Trading cards used to be all the rage. Year after year multiple card companies would shoot out all sorts of different card sets with different names and different checklists, so they had to find a way to change things up so they weren’t just producing cards of players mid-game.
It didn’t matter which set you were collecting or which sport you were a fan of because you were bound to open up a pack and find some outrageous card at some point. With that being said, we’d like to take you down memory lane, again, to revisit some of the goofiest and wildest hockey cards that ever made it to production.
If you’re a professional athlete you’re also a rock star, so maybe that’s why Upper Deck had the Washington Capitals centre Joé Juneau pose behind a drum kit for a card in their 1995-96 Upper Deck Be a Player set.
If there’s an all-time list Luke Richardson’s name is near the top of it’s the all-time greatest trading card list. For Richardson’s 1992-93 card in the Pinnacle Canadian set, the current assistant coach of the Montreal Canadiens showed off one of his true loves, model rockets.
Dean McAmmond’s final season with the Edmonton Oilers happened to be the 1998-99 campaign and did he ever go out in style. The Grande Cache, Alberta native (population 3,571), was joined by a couple of deer, which he fed, on his card for Upper Deck’s 1998-98 UD Choice set and the card is an all-time great.
Uwe Krupp loved racing sled dogs so much that he posed with them for his 1992-93 Pinnacle Canadian set and it wasn’t the only time as he also posed with a couple of dogs for his 1996-97 Pinnacle Be A Player card.
Pat Falloon’s card from the 1992-93 Pinnacle set reminds us of the picture Joe Thornton shared when he announced his new contract with the San Jose Sharks in 2017. Perhaps he was showing Falloon some love with his photo.
Speaking of Joe Thornton, the 40-year-old happens to be on this week’s list thanks to the pose he busted out more than 20 years ago for the 1997-98 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice card.
Wendel Clark wasn’t the biggest player on the ice, but his opponents knew it was never a good idea to mess with him. That’s probably what inspired the Upper Deck team to grab a photo of Clark doing a workout for his card in the 1993-94 NHLPA Be A Player set.
You might remember from last week’s post, he’s not the only one who had an awesome card in that set.
Steve Smith won three Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980’s, recorded over 2,100 penalty minutes in 804 career games, but he’ll never be able to live down his card in Upper Deck’s 1995-96 Be A Player set, because it might be the most awkward hockey trading card of all-time.
These are only some of the MANY ridiculous and hilarious trading cards that were printed during the 1990’s and this is just the first of many posts to come on the subject. If you have any cards that come to mind that you think deserve to be published in a future post, send an email to christian.marin@bellmedia.ca or DM us a photo on Twitter or Instagram.
(H/T comc.com)
