let's play hockey! and to the game?

i really do appreciate folks who trade cards through the mail. whether it's through tcdb (i have yet to complete a trade that way) or through email or blog posts, it's not a small effort these days to pull cards and get them on their way. it's even more difficult to send cards into this country at the moment, so angus of dawg day cards deserves a hearty thanks for sending me some items in return for my "almost free stuff friday" event.

plus, it is now hockey season (although it's still baseball season in my world), and the local club started out the season strong with a shutout in st. louis. i'll get to the hockey content in a moment...

i really should have held off on my post showing some of the other returns i received, as these items were en route at that time and they really do bring the international flair i alluded to in the post. first up is a near complete dodger team set of stickers from 1992 panini

however, these are the canadian version of the stickers as you could probably tell by the french position translations. it's always fun to see "premier but" on baseball cards or stickers.

missing from the set are the dodger team logo/header sticker and mike scioscia's sticker. i will for sure need to track those down. the backs of the stickers invite you to "au jeu!"

which is how they have translated "play ball". based on my rudimentary french knowledge, i would have thought that "au jeu" would be "to the game" (and not to be confused with "au jus" which is "with juice"). with these stickers printed in italy, were there some further language barriers in place? i would be interested to know how a french speaking umpire would say "play ball", and now that i think about it "to the game" sort of makes sense.

the other card that angus sent was one of my most wanted non-dodger cards - a 2013-14 o-pee-chee luc robitaille card

minimal french, even on the back

but it's understandable as there is not really any room for a bilingual bio. robitaille remains my favorite hockey player and i was happy each time he returned to the kings. i've replaced this robitaille card with a ron cey oddball on my most wanted non-dodger list, but i would think luuuuuuuuuuuuuc would reappear on that list at some point. i really need to get the rest of my collection (including my robitailles) entered into tcdb so i have better access to what i am missing.

thanks angus for the cards and for avoiding strikes and tariffs!