I Got the Blues, and I Can't Be Satisfied

It's not quite hockey season just yet. 

Longtime trade partner and hockey enthusiast Sportscards From The Dollar Store reacted to something I said on the internet during the NHL Playoffs about supporting the Blues by sending a starter collection that way. I think I was actually forewarned in some threatening terms that this might happen. I'm afraid I know more about the sport of hockey and the rules and so forth than I actually do about players and strengths and weaknesses of teams, but at this point in my life it was probably time to choose an alliance and I'm going with the St. Louis Blues. There was probably some part of me that was holding out hope that Portland would someday get an NHL team, having an NHL-ready arena now for more than 20 years. But there seems to be little to no local interest here among the elite folks with the huge bank accounts or the billionaire that owns the NBA team, so here we are. I will show off some of these cards in due time, but I figured I would wait until hockey season before I get into it, so I can help myself get more familiar with some of these players.

A few other non-hockey cards landed in my mailbox, like this Classic Alan Benes card. I'd never seen or heard of this "Images" set, which seems to be an attempt at more of an upscale release for the '90s games and cards manufacturer.

These early '90s Leaf Black Gold parallels always looked nice. This probably would have set me back a couple of bucks back in the day.

I usually reserve most of my Oregon Ducks cards for my Good Luck Ducks posts, but there are only so many Saturdays in the fall. Jordan Kent was at one point one of the most athletic players on the basketball team coached by his father, a Swiss army knife that was a key cog at both ends of the floor. During his junior year, he decided to give football a shot and ended up starting all 12 games of his senior season at WR. He's now a local sports broadcaster on Portland-based CSN NW.