Montreal Canadiens Alumni game in person

 We had the Montreal Canadiens alumni tour come through Napanee, on Sunday.  They played a friendly charity game against some local penitentiary guards.  These games are always a treat and the players are all super friendly with the fans.  I wasn't able to get autographs from all of the players, but I did add a few that I did not previously have, so that is a huge plus.

Oleg Petrov was a rookie with the Habs back in the 1992-93 season.  He played 9 regular season games with 3 points and only playing 1 playoff game.  That was also the year they won the cup.  He went back and forth for a few season between Fredericton (AHL) and the Habs, before signing to play in Switzerland for 3 seasons. He pretty much lit that league on fire and came back over for 3 more with the Habs and finished his NHL days with the Nashville Predators.  He saw that I had extra cards and offered to sign them all.

Stephane Richer scored 51 goals for the Habs in the 89-90 season and he played over 1000 games in the NHL.  He looked like he could still be playing. He won the Cup in 1986 with the Habs.

Richard Sevigny won the Vezina trophy for the 80-81 Habs.  Although he is now 66 years old, he absolutely amazes me how he is able to make some incredible saves on guys less than half his age.  My knees are shot from playing rec goalie for like 20 years.  Anyways, I have always missed getting his autograph at these events for whatever reason.  This time I got him, on one of the first hockey cards I ever got in my collection.

 

Chris "Knuckles" Nilan was the coach for the alumni squad.  He was super friendly with everyone, signing lots of autographs and joking with kids. He was part of the 1986 Stanley Cup Champions.

 

Andrew Shaw was a local favourite to say the least.  Andrew hails from Belleville, ON, a short 20 minute drive from Napanee.  He was pretty well mobbed every where he went, but he was super friendly with everyone.  He stayed around a while extra to make sure everyone got autographs or pictures with him.  He even played a rock, paper, scissors tournament with some kids.  The winner got his stick.  A friend's son won it.  I got him to sign a puck.

Mike Bossy - purchase

 I have been working on getting all of the base cards signed from the 01-02 Fleer Greats of the Game Set.  I have loved this set from the moment it came out.  The base cards are all white and mostly cardboard stock with some glossy layover, so they show an autograph amazingly.  I am now up to 69 of the 89 card set signed.  There are a bunch that were deceased prior to the set release, so those are not possible.  There are others that have since deceased, so that is going to be a challenge for me to complete.  I am going to keep working on it anyways and see if I can do it.  I may fill in the set with some of the certified autographs that were also in this set.

I did not get a Mike Bossy one prior to his death.  His daughter had a bunch of his stuff autographed for sale for their charity.  We got talking to her for a few minutes and she said when he took ill, they brought up all of his extra stuff from their basement and had him sign it all.  She said he really enjoyed doing that at the time.  So, I had to purchase this as soon as I saw it.  I was almost jumping up and down to check this off of my list.

Here is the card.

Denis Savard - In Person

 Denis Savard was signing at the Sport Card Expo in Toronto this past weekend.  He was another member of the 1993 Stanley Cup Champions!  He was really friendly and took his time with everyone.  I also collect the 01-02 Fleer Greats of the Game cards autographed.  More on that in the next post.

Here is the card he signed.

Denis Savard and myself.

Vincent Damphousse - In Person

 I traveled to the Sport Card Expo in Toronto this past weekend.  Vincent Damphousse was the first target for autographs when I got there.  I am a massive Montreal Canadiens fan and Vinny was a member of the 1993 Stanley Cup Champions.  He was the regular season and playoff scoring leader for the Habs.  He was super friendly and even added the "93 Cup" inscription for no extra fee!  I am super pumped to add this to my collection!

Here is the puck.

Here is Vincent Damphousse and myself.

Arber Xhekaj in Person

 I attended the Spring Sportscard and Memorabilia Expo a few weeks ago.  Montreal Canadiens' rookie sensation, Arber Xhekaj was doing a signing at the show, so I absolutely had to do this!  He is from the Hamilton area and if you aren't aware of his story and journey to becoming an NHL player, it is quite amazing.  He is my new favourite player with the Habs for sure!  He was super friendly with the fans and seemed to enjoy the interactions.  I got him to sign an 8x10 photo which is already up on my wall.

Long Time Gone

 Its been over 5 years since I updated this blog.  I am going to be starting this back up and running, so I hope to be updating more regular in the near future.  In the meantime, I would love to add more links of other people collecting autographs to share around.  If you would like your blog linked, please send it to me to put up.