The First of Many…

I thought I would start off my first post talking about the first hockey cards I can remember collecting. My family was living in Metcalfe Ontario at the time, which is a bedroom community just outside of Ottawa. I came from a fairly large family of 6 kids; I had 3 older brothers and two older sisters which, believe it or not, made me the youngest. Hand-me-downs were not uncommon in such a large family, but that never seemed to matter; we always had what we needed and more often then not, what we wanted.

Just outside of our little town on the main highway to Ottawa there was an Esso station. I recall typically filling up the big green station wagon with its fake side wood paneling there on our way out of town, either headed to the big city, or off to visit relatives in Renfrew or Sundridge. This would have been the late ’80s and at that time Esso was offering a hockey legends series with cards that you could stick to the pages. I had been filling sticker books before this, but these were more like hockey cards then stickers. Probably someone here can fill me in on whether they had adhesives on the back or whether you had to lick them to stick. I seem to recall licking them.

This Esso Hockey card set was first glimpse into the world of Hockey Card collecting. A pass-time that has seemed to touch my life at many defining moments. The cards may have changed over the years, grown larger and more complex, just as  I have.  I seem to always be drawn to this simple and adolescent hobby. Maybe it is due to its simplicity, or maybe its the sense of nostalgia it brings about, but for one reason or another the desire to collect these simple pieces of cardboard has stayed with me through the years.

This blog is a new frontier for me. Though it is about collecting Hockey cards, its less about the cards themselves and more of a reflection on the subtle impact they have had on my life.  But more likely this will be a look back at the nostalgia that collecting creates.

From time to time, I will post about certain cards and their significance, and will probably post the odd hockey related story and collecting tidbits. As with all things in life I imagine this too will evolve and grow over time to encompass more than what I have in tended it to do, or at least that is my hope. I hope you enjoy this as much as I will enjoy sharing it. I encourage you to share your own experiences and insights along the way.