11-12 ITG Enforcers, Tyson Nash and How He Impacted my Hockey Experience

I was scrolling through ITG's checklist for there 11-12 enforcers set coming out in January and I spotted a name on the checklist I hadn't thought of for sometime "Tyson Nash".

Tyson Nash mainly played in the NHL in the early 2000's, registering 374 games played, just 27 goals and 673 penalty minutes. Years from now, hardly anyone will remember that he played in the world's best league, although I'm sure I will tell my children about him someday.

Years ago, as a teen, I just finished a break out season in a low level rec league and thanks to my parents encouragement after talk from some coaches, they felt it was time for me to try out for the next level. Money was always tight growing up and my family could never afford to enroll me into a high level hockey program. So for the first seven years of my hockey experience, I toiled at the lowest level. I never really dominated at any point and I was never really a star player on the teams I played for. Not until my breakout season.

It was very intimidating to step up to a new level, I was not overly big, just 5"7 135 pounds at the time and I had never tested myself against better players before. I was not having the greatest tryout and it looked like I would be heading back down again, until an episode of TSN's "That's Hockey" changed everything. The show featured a rookie by the name of Tyson Nash, an average size hockey player, with average talents, making a large splash in the NHL thanks to his above average agitating skills. This was the first time in my life I stopped dreaming of being the next Mario or Cam Neely, I knew I would have to be like Tyson Nash if I ever wanted to move up the hockey ladder.

As luck would have it, I made the team due to one of the teams star players being removed from the team due to bad behavior. I inherited his over sized sweater with the number 89 on it (an obvious sign that they had not planned on me making the team). The other kids on the team had gotten to order there's jersey based on size preference and number, I was just happy to have a jersey.

As the season started, I grew more comfortable in my role as an agitator and the coaches took notice. They coaches me if I could keep it up for the rest of the season and I told them "no problem", they then handed me an "A", and asked me to sew it on my sweater. I will always remember what I was told next "that style of play you have, it will take you places", the coach told me.

The reaction to the ITG enforcers series as been a mixed bag of reviews. Due to the amount of head injuries lately, fighting in hockey has been a very sensitive subject. If anything I think that the ITG Enforcers set pays it's respects to the guys who had to pave there way to the NHL the hard way. So much emphasis is put on the skill guys in the NHL that players who grinded there way to the top don't get the same amount of credit.

I look forward to the release of enforcers; I know I will be picking up singles of Tyson Nash and finally I will be able to add a Link Gaetz autograph to my collection.

What singles from the series do you look forward to picking up?

HBO 24/7: Flyers & Rangers

If you haven't watched part one of the HBO special 24/7, Flyers & Rangers, I highly recommend you watch it. I never showed any interest in watching the Caps and Pens series last year as I was completely sick of hearing about the Crosby Vs. Ovie garbage.

After just a few minutes I knew I was automatically hooked on the series. Two big curiosity's I have had lately have been: how the Rangers felt about the "gun celebration" by Artem Anisimov and how Wayne Simmond's felt about kneeing perhaps the best NHL player at the moment in the back of the head. Both of these situations were highlighted during the special.

Two things I really liked about the special so far have been the locker room scenes between periods and what sort of things are spoken. Secondly, I really enjoyed seeing one the players would do during down time in the afternoons. I found it very surprising how well the Rangers have seemed to bond together this season and the show emphasises that.

One of the players that really surprised me was Wayne Simmonds. He seems like a really down to earth guy who is humble and enjoys during work in the community. It's nice to see the side of players off the rink as I know from experience that most players are much different on and off the ice.

The show starts off with scenes of the players fighting from both teams and I found it funny that every fighting scene featuring a New York Ranger was of Brandon Prust. I saw this guy play in junior and you could tell that he loved to fight and nobody wanted to mess with him.

I can't wait until next Wednesday for part two and I'm really looking forward to the outdoor game on January 2nd, despite not being a big fan of either teams.

2001-02 Titanium Break

A big thanks goes out to everyone who reads my blog. I have gone up to 15 subscribers and I thank each and everyone of you!

I did really well with this break, first pack I pulled this nice little PC gem:

I really like the look of the base cards for the set and these serial number cards look really cool as well. I also pulled another PC card numbered to /94: Tom Barrasso!

Six packs in each box and each box contains one double sided jersey card. I had one extra thick pack and I saved that one for last. I pulled a really nice gem!

The Modano is a 4 color patch! You can't see the green in the scan, but it is there. The Turgeon is just a boring white patch, but the Modano more then makes up for it.

It's a shame that Pacific shut it's door's. They put out some nice premium products in the early 00's and this led to premium products today like the cup and ITG Memorabilia. I love finding these old Pacific boxes for great prices and I have two more boxes to open on Christmas!

Pat Jablonski TTM Autograph Mail Day

I have wanted to get a few autographs into my collection of Pat Jablonski and I finally got around to sending out some cards. The three cards above come from a few sets I really liked as a kid and I'm happy to get them back signed.

Another card for my "goalies of the 90's" set. It's the third one I've gotten and I hope more are to come in the mail!

I made a goalie of the 90's chase card and I think I might like it better then the regular version. It would have been cool of I could have made the card look more metallic with a foil look. At this point my card making abilities are not quite there.





2001-02 Pacific Titanium Draft Day Box Break

I received my boxes from Atlanta Sports Cards on Friday, broke two boxes, while the other two boxes will actually be Christmas gifts.

I'll start with the Titanium draft day. Sadly I confused this box with the 2001-02 set and I was a bit disappointed with this box. Thankfully I pulled some of the better players for jerseys and hit a few rookies who are still playing.

Out of these rookies, the Scott Clemmensen one is probably my favourite. After bouncing around between the NHL and the minors for most of his career, he has finally found a place in the NHL as a reliable back-up.

After seeing the card of Jussi Markkannen, I decided to check out what happened to him. He was actually thrust into the starting role in the 2005-06 Stanley Cup Final thanks to an injury to Dwayne Roloson & Ty Conklin's major gaffe. While he showed promise early in his career, he had trouble developing consistency and returned over seas one year after appearing in the Stanley Cup Finals. He apparently seems to be out of hockey all together at this point.

I can't quite complain about player selection here as I hit some decent players, I just find the card design, well, boring. Still I had fun breaking this product. There were only two cards per pack, one jersey and one rookie card.

Up next will be the 01-02 Pacific Titanium. I did land a major hit, so stay tuned!

A Nice Steal Mail Day

ITG did such a nice job this year with ITG Ultimate, only problem is that everything is so short printed prices have been quite high. There is quite a bit of stuff that came out for Kirk McLean and I really want to get these in my PC before they land in PC's of other collectors.

I think someone hit it big with Ultimate this year as they had a bunch of there smaller hits listed for buy it now at $15. I hit the buy it now on this card pretty quick when I saw it. It is selling in the $30 to $35 range right now.

I hope lady luck continues to follow me and that I can get my other McLeans in the set for a great price.

Wade Flaherty TTM Success

This is the second "goalies of the 90's" return I have had since I sent these customs out! Flaherty is now the goalie coach of the Winnipeg Jets after bouncing around the NHL & Minors for a substantial amount of time.

Looks like Flaherty got scored on again in this card with San Jose. I am sure there was a lot of those FML type nights with a developing Sharks squad.

I am happy to get these two back as I wanted a Flaherty signature in my collection for quite some time now.