cardpocalypse 7 day trading card challenge, day 5: hockey is king(s)

well, i've made it to day 5 of the cardpocalypse 7 day trading card challenge, so it's time to show my favorite "other" sport card in my collection.  hockey, to me, is not an "other" sport card in the way soccer, olympics, ufc, boxing or wrestling might be.  in fact, i used to have a pretty extensive hockey collection. i sold most of it off a few years ago and sent a good amount of it to captain canuck. i still have the remnants of a number of player collections, plus two pc's that i've kept in binders. those feature luc robitaille (my favorite player), and wayne gretzky. my favorite player was actually going to be jimmy carson up until he was included in the trade for gretzky, so i switched my allegiance to the other young king star of the time, luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc.

anyway, i have a robitaille rookie and a few other decent cards of the hall of fame left winger, but my favorite hockey card in my collection is this 1988 topps wayne gretzky card.

 

i specifically wanted this card over its o-pee-chee counterpart because it features the great one holding up his kings sweater at his introductory press conference.  what a crazy day that was!

i was born in to a hockey family (my dad and uncle were fans back when it was just the original six), and i was wearing kings attire before i was wearing that of the dodgers! we used to go to kings games at the fabulous forum in those pre-gretzky years, and i took notice of the triple crown line of charlie simmer, marcel dionne, and dave taylor.  i don't remember the kings acquiring dionne in 1975, but i do remember that it was a bummer when they traded him to the rangers in accordance with his request for a chance to win. speaking of the forum, the first time i ever saw gretzky play in person was in 1980 when the kings hosted the nhl all-star game. i remember walking down during the warmup skate to take pictures of him, and thinking that he looked like one of the older kids from my neighborhood - which made sense as he was only 19.

when the news broke about the gretzky trade, i called my dad at work to share the news. i also called some friends, most of whom weren't hockey fans, but it was insane. i had to talk about it! later that fall, i was in college in southern california, and a friend and i drove to inglewood and bought two tickets to opening night from a nice man on a street corner.  a little while later, we were sitting behind the cast of 'growing pains', but were unfortunately too late to see and hear roy orbison sing the national anthem. a short while later, the place exploded when it was announced who had scored the first goal of the season (spoiler alert - it was gretzky).

my gretzky collection starts with that 1988 card. i've never gone back to pick up cards from his oilers days prior to the trade, although when my dad gave me his collection, it came with a bunch of late 1970s and early to mid-1980s hockey. mostly sets, including the set that features this card

(photo grabbed from ebay). i have the topps version, and not o-pee-chee, unfortunately, but i should still probably take it out and get it graded.

on another note, here's the most recently acquired hockey card in my collection.

it's a 2014-15 upper deck game jersey card of robitaille, and i added it to an ebay order a few weeks ago for a buck or so.  i haven't completely forgotten about hockey.