I finally updated my tradelist and wantlist on TCDB and the whole thing with Neighbor Lady didn’t work out (shocker, I know.) So now I have more time for blogging. Tonight I'm cooking up another rookie card checklist (since the last one was such a hit)
For these lists I’m taking a look at all Hall of Fame (or Hall-worthy) players who had a rookie card released between 1980 and 1999. Hockey is a lot tougher than baseball and football, for multiple reasons. Topps hockey cards are not as valuable as their Canadian cousins O-Pee-Chee - and many 1980s OPC issues were condition sensitive. Which, in turn, makes those rookie cards more valuable and tougher to acquire than a comparable baseball or football player's RC.
Once we get to the "junk wax" era, there are tons of cheap RCs available for any halfway decent player. And then something wild happens. As the amount of NHL sets increases, the amount of Hall of Famers with rookie cards in those sets practically disappears. I wish I could illustrate this in bar graph form, but a list will have to do.
Also I'm starting with 1980 for all sports, and that just so happens to be the year after Wayne Gretzky's iconic RC was released. Not that I'd be able to afford that one anyhow.
Here's my list:
1980-81 - Ray Bourque, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Michel Goulet, Rod Langway. Okay. We have none of those.
1981-82 - Jari Kurri ✓, Paul Coffey, Denis Savard, Peter Stastny, Glenn Anderson, Dino Ciccarelli, Larry Murphy, Kevin Lowe. I have both the O-Pee-Chee and Topps Kurri rookies, but no other Hall of Famer from this class. Maybe I'll get Savard's or Statstny's. Kevin Lowe was like the 10th best player on the Oilers' dynasty. There are dozens of more deserving defensemen but he's got six Stanley Cup rings so 🤷
1982-83 - Ron Francis ✓, Dale Hawerchuk, Grant Fuhr ✓, Joe Mullen. Of course I have Mr. Whaler's rookie card. I should have a graded copy but all my Whalers base cards are in binders and I didn't want to make an exception. My Fuhr RC is graded. Hawerchuk's would be in my collection if it had a better photo.
1983-84 - Phil Housley, Scott Stevens ✓, Guy Carbonneau, Steve Larmer, Bernie Nicholls ✓, Brian Bellows. Larmer, Nicholls, and Bellows are near-HOFers with over 1,000 career points apiece. Carbonneau had half as many points as Nicholls, but was elected to the HOF for his defensive skill.
1984-85 - Steve Yzerman ✓, Doug Gilmour ✓, Chris Chelios, Cam Neely ✓, Dave Andreychuk, Pat LaFontaine, Cam Neely, Tom Barrasso. Longtime readers may remember my pursuit of this year's O-Pee-Chee set in PSA 9 or better. I gave up at about 80% and sold all but ten of the cards for about what I'd paid into it - keeping RCs of Yzerman, Neely, Gilmour, LaFontaine, and Chelios (plus the Gretzky base) as profit. I've since sold the LaFontaine and Chelios - but I still have this guy:
1985-86 - Mario Lemieux ✓, Al MacInnis. Never thought I'd own a Super Mario RC, but it was one of the bigger purchases I made after selling my Alex Ovechkin SP Authentic RC. I liked MacInnis and would have his RC but the photo kinda sucks on his first card.
1986-87 - Patrick Roy ✓ I liked "St. Patrick" as a kid, then hated him as a teen/young adult, then respected him as an adult. This RC was also part of the post-Ovechkin haul:
1987-88 - Luc Robitaille ✓, Adam Oates, Mike Vernon. A little short on legendary scorers, but if you like dirty, chippy, rat-bastard super pests then this rookie class is for you: Rick Tocchet, Esa Tikkanen, Ulf Samuelsson, Marty McSorley, Claude Lemieux, and even Ron Hextall are here. Imagine if they were all on the ice at once? 💀 Good luck!
1988-89 - Brett Hull ✓, Brendan Shanahan ✓, Pierre Turgeon ✓, Joe Nieuwendyk ✓ I have all four RCs in my completed '88-89 Topps set, plus an OPC Nieuwendyk. Here's a story even non-hockey fans might find interesting about Pierre Turgeon. The consensus #1 overall pick stayed out of a vicious brawl with the Soviet Union (likely to protect his draft status) and may have paid for it when his Hall of Fame candidacy was considered.
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1989-90 - Joe Sakic ✓, Brian Leetch, Trevor Linden ✓, Theo Fleury ✓. Sakic and Leetch are the only HOFers here; Fleury is borderline. Linden is a fan favorite and Vancouver icon but not quite Hall-quality. I thought I had a Leetch Topps RC until researching this. Guess it's going on the wantlist.
1990-91 - [deep breath] ... Jaromir Jagr ✓, Martin Brodeur ✓, Eric Lindros ✓, Sergei Fedorov ✓, Pavel Bure ✓, Mats Sundin ✓, Mark Recchi ✓, Ed Belfour ✓, Jeremy Roenick ✓, Rob Blake ✓, Scott Niedermayer ✓, Alexander Mogilny ✓ (not to mention Soviet veterans Igor Larionov, ✓ Sergei Makarov ✓, and Slava Fetisov ✓) Welcome to the junk wax era! These rookie cards are all abundant and affordable - even i high grade. Amazingly the only non-Hall of Famer here is Jagr -- who still isn't eligible! Dude, stop playing so we can enshrine your ancient ass!
1991-92 - Dominik Hasek ✓, Teemu Selanne ✓, Peter Forsberg ✓, Nicklas Lidstrom ✓, Keith Tkachuk ✓. I have basic rookies for all these guys but should try to get an Upper Deck French RC of Hasek. Paul Kariya's first card is in a Czech-language world junior set but it's classified as an XRC. I don't have that one.
1992-93 - Chris Pronger ✓, Sergei Zubov ✓, Paul Kariya ✓. Like Kariya, Sergei Zubov has a pre-rookie card issues in 1991. However his was an insert in the previous year's O-Pee-Chee set, not a base single in a boxed set.
1993-94 - none. There are no Hall of Famers with rookie cards in any 1993-94 set. Chris Osgood might make it one day; someone needs to explain how Mike Vernon got in but not Ozzie.
1994-95 - Jarome Iginla ✓. Good thing SP and Select snuck him in their base sets, or this would be two straight years without a Hall of Famer rookie card.
1995-96 - Daniel Alfredsson ✓. I have a few rookie cards of the Senators' all-time leading scorer but none from the higher-end sets like Finest or SP.
1996-97 - Joe Thornton ✓, Patrick Marleau ✓. Checking off these Sharks legends because I have basic Upper Deck RCs (and an Ice RC of Jumbo Joe) but I don't have their best RCs in Black Diamond.
Btw, how is Marleau not a Hall of Famer yet? He played in more games than any NHL player ever (even Gordie Howe!) and his 566 career goals are the most of any eligible player without a plaque by far.
1997-98 - Roberto Luongo ✓, Marian Hossa ✓, Zdeno Chara, Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Patrik Elias ✓. The Sedins sneak into Black Diamond while Chara's only RC is in the inaugural SP Authentic set. I thought my Luongo RC was a Black Diamond but it's a less valuable Donruss Elite RC. Elias isn't a Hall of Famer but he would be if he were a Red Wing or Ranger.
1998-99 - none. The 1999 Draft class was historically awful (aside from the aforementioned Sedins) and as a result this is the first of three years without a Hall of Famer rookie card. Milan Hejduk and Scott Gomez were the most notable rookies in '98-99 sets.
1999-00 - none. Wish there was a more exciting way to end this list but '99-00 was absolutely barren. For the record, 2000-01 was slightly better. Marian Gaborik, Dany Heatley, and Marty Turco all had near-Hall of Fame careers and I don't have any of their RCs because a) this was the first year Upper Deck short-printed their Young Guns subset, and b) several other sets were trying to out-do each other by producing lower and lower print runs. I think this is where a rule originated that a 'true' rookie card had to have at least 99 copies - cause Pacific just had to make these beauties extra super duper rare:
The next Hall of Famer rookie cards doesn't arrive until 2001-02 when we get exactly one HOFer - Pavel Datsyuk. Ilya Kovalchuk would have been a HOFer if he hadn't pulled a reverse Mogilny and defected to Russia. At least Datsyuk waited until the end of his career to go back home.
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Similar to my football rookie list, I feel like I've got most of the cards I would want even if there are many legends missing from my collection. Bourque, Messier, and Coffey aren't exactly my favorites (Bourque for carpet-bagging a Cup, Messier for his Namath-ass guarantee and arrogance in Vancouver, Coffey for f*cking over my Whalers.) I'd have the Zdeno Chara rookie if it was cheaper. Same for Thornton's Black Diamond RC. Hawerchuk and MacInnis needed better photos.
That leaves my wantlist at four: Leetch, Savard, Stastny, and Hasek's Upper Deck French RC. I'd add Alfredsson's Finest RC (perhaps even a refractor) if I could keep it from greening.
I've got one more hockey post planned, an all-seventies squad. It will be similar to this one - a checklist of what I have/want, but with a structure similar to All-Time Teams. Don't worry, that one will be a much shorter post :)
Thanks for reading!
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