not least, Modano in a North Stars jersey as well as the most annoying "hockey analyst" Nick Kypreos. These are just a few of the 40 or so cards in the cube.

I already have a copy of the Linden and the Quinn as well as the Young, but hey why not throw them in the Canucks binder and my Goalie Project binder? The Babych is a nice card, he was part of the Canucks run in 1994 and I had a great experience meeting him at a Canucks game once upon a time. 

Even though that Young's a double it still counts in the Goalie Project counter:

Alex Auld - 3/3 COMPLETE! 27 TOTAL
Murray Bannerman - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Martin Brochu - 3/3 COMPLETE! 4 TOTAL
Richard Brodeur - 1/3 COMPLETE! 16 TOTAL (1 JERSEY, 1 EVENT-USED, 1 AUTO)
Gary Bromley
Bruce Bullock
Sean Burke - 2/3 COMPLETE! 21 TOTAL
Frank Caprice
Jacques Caron
Dan Cloutier - 3/3 COMPLETE! 35 TOTAL (2 JERSEY, 2 AUTO's)
Ed Dyck
Ken Ellacott
Bob Essensa - 3/3 COMPLETE! 14 TOTAL
Mike Fountain - 3/3 COMPLETE! 11 TOTAL
Troy Gamble - 2/2 COMPLETE! 21 TOTAL
George Gardner 2/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL
John Garrett - 2/3 COMPLETE! 3 TOTAL
Glen Hanlon - 1/3 COMPLETE! 6 TOTAL
Johan Hedberg - 3/3 COMPLETE! 7 TOTAL
Rick Heinz
Corey Hirsch - 1/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL (1 AUTO)
Charlie Hodge - 2/2 COMPLETE! 3 TOTAL
Arturs Irbe - 1/3 COMPLETE! 3 TOTAL
Jason LaBarbera - 2/3 COMPLETE! 4 TOTAL
Ken Lockett
Roberto Luongo - 3/3 COMPLETE! 62 TOTAL (2 JERSEY)
Drew MacIntyre - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Cesare Maniago - 1/3 COMPLETE! 3 TOTAL
Bob Mason - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Dave McClelland
Steve McKichan
Kirk McLean - 2/3 COMPLETE! 153 TOTAL (1 AUTO)
Rob McVicar - 1/1 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Alfie Michaud - 1/1 COMPLETE! 7 TOTAL
Tyler Moss
Mika Noronen - 3/3 COMPLETE! 6 TOTAL
Maxime Ouellet - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Félix Potvin - 3/3 COMPLETE! 32 TOTAL (1 AUTO)
Andrew Raycroft - 1/3 COMPLETE! 7 TOTAL
Curt Ridley - 2/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL
Dany Sabourin - 2/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL
Curtis Sanford - 3/3 COMPLETE! 7 TOTAL
Cory Schneider - 1/2 COMPLETE! 12 TOTAL (2 JERSEY)
Corey Schwab - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Petr Skudra - 3/3 COMPLETE! 4 TOTAL
Gary Smith - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Garth Snow - 2/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL (1 AUTO)
Kevin Weekes - 2/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL
Steve Weeks - 1/3 COMPLETE! 1 TOTAL
Kay Whitmore - 2/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL
Dunc Wilson - 1/3 COMPLETE! 2 TOTAL

Wendell Young - 1/3 COMPLETE! 3 TOTAL 

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - 70 Card Lot (Part 2)

After a heartbreaking loss to Spain in PK's today I pour out my heart through the form of blogging. This isn't an easy one to type...

Awhile back I started a small feature that showcases a lot of Dan Cloutier cards I purchased on eBay. Today I'll show off two full pages as well one of the three hits that came along with it.

Again the word on this lot is diversity. There is a wide variety of sets, pictures and colours which really makes these sheets fun to look at. My favourite of these nine have to be the upper left corner card from the "Parkhurst Retro" set which I had never heard about before acquiring this card.

What I find particularly cool is the back of the Parkhurst Retro card. It's completely blank, a little different compared to your normal "Retro" designs. Usually the theme will be consistent on the front but won't flow so well when you take a look at the back. But this card stays true to its heritage and I appreciate that greatly.

Again different teams, colours, sets are all involved here. What I find particularly intriguing are the two cards on the upper right hand corner. The card in the middle is the regular base card from the set but the card on the right is just one of 8 parallels from that set. All with different funky patterns and colours this parallel hunt should be a fun one.

I saw how Brett over at "My Hockey Card Obsession" also put together that entire parallel set and when put side by side in a 9 pocket holder they look pretty cool!

As for the second of the three Dan Cloutier hits...

A pretty basic design for the Signature Series. I do have the same AUTO from a year before so that's kinda nice, I'm creating sort of a lineage of these AUTO's. I really like the close up on Clouts face and his old bucket mask. 

Here's a link to PART 1 of this 70 card lot and as always look at all these cards individually as well as my progress with this PC at C4K CLOUTIER.

Now I think it's time to sleep off my sorrows from the earlier loss today...I'm still a proud Portuguese!

FORCA PORTUGAL!

GO NUCKS GO!

HOCKEY CUBE: 2010-11 Score Rookies and Traded Blaster Box Break

It has definitely been a while since I've gotten to talk about hockey cards or even think about hockey cards. I must have caught the "lull" cold that was breaking out all over the blog-o-sphere. But hey, I'm back and have tons of stuff to talk about when it comes to the old hobby.

The smell of cardboard has hit my nose again and with pay checks finally coming my way again in the summer, some new purchases are expected to be coming too.

Anyways, this hockey cube I picked up about a month or so back yielded some alright results considering the price. I'll start off with the biggest of the lot and that would be the factory sealed blaster box of "Score Rookies and Traded" that was included in the cube.

I got the regular results when it came to the set. I picked up cards 560-658 from the set and I believe that must be a complete set excluding SP's and SSP's. If someone could clarify that for me that would be great.

But I was very happily surprised about what gold parallel's I was able to pull:

So far they're all pretty common and unexciting but I think the card that comes next might have been a nice little pull...

Taylor Hall was the number one pick of the 2010-11 season and this would be the gold parallel of that. I'm not sure if this is anymore rare than any of the other gold parallel cards, but it's still cool to have. Anybody know if this is a big deal or not? It would be much appreciated to know the answer!

The big AUTO hit was again...decent...I guess...

Matt Calvert is a familiar name although not super popular among the rookie class. He put up some decent numbers in his rookie season although he didn't put up great numbers this year. Still a card I'm looking to hold onto and yet another rookie to add to the list!

Probably the most disappointing of the whole box is that there isn't a single Vancouver Canuck in the entire set! Not one in the 105 cards! So that kinda angered me... But oh well, there is still lots of packs left. Look for them in the near future as well as news on my recent Dan Coutier pick-ups!

FORCA PORTUGAL!

GO NUCKS GO!

UPDATES: Semi-Finals in Play On! Portugal with a Fantastic Finish!

Well first things first. It's been a week but even though I've kinda sorta disappeared from the blog-o-sphere, I have been busy as a bee! First off I had that big tournament that many of you know about. Here's some pics from the weekend:

All these pictures are from the second of the three games on Saturday. We went 2 and 1 on that day, with the pictures above being from the most intense and hard fought out of all the games. Plus I got to play the grinder/nuisance role which was actually recorded below:

Sorry about the loud voice in the video, my buddy's mom was recording. In case you missed it in the video. The goalie put his stick down, I kicked it out of his hand and obviously he wasn't very happy about that so he gave me a little shove to the back of the head. My buddy then picked the ball up and shot the ball in the net while the goalie was recovering his stick. Needless to say, I wasn't there favourite guy out there...beaking ensued...but we won the game and got the final laugh.

I love hockey.

On Sunday all we had to do is win 4 games and we were into the finals. After winning 3 hard fought games we had only one team in our way until the finals. This team had no business being in the semi-finals and it was our game to lose. After the game was 6-4 with 3 minutes left, they scored 2 goals front behind the net...BEHIND THE NET! Flukey goals went in and the game went to shootout. In case you can't sense my frustration, we lost in the shootout.

It was a bummer but coming 3rd/4th place is not something to hang our heads about. But let's move on to my other favourite sport!

Futebol! What a beautifully exciting game Portugal played against Denmark this week!

Above is Silvestre Varela scoring in the 87th minute to put Portugal up 3-2 with a cracker of a shot. That goal solidified Portugal's win and put them at 2nd place in Group B's table! All that's left is a game against the Netherlands and with a tie over them, Portugal should have a great chance at making it through to the next stage.

On a hockey card note I have a ton of cards to scan and start throwing into blog posts. That will be very soon and I can't wait to get back in my groove over here at "Collecting For Kicks"!

FORCA PORTUGAL!

GO NUCKS GO!

UPDATES: Blogging, Movie Making, Play On! and EURO 2012

Wow these past few weeks have been insane busy and I mean absolutely NO free time. Between filming my movie project for French 12, editing, getting my "N" drivers license, organizing my hockey team for this weekend and soccer my life is running on 6 hours a sleep and running off fumes.

I have about a dozen blog posts to shoot out but I really have had no time to sit at the scanner/computer and get them done. In fact, this blogging I'm doing right now is a breath of fresh air. Brian and Sal sent me a couple of nice packages and I wanna get to them in the upcoming week. Plus a whole hell of a lot of Cloutier cards and not to mention a bunch of pack breaks from that hockey cube break.

Speaking of my movie, like I said it's for my French 12 class. I'm taking this grade 12 course early (I'm actually in grade 11) to be finished with the French Immersion program early (which I recommend to any kids starting out in school)! Anyways it's about a 15 minute movie project that we've been shooting for about a month! I've had a past student helping me out and we are going to surprise my teacher with his guest appearance in the film. Here's a couple of really nice still shots we got from shooting the other day:

The ex-student is the guy in the green shirt and my other buddy is in the black zip-up. Some really nice shots if you ask me. I'm kinda a photography nerd so maybe that's just me. Look at the background in that first shot though, gotta love beautiful BC! If you guys are interested in watching it (and speak french) let me know and I'll shoot out the link on YouTube.

Another exciting thing coming up this weekend is the biggest Canada wide ball hockey tournament!

This is my second year captaining a hockey team for Play On! We definitely learned a lot from last year. We had only 5 players out of a possible 7 and those 2 less guys really hurt us. But this year we have a very strong squad and I'll be sure to let you guys know how far we get into the play-offs this year. Our name this year is "4th Line Grind". Have any of you guys in Canada done this tourney? Any in the US ever participate in anything like this?

That's a shot of yours truly last year at the tournament, as you can see the "arena" we played in was on the top of a mall. Truly a Canadian way to play road hockey! Oh and that nice pink circle on my arm is my proud war mark from blocking a shot (always glad to get in the way of one). Can't wait for the tourney, it's gonna be tons of fun. 

Speaking of this weekend, EURO 2012 starts this friday and my home country (Portugal) are stuck in the "group of death" as they say... Their first game is Saturday and I'm unfortunately gonna have to run into the mall we are playing on top of to catch the game between our games.

Do any of you guys watch soccer, have a specific club you support? What team will you be rooting for in the EURO's? Just for kicks here's a quick pic of the Portugal jersey's I have in my closet (the ones that fit me at least).

I probably have 25+ more soccer jersey's from my youth to now. Practice jerseys, club jerseys, goalie jerseys and my own personal jerseys.

Anyways, there's a quick update. If you found anything about my life interesting I guess I've succeeded. Have a great weekend guys!

FORCA PORTUGAL!

GO NUCKS GO!