The Sports Card Expo In My Mailbox

Doug of Sportscards From The Dollar Store went to the Canada Sports Card Expo earlier this month and did some shopping for me. Thanks for saving me the trip pal! 

I saw this card on the top right away and let out a "No Way!" A mini puck autographed by Ben BISHOP! Awesome, plus it's from my favorite hockey release out there right now. Hopefully Bishop can get his first shutout tonight to finish off the Chicken Wings. 

My first Slater Koekkoek card is a relic from Artifacts which would be a close second in sets this year if I was ranking them. I was actually looking for a card of his at the card show this past weekend but refused to shell out $4-6 for a base rookie. There's only one guy that keeps Lightning stuff out there and all his stuff is insanely high, so thanks a ton for this one Doug!

The hits don't stop there however as seen with this Brett Connolly on card auto, he may be a Bruin now but I still like him as a player.

For the umpteenth time Doug sent me some cards from a set I had zero. The Silver Crown looks good.

All new for the PCs. 

These two were actually from a PWE Doug sent me the week before. Wish we had Stamkos for these playoffs but Drouin has been filling in nicely.

This Joe Haden auto was also in that first PWE, loved watching this kid play at Florida. Wish the Falcons would draft a Gators corner one of these days. Apparantly they're interested in Josh Norman, I don't know how to feel about that one.

Speaking of Gators defensive backs this 1970 O-Pee-Chee of Gators safety Bruce Bennett is my oldest Canadian football card  easily. 

French football 

Wrapping up this double trade package with 8 needs for my Topps 2016 set conquest. According to my list I'm only missing 1 card now. Thanks for these and all other great cards Douglas! Go Bolts!

Playoff Push - Lightning Practice plus autos

Had a rare weekday off so me and the wife slept in and went to check out the Lightning practice at 11am about 10 minutes from my house. 

It was great to be so close for free.

I scored 2 pucks that flew over the boards that my son insisted on smelling. 

Victor Hedman seen here looked healthy as did Ryan Callahan (first picture) they've both missed time so they'll provide a boost for the Detroit series. 

Here's a shot of the team right before most of them headed in listening to Coach Cooper. 

Nikita Nesterov signed one of the pucks for me.  Love his aggression on defense, he and Marchessault are the only shoot first players we have.

Nikita Kucherov signed one of his cards I brought for me. 

My favorite part of the practice was that Jonathan Drouin was the last guy on the ice long after everybody else including the coaches hit the showers. He even picked up all the pucks afterwards. 

He then came over and signed for all the fans and posed for pictures as well. It was great to get his auto and see with my own eyes he's not the jackass his agent made him look like earlier this season. Really seems like a good kid and I hope he can stay hot in the playoffs.