Canada Out-Muscles Germany 5-1

Canada’s World Junior hockey squad scored a 5-1 victory over their counterparts from Germany on Monday night.

Although the score seems one-sided and the shots on goal favored the Canadians, the game was full of high speed and hard hitting action.

The Germans seemed to want to turn the game into a street-fight and the Canadians were only too willing to respond. The result: lots of heavy hitting, great checks and penalties.

Many of the penalties (to both sides) were borderline at best or “phantom calls”. Like most international hockey games, the officiating is often less than good and many times it is just downright awful!

Barrie Colts and Washington Capital’s draft pick, Stefan Della Rovere of Maple Ontario seemed to be running all over the ice delivering awesome bodychecks. The 5'11 200 pound forward was sentenced to the sin bin three times, but in reality he should probably only have cooled his heels in the penalty box once.

For two periods the Germans kept the score close by frustrating the Canadians at every turn. (not the mention great goaltending by the German netminder) But the turning point in the game had to be Belleville Bulls defenseman PK Subban’s dramatic end-to-end rush which resulted in a foiled scoring attempt but the rebound was banged home by Evander Kane for a 3-1 lead.

After that goal the Germans played nastier and the Canadians just did what they do best, hit hard and score goals.

Zach Boychuk led the assault on the German goal with two goals and lots of other nifty plays.

Chet Pickard got the start between the pipes for Canada facing only 14 shots. The one that got behind him was a screen shot from the point on a power play.

NEXT UP: The games are only going to get more difficult for Team Canada. On New Year’s Eve they meet Team USA in a match that has all the marks of being something special. The stakes will be high as the winner will most likely get a bye into the Semi-final round.

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Canadian Juniors Clobber Kazakhstan 15-0

On Sunday I usually watch NFL football but because it is that time of year when the World’s best junior hockey players play World Junior Hockey Championship I switched the channel to watch a hockey game. Imagine my surprise when the Canadian Juniors defeated their opponents from Kazakhstan by more than two converted touchdowns.

From the opening face-off the Canadians roared into their opponent's end of the ice and they seemed to stay there for the entire game. Chet Pickard, Canada's goalie may have recorded the shutout but he was virtually alone for the entire game facing only 11 shots.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s Andrei Yankov faced 44 shots and was mercifully pulled at the end of the second period.

Before everyone condemns the Canadians for “running up the score”, it is important to remember that in international competition, goal differentials (goals for vs. goals against) are used as tie-breakers. So to protect themselves later on in the tournament the Canadians had to score when they could.

What was interesting and admirable on the part of the Canuck juniors was their lack of celebration after scoring a goal. Some of them seemed to be almost embarrassed to have scored against the Kazaks. (Especially late in the game.)

Although they won, the Canadians had better look in the mirror and evaluate themselves before they skate out on the ice against the Germans tonight.

They tried to be too fancy with their passes at times and the result often meant a turnover. Against stronger competition this would have meant goals against.

Another note: Angelo Esposito can score goals there is no doubt but he has to learn to be stronger on the puck or his pro career will not be what many think it should be.

Finally, I have to agree with TSN’s Pierre McGuire. The International Ice Hockey Federation should cap the number of goals that can be applied against the goal differential tie-breaker. If the differential was limited to 5, then debacles like yesterday would be less likely to happen.

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2008-2009 McDonald’s Hockey Card Inserts

The 2008-2009 McDonald’s hockey card set is as usual a great sports card collectible. In a previous post I detailed the base set. Today, let’s look at the inserts.

First of all, the 6 card Checklist set features goalies from the 6 Canadian NHL hockey clubs. The card below features Calgary’s Mikka Kiprusoff. The other goalies featured include Carey Price of the Canadiens, the Senator’s Martin Gerber, Edmonton netminder Mathieu Garon, Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo and Leafs goalie Vesa Toskla.




Upper Deck suggests that you will pull a Checklist once out of every four packs.

The Superstar Spotlight series is a 14 card subset featuring stars such as Tampa’s Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Thornton of the Sharks and Red Wings’ dynamic forward Pavel Datsyuk.




According to company statistics on the back of the hockey card packages cards from this brightly colored and sharp looking insert set can be found on average once in every ten packs.

Unfortunately Upper Deck featured Jaromir Jagr who no longer plays in the NHL on the 12th card of this set.

The 10 card Profile subset features a wide array of NHL stars including Martin Brodeur, Dany Heatley and Roberto Luongo.




Of note, Mats Sundin, who has yet to decide whether he will skate in the NHL and with which team is a part of this hockey card subset.

The availability of the Profile cards is a ratio of one in fifteen packs.

The Speed Skater inserts are a 10 card set featuring some of the fastest skaters in the NHL. To accentuate the skating aspect of this set the cards are shaped like a hockey skate.

Cards from this set are a little more difficult to find as they are randomly packed one to every twenty five packages of hockey cards.

Some of the fastest skaters in the NHL are featured from the first card, the Lightning’s Martin St. Louis to Atlanta’s dynamic Ilya Kovlchuk, to the last card in the series Anaheim’s super fast defenseman Scott Niedermayer.



My favorite subset is also the most difficult to pull from a package. Cards from the “Clear Path to Greatness” subset are only found on average once in every 60 packs of hockey cards.

This set is going to be difficult to fill not only because of the 1:60 packs ratio but also because there are 14 cards in the set.

Featured stars include Henrik Zetterberg star forward with the Detroit Red Wings, superstar Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin one of the Penguins young stars.









These subsets are all well produced, featuring great colours, and Upper Deck’s usual photographic brilliance.

Postscript: There is another subset to this McDonald’s hockey card set but it is so scarce that I have yet to see a card from this set. McDonald’s have produced a limited edition gold parallel set. Each card is numbered out of 100.

The 2008-2009 Upper Deck McDonald’s hockey card set is a great set. Fun to collect and should be part of every hockey card collector’s collection.

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2008-2009 McDonalds Hockey Cards

One of my favorite hockey card sets is back.

The 2008-2009 version of the McDonalds hockey card set is available at your local “Golden Arches”.

Every year I put together a set of this great little set of hockey cards.

This year’s set is every bit as good as the sets from previous years. However, I do have a couple of small complaints.

First of all, Upper Deck, the manufacturer of this set included Peter Forsberg and Mats Sundin, both of whom are not in the NHL as yet this season. Similarly Jaromir Jagr has a card in one of the insert sets. (I will feature the inserts in my next post.)

Secondly, Markus Naslund appears as a Vancouver Canuck. Surely enough time has passed that Upper Deck has a photo of him in his Rangers’ uniform.

And, thirdly, for the second year in a row Sidney Crosby is nowhere to be found in the set. (I guess they could not give him enough Egg McMuffins to entice him to be in the set.)

But now for the good stuff!

The metallic look is great.

The roster of players, (with the exception of those noted above), is fantastic.

The 50 card set is ordered alphabetically by team name. Consequently, the first card features one of the best young power forwards in the NHL, Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf and ends with one of the league’s best players (who obviously does like Egg McMuffins) Washington Capital superstar, Alexander Ovechkin.



With only 50 cards in the main set there are many players who are left out. So, one of the great debates among collectors is likely to be who is in the current set and who got left out.

But, Upper Deck has done a great job (with the exception of my above-noted complaints) including a nice mix of veteran stars as well as some of the NHL’s rising stars.

One of my favorite things about this year’s McDonalds hockey card set is the number of goalies that are included.

No set of hockey cards would be complete without the best goalie in the world, Martin Brodeur.



Two of the possible successors to Brodeur, as the best goaltender in the NHL, Roberto Luongo and Montreal’s youngster Carey Price are featured.



Among the forwards and defensemen, superstars Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Lightning and Detroit Red Wing Nicklas Lidstrom, lead a cast great veterans and young guns. Lecavalier’s card (#43) has been the most difficult to find to fill my sets. But a close second in scarcity (at least for me) is card #11 which features Black Hawks superstar, and captain, Jonathan Toews.



This is a great set of hockey cards and everyone from serious collector to casual hockey card collector and hockey fan should try to make this set part of their hockey card collection.

Enjoy the set. It is well worth a few visits to your local McDonalds.

Next Post: 2008-2009 Mcdonalds insert cards.

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Upper Deck Hockey Cards – 2007-2008 Series One

Upper Deck hockey cards are probably the most sought after hockey cards each hockey season. Of course, 90%, or more, of the hockey cards produced each year come from this giant of the sports card industry. But, the main set is simply the one called Upper Deck hockey.

I have to admit at first I was not crazy about the 2007-2008 set. There was something about the copper colored writing and logo that just did not seem right. But as with most things in life after a while I got used to the set and started collecting it.

Collecting this set actually began in earnest when we were shopping in a local store and I discovered a nicely packaged tin container with a picture of Sidney Crosby on the top and eight packs of Upper Deck 2007-2008 Series One hockey cards inside.

When I opened the packages I was delighted with my cards. Especially the contents of the second pack where I pulled a card of one of my favorite players, Tampa Lightning star Vincent Lecavalier. The photo (below) is an example of another of Upper Deck’s strengths, great photographs in either unique settings or action shots.





But, the pack also contained the most highly valued rookie card in the set, Montreal Canadiens’ great young goalie Carey Price.




I also found some neat inserts including an NHL’s BEST Alexander Ovechkin in the other packages.





These unique collector tins also contained an over-sized card. The one that was in my tin was of Mike Modano, the Dallas Stars veteran star.

The Series One set of 2007-2008 Upper Deck Hockey cards features the company’s great photography, especially of the goalies. In particular I like this card showing Minnesota Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom in action.





As for unique photo shots check out this overhead view of superstar Joe Sakic attempting to score on Edmonton netminder Dwayne Roloson.





There are a lot of good rookie cards in this issue, including Coyotes Young Gun Peter Mueller and Montreal’s other rookie goalie Jaroslav Halak. There are some very interesting insert sets, including Lord Stanley’s Heroes, Hometown Heroes, Award Winners, and of course jersey cards.

I have to admit that I went back to the store and bought another collector tin of cards and much to my delight I pulled a jersey card of Curtis Sanford, in a Vancouver Canucks uniform. Now, this may not be a newsflash for the collecting world, but I have known Curt and his family for many years. (I even featured him in an article in our hometown newspaper.)

The packs in this tin contained a few inserts and a Sidney Crosby card.

The 2007-2008 Upper Deck Series One hockey cards is great set of hockey cards and the rookie cards especially are going to cause this set to be in great demand for years to come.

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