Box Break: 1991-92 Stadium Club – Back in Business

So here I am again. Despite losing interest in cards and NHL in general for 4 whole years, lot of personal stuff happened, I could not stay away, I felt the urge to give in to my hobby. Obsessed again.

Today, I present you a box of cards many would consider trash, but I like it anyway, for the nostalgia. Back in 1997, when I started collecting cards, we did not have access to any new cards, the newest stuff was from 1994-95 season, and we had plenty of cards from 1990-91, where Jaromir Jagr appeared as a rookie and Eddie won pretty much everything he could (except for the Hart trophy). Good year! With limited amount of cards available, any card with a “gold” or silver stripe became rarer than, say, the ordinary Score card. 1991-92 Stadium Club was considered the lower level of “gold” cards. How does it stand the test of time then?

Base cards

The basic set contains 400 cards. It includes a number of rookie cards and is not afraid to feature less known players, who never really made an impact on NHL. There is a wide range of all players, every team has at least two goalies in the set, which is something I greatly appreciate, being fan of masked men.

Let’s take a look at a sample card, I picked Mario Lemieux, an icon of Pittsburgh Penguins.

Design and photo quality

The design is quite simple, really, just a photo with a blue Stadium Club strip, decorated by gold foil, therefore it places greater importance on the quality of photos. Obviously, this being 1991, they are not great. What bothered me the most is the inconsistency of colors throughout the set. White balance is quite off, making the card yellowish or greenish, generally rather dull, they are not too detailed either. I will showcase some more cards, with photos that caught my attention, later. Another problem I had with cards is how poorly cut they sometimes are,  as you will see later, the position of the blue Stadium Club strip is awfully inconsistent.

The back of the card is actually quite interesting; we have a comment on strengths of each individual player (although it would seem that every player is “one of the best in league” in this or that. Then we have some obligatory statistics for 90-91 season and career and, what I find very neat, a picture of a rookie card!

I rather like the card for its back, as it is informative beyond the usual and the set contains some decent photos. The set does lack for the wow effect; it comes from an age, where people collected cards for their star players, not for crazy inserts.

Parallels, inserts and jersey cards

This is a spot where I intend to showcase special cards. However, in this set, there are none of these.

Eddie Belfour card

Yes, I did get a card for my Eddie Belfour collection. It is one of the better card of the set, as it is a mask shot and I am a sucker for these! The picture itself is a nice close up, apart from the mask I like the All-Star Game logo on his jersey and the blurry depth of field effect of the photo. It is definitely one of the best photos of the set.

Card showcase

Here are a couple of cards that caught my attention, either for being a well composed photo, or for the magic of the moment.

Idle

Here we have Guy Carbonneau, John Cullen an Al MacInnis relaxing. The Carbonneau card oozes calm, respect and leadership, a perfect setting for the Habs’ captain. The Cullen picture is here for the All Star Game jersey, which itself is rather cool, I just love those old time All Star uniforms! I am not quite sure what Al MacInnis is doing. Saluting? Adjusting his helmet? Checking his eyesight? In any case, I like the shot.

Action packed

The first card features Dale Hawerchuk fighting his way in front of Montreal’s net, he does not seem to be winning though (gotta love the old Sabers jerseys!). Much like Hawerchuk, Trevor Linden is making a valiant effort to fight off two Minnesota players, while his teammate in the background is fighting yet another North Star. Quite a battle we have there! The third card shows Randy Wood behind New Jersey net, being checked by the defender (Kasatonov?), Wood appears to be on his way down. Will he make the pass in time?

Bonus: Mike Ridley on what must be my favorite photo of the set (Except for Jágr photo, but more on that later). What makes this card so special for me? Just look at the posture of all three players. They look like a promo poster for a buddy movie – all facing the camera, being stacked close together, looking all kinds of thrilled. Ridley is the main star of the movie then?

Caught off guard

Frankly, how often do you see a card of a player doing up his skates in the middle of the rink? Joe Nieuwendyk, one of my heroes, does just that.  Photos of Numminen refreshing himself and Claude Lemieux jumping into play, looking for his next victim complement the trio perfectly.

Celebrations

Phil Bourque and Joe Mullen celebrating scoring goals - goal celebration cards never grow old in my opinion. The Mullen card is even sweeter if you look on the poor goalie lying helplessly on the ground. There is one more in the celebration department... the ultimate one.

Cheerful Bryan Trottier touching the Cup! It took me a while to figure out which arm belongs to who. I love cup celebration cards.

Locker room

Locker room shots make quite frequent appearance on this set. I guess Topps were going for more unusual setting for their shot, so they gave us Robert “Alby” Reichel signing some sticks looking mildly annoyed, Phil Housley checking sharpness of his blades (or perhaps about to take that skate off), and Number 99 giving interviews with his towel around his neck. Fun photos.

Training

Due to lack of alternate jerseys in 1991, Topps had to find some other way to shoot the players outside their usual uniforms, so they gave us... training uniforms!

... which are not exciting at all, just different. Look at the Chris Joseph card, how badly it is cut. I had many of similarly poorly cut cards in the box, which did not make me happy.

Probably the best training card I found in the set, Jimmy Carson and parts of his teammates stretching on ice. Red Wings training jersey does not look too bad.

Funny shots

There are couple of cards I found just plain funny. I picked up 4 best ones:

On the right card, we have very excited Esa Tikkanen, looking maybe a bit too excited. On the left, we have...  a teammate of Greg Gilbert rubbing his nose on his shoulder?!

I saved the best for last. Here is a hilarious shot of Jaromír Jágr, our (Czech) hero, looking awfully young, with his famous mullet and cheap suit. What a player he grew up to be! The picture cracks me up every time I see it! The final picture is Kirk Muller biting his stick like a beaver. I hope it’s tasty!

Goalie shots

Being a fan of goaltenders, I have to include a couple of pictures I like.

So what do we have here? Kelly Hrudey and his signature helmet, which just looks so weird and different from all the other masks, even menacing. Then there is Frank Pietrangelo, a backup goalie for Pittsburgh in 90-91, flashing glove. Frank had a decent season with the Penguins, especially in playoffs, when Barrasso was unable to play. Rick Tabaracci in his rookie season with the Jets had a bit more difficult position, as Jets were team from the lower bottom of the team standings. The photo of him doing his glove magic, donning a plain white helmet (also early 90s typical feature) is a great one.

Second trio of goalies shows two rivals from Stanley Cup finals, Casey and Barrasso. North Stars were  beaten by Pens 4-2 in the series, suffering a crushing 8-0 defeat in the final game. Casey had a tough job facing the offensive powerhouse, that were the Penguins. On the contrast, we have Tom Barrasso holding the Lord Stanley’s well-deserved cup. From the bottom of the standings, Peter Ing makes an appearance. 1990-91 was a horrendous season for Toronto, who managed to get only 57 points, being the second worst team in the league. Ing’s numbers reflect that. He does have a cool mask though, as does Casey, I love how goalies’ masks and pads matched their team’s colors.

Final trio – action shot of Bill Ranford, a number one goalie for the Oilers in 1990-91, who also made it to the All-Star game and was voted 8^th for the Vezina Trophy that year. Sean Burke is featured on a sweet action shot, stopping the puck against Minnesota. Burke was a backup goalie for the Devils in 1990-91, playing in 35 games. Mark Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, played in only two games. The card itself says: “The most impressive part about Mark Fitzpatrick’s game was that he had one at all last season”. Mark had some serious health issues that season, but boy, what a cool combination of orange-blue pads and mask he had!

Verdict

The post turned out to be longer than I had anticipated. Note to self: make it shorter next time! However, I felt the set needed some attention, as it really is not appreciated by many people these days, due to its overproduction. That being said, I will not pursue the set any further, I got what I needed (Eddie) and bought it as it was dirt cheap and out of nostalgia.

I like it for its wide selection of player and, most notably, goalies and for giving me a few laughs. I do not remember many of the players though, it has just been too long ago and I was 5 when the set was released. This year, I am subscribing NHL Live for the first time, hoping to find some 1990-91 games in their Vault, which would give me greater insight into this season.

I had fun breaking the box, that is what matters, right?

Adam