Friday, September 7, 2012

Contest Over at Punk Junk



Sal over at Puck Junk is having a great contest! The contest will focus on helping set collectors finish off sets. All of the rules are posted over on Punk Junk, however in a nut shell you post one card at a time that you need. If someone has this card they will respond and send you the card for free!

Goals and assists are awarded for helping other people out and at the end Sal will send out prize packs to the people who scored the highest!

Please check out Punk Junk for all the details.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Blaine Lacher: Not Just a Flash in the Pan



Summer is over and it's time to get back focusing on hockey! Lately I have been thinking a lot about the short and brief career of Blaine Lacher.

He burst on the scene in the lock out shortened season of 1994-95 as a relative unknown after a strong college career. In his only full season in the NHL (actually his only full pro season in any league) he posted a 19-11-2 record with 4 shutouts and a 2.41 goals against average. Lacher was never the same again after his rookie season and drifted into obscurity after retiring part way through the 1996-97 season.

His story is living proof how quickly success can come and how quickly it can go away. To many his career was a flash in the pan, however I don't view it that way. He spent four years at a great school, played in the NHL, which is what almost every hockey player dreams of and he found success, even if it was only for a short period of time.

Upon searching for Lacher's where abouts, I was mainly looking to see if he still continued to play hockey after leaving the pro ranks for good. From what I found, it seems he was active in senior men's leagues until about 2004. After that the trail went cold and it seems his competitive days in hockey were over . He would have been 34 years old when he left hockey for good.