2009 Meigray Expo & Summer Sale Purchases

July 12th, 2009

Just returned from the 2009 Meigray Expo and I’ve gotta say, it’s gotten a lot better since the first one that I attended four or five years ago.  Perhaps it was even longer ago — I just remember that it wasn’t all that much fun.

This year, though, was a pretty good time.

Here’s a picture that Pyzik (the Murray Craven guy) took of my back talking to Brett as we waited in line to get into the Meigray warehouse for the Summer Sale.

Among all of the conversations I had over the weekend, I have to say, the ones that resulted from standing in line, checking in and checking out, were the best.  Not sure how I always ended up around Caps fans though…

I was also surprised at how many collectors mentioned that they knew of my website — which got me thinking, man, I need to update this thing!

In the end, for the weekend, I spent a little more than I’d planned on.

I added 5 new jerseys to my collection — home and road 08/09 Lawrence Nycholat Avs, road 07/08 Jake Taylor Wolf Pack, home 07/08 Corey Potter Wolf Pack, and a home 08/09 Sean Avery Wolf Pack — to bring the total to 272.

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Mike Emrick to Miss Winter Classic

January 1st, 2009

Hall of Fame broadcaster “Doc” Emrick will be unable to call Thursday’s Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic due to laryngitis. Dave Strader, who is the play-by-play voice of the Phoenix Coyotes and has also worked for NBC Sports, will fill in for Emrick.

“Last year’s game was a lifetime memory and I couldn’t wait to call this year’s game at Wrigely,” said Emrick. “I’m extremely disappointed but I know Dave will do a wonderful job.”

To this, I say THANK GOD.

Mike Emrick is easily the worst hockey announcer ever. He’s like hockey’s equivalent of Joe Buck. How these two clowns reached the top of their profession is beyond me, but if I had to rank all of the NHL’s announcers, Emrick would be in the bottom five.

Yes, I think the Bruins’ Jack Edwards is better. Because he IS!

So it was very exciting to here the news about Emrick. Strader’s not exactly one of my favorites either, but he’s a definite improvement — he will make it listenable this year…

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Black Friday Aquisitions

December 1st, 2008

Of late, I’ve taken a bit of a break when it comes to adding to the collection…

That is, until this past Black Friday.

I didn’t actually intend to buy anything — haven’t even really been looking, actually, but this year’s MeiGray Black Friday Sale was too good to pass up.

I added 6 jerseys to my collection last week.

Yeah, six. Four from MeiGray and two from fellow collector Anthony Grasso.

It began as I perused the forum on Friday morning. Right there up top, the very first listing was “Game worn NCAA for sale”…

Having been on the lookout for Quinnipiac University jerseys semi-actively, off and on, for about a year now with very little success (I only have one), I nearly fell out of my chair to see that Anthony had three QU Bobcat home jerseys listed!

THREE! My first instinct was to email him and purchase all three, but I restrained myself and ended up selecting a Dan Lefort and Chris Myers jersey, both of which were thankfully still available.

As is usual — I’ve dealt with Anthony once before in the past — the jerseys are in my possession already. He’s that quick.

Later that day, I couldn’t help but read the details of MeiGray’s Black Friday sale — you know, if he plays, he’s 50% off.

I immediately made out a list of the players that I was interested in.

As luck would have it, my first two choices were healthy scratches. Bummer.

But my list was long… I had more than a few to fall back on…

In the end, the first jersey I settled on was a Fedor Tyutin jersey. He played for the Columbus Blue Jackets on Black Friday.

It’s a 2003-04 Hartford Wolf Pack set 1 home jersey, making it the jersey Tyutin wore in his North American pro debut. It’s also a jersey that I believe I’ll be able to photomatch from a photo I took while I worked for the team.

I’m also expecting it to show a nameplate change as at the very start of the season, Tyutin’s name was spelled Tjutin. We’ll see.

The second jersey I selected was a Jamie Lundmark jersey. He dressed for the Quad City Flames on Black Friday.

It’s a 2004-05 Hartford Wolf Pack set 2 road jersey. This one will be photomatched 100% to numerous photos I took during the playoff series against the Lowell Lock Monsters. Looking forward to posting it when it arrives.

The third jersey I purchased was an Andrew Hutchinson jersey. He suited up for the Tampa Bay Lightning on Black Friday and then on Sunday he was traded to the Dallas Stars.

That jersey is a 2007-08 Hartford Wolf Pack set 2 home jersey. I wanted this one because it was the first jersey he wore as captain of the Hartford Wolf Pack.

Many think Hutchinson was the third captain of the Wolf Pack, behind Ken Gernander and Craig Weller (two players of which I also own their first Wolf Pack captain jerseys), but during the John Paddock era, both Derek Armstrong and Terry Virtue wore the ‘C’ in Gernander’s absence.

Casual fans tend to forget stuff like that. Diehards too. Team photographers, well, they remember an awful lot…

This jersey should also be a simple photomatch to photos I took during final home game of the season.

The fourth and final jersey is a Pascal Morency jersey. He played a few shifts for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Black Friday.

This one is a 2007-08 Bridgeport Sound Tigers set 1 road jersey. This one doesn’t really fit my Hartford theme…

I should hate Bridgeport, but have ever seen this guy play?

Wow. I haven’t seen a player bring this much energy into a building since P.J. Stock’s rookie season with the Hartford Wolf Pack.

Unfortunately, Morency doesn’t have the scoring touch that Stock had. Yeah, you might wonder what offensive ability P.J. Stock had, but in the AHL he had some upside in the offensive zone. No, really…

But that aside, while Morency may never make the NHL, he’s easily one of the most entertaining hockey players I’ve seen in the past 20 years. It’s a shame he has a bit of an injury bug…

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Nike sells Bauer Hockey for $200 Million

February 21st, 2008

Nike Inc. has sold its Bauer Hockey subsidiary for US$200 million to an investor group led by Montreal businessman Graeme Roustan and U.S. private equity firm Kohlberg & Co.

The American athletic-goods giant, which acquired what it describes as hockey’s leading manufacturer in 1995, said Thursday it is pleased to have struck a deal with “strategic buyers who have a passion for hockey and are committed to continue to invest in Bauer’s long-term growth and brand leadership.”

Roustan, through private holding company Roustan Inc., places equity investments primarily in the arena business and aviation industry.

Kohlberg & Co., with offices in New York and California, has invested US$2 billion across six private equity funds.

Bauer, in business since 1927, is said to have developed the first skate with the blade attached to the boot, and it claims a No. 1 position in the hockey market.

Nike did not release specifics Thursday on Bauer’s sales and profitability, but CEO Mark Parker said “its team has done an incredible job.”

The sale, after a strategic review of Nike’s subsidiaries, “was a tough decision but one that was in the best interests of Nike and Bauer as we each look to maximize our respective growth opportunities,” Parker stated.

“Bauer is the most coveted hockey brand in the world,” said Roustan, who will be chairman of Bauer Hockey.

“It is a personal honour and privilege to have the opportunity to work with the existing dedicated team of professionals at Bauer and support this great company’s continued industry leadership well into the future.”

Bauer will continue to use the Nike Bauer trademark on existing products for up to two years.

Shame they ran the company into the ground… Nike never really brought anything to hockey besides those entertaining goaltender commercials in the 1990’s.

The good news is that Bauer is apparently back in Canadian hands, so maybe there is hope of a rebirth, though with CCM/KoHo getting pushed aside by Rbk, perhaps the few remaining Canadian manufacturers are destined to head the way of Cooper…

Oh, wait, Bauer put Cooper out of business before the Nike takeover ever happened… Sigh…

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Design Next Season’s Third Jersey

February 18th, 2008

My favorite team, the Hartford Wolf Pack, is currently running a contest right now where fans can submit their designs and one of them will be selected as next year’s third jersey.

As a designer myself, I think it’s a shortsighted idea.  Yeah, it’s a good idea to incorporate fan interaction, but realistically, things like this are best left to professionals otherwise they look, well, kinda like what homemade greeting cards look like.

Amateur. 

Sloppy.

And dare I say it… minor league… in an arena football sort of way.

But here’s to hoping there are a few pro quality designers interested in submitted their *un-paid* work for a chance at receiving a wee bit of publicity and zero compensation if they are selected.  Then, and only then, might we have a nice third jersey.

See, odds are stacked heavily against it.

Anyway, I’m sure they’re receiving a lot of tounge-in-cheek submissions like the one I threw together in less than 5 minutes at the top of this post and I hope the “judges” get a chuckle out of the numerous less-than-serious submissions they must be receiving.  I’m sure some are a hoot.

Sadly, though, I’m pretty sure my five minute joke design is probably of a higher quality than 99% of what they’re receiving. 

And I likely should, as a huge fan of the team and jersey collector, put my head down and piece together a top notch design, but you know what? 

I prefer to get paid for my time.

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Flashback: Byron’s Hockeyland Mailing List

February 8th, 2008

While cleaning out some old boxes from the attic I came across a bunch of all lists from my early days in the hobby. Lists and primitive catalogs from Milt, Meigrey, DHC, and Drop the Gloves from the late 1990’s…

The big headline from Milt in December of 1999 month was:

We are now offering our LIST sent to you Via E MAIL. Current mail list subscribers only. E-mail us your E mail address to get set up for a once a month E mailing, Which replaced the printed copy sent to you. You will be able to get it faster this way. The set up is Microsoft Word.

I thought some of the old time collectors might like to reminisce, and some of the newer collectors would see how we used to do things — via standard snail mail and telephone, so I scanned it in. Thinking back, lists like Milt’s were a gold mine.

My first example of the old days is Byron’s Hockeyland List #131 from December of 1999.

It’s a pretty large download, coming in at 11 megs, but you can print it out and relive the old days and the thrill of the chase.

No one stop shopping with a click of the mouse back then — you had to work the phones.

Some of my favorites on there are an Ed Belfour Chicago Blawkhawks gamer for $1500. Still pricey, but when you compare it to the $1000 an Eric Daze gamer (on page 3) went for back then, Belfour was a steal! Hard to imagine Daze had that much of an upside back in 1999, huh?

Page one had a Toronto Maple Leafs Mike Gartner jersey on sale for $1000. I wouldn’t mind having that one in the closet now.

Page six has a jersey that I actually called about back then, the 1993-94 and 1994-95 Hershey Bears Chris Winnes jerseys. Both had already sold when I called — and I’ve yet to see either turn up again on the open market. If anyone has them, yep, I’m still interested.

Download the list.

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Welcome

January 13th, 2008

Trying something new out here on my jersey site…

It seems everyone has a “blog” these days, so why not me, right?

Basically, the plan is to highlight one jersey in my collection at a time — and showcase all of the unique features it has.

I’m thinking I’ll start with jerseys from my Wolf Pack collection pointing out the slight variations I’ve noticed from set-to-set and season-to-season because that’s the team that I like to think I’m an expert on.

I also plan to pop in from time to time and sound off about the happenings in the NHL. None of the day-to-day stuff, but the big topics of conversation. Not that anyone will be reading it, but sometimes it’s just fun to voice your opinion on things…

We’ll see how it goes…

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