Posts Tagged ‘Hall of Fame’

Yesterday was my twice-annual trip to Wilmington, Massachusetts for the big Shriner’s Card Show. I saved up all my pennies since November and went down hoping to land (yet again) an OPC Ken Dryden rookie or a Yvan Cournoyer rookie.

I came back with neither and I could have had both. The Dryden was nice except the bottom two corners were just a touch soft (I’m picky) and I know it would have eaten away at me. He had it at $250, said he’d take $220, but I know he would have taken $200. I’m willing to pay the money for a mint copy, so I’ll just wait it out.

A different dealer had a Cournoyer rookie but it was graded and I don’t do graded cards. It came out as a 7 and he wanted $125; the guy next to me offered him $100 and away it went. C’est la vie.

Enough about cards I didn’t get, let’s get to cards I did get!

1977-78 O-Pee-Chee #4 NHL Penalty Minute Leaders

Three vintage tough guys for a $1?  All day, every day. I had to get at least one enforcer card and this gives me three big punchers.

The next batch of cards are all from the WHA. Ever since reading The Rebel League I’ve been fascinated. I could have picked up complete sets, but I want to slowly build all the different years.

First, we have this…

1972-73 O-Pee-Chee #338 John McKenzie

Man, ol’ Pie Face looks like he just fell off the turnip truck. And that Blazers logo; is there anything worse?

Now, I already had this card…

I felt like I needed to get his linemates, so I did…

1974-75 O-Pee-Chee WHA #4 Ulf Nilsson

1974-75 O-Pee-Chee #17 Anders Hedberg

Rookies of 2/3 of one of the most dominating lines in hockey history and all-time WHA greats. These countrymen played four seasons in the WHA and scored 100+ points in each of those campaigns. Nilsson was the premier playmaker and Hedburg was a dominant and gifted scorer. Along with Bobby Hull, they formed one of the greatest hockey lines the game has ever seen. During the ’74-’75 season, this line scored 156 and tallied 206 assists in 221 combined games for an average of 1.64 points per game. Wow.

Next…

1977-78 O-Pee-Chee WHA #25 Mark Howe

HOFer in an Aeros jersey with the New England Whalers harpoon logo on the front! Must have.

This next card is not a WHA card although he did played in the league and was, at one point, the highest paid player…

1970-71 Topps/O-Pee-Chee Sticker Stamps #27 Derek Sanderons

And so my Turk collection grows slightly. Look how clean cut and young he looks.

Those were my small purchases. Now it’s time for the big gun. Going into this show, I had zero intention of getting this card. It was so far off of my radar that it was non-existant. In fact, I don’t think I had ever seen this card before. After the Dryden and Cournoyer fell through, I had to regroup. I looked at a Lafleur rookie, but nixed it. I thought about getting an old Beliveau or Richard, but I have cards of them already. Same goes for Orr. Howe was a possibility but his earlier stuff is SO expensive. I looked and looked and then I found it.

1963-64 Topps #33 Bobby Hull

I’ll just let the card do the talking.

Oh, and don’t forget to vote on the right hand side!

I am not even going to give you an excuse as to why I have been a little dodgy with my updating. I’m lazy, I’m busy, I’m a lot of things. Consistent, though, is currently not one of them.

In my last post, I asked for people to nominate some snubbed centers.

A) Thank you for that.

B) After looking at the results for nominations, I realized there was probably an easier way for me to do this, so I’ve created a poll to the right of all the centers. Vote for as many as you’d like. Any player receiving, oh, let’s say…67% of the votes gets in. Any player receiving less is out. Forever. End of story.

C) Next up are the left wingers. Same as above. Poll on the right. If you feel wordy, leave a comment explaining your vote(s).

So again, please vote in the poll to the right.

Now let us turn to some cards, or rather, a card.

Dan Kordic was a big dude. Like 6’5″ and 233 pounds big. The sort of big you don’t really go looking to start something with. Canadian prairie big. Alberta big.

As a defenceman, Kordic began his career in the WHL with the Medicine Hat Tigers. In his first season, he tallied only six points in 63 games. While these numbers would seem to indicate that perhaps he was a scrapper and not a scorer, his 75 penalty minutes don’t necessarily give away a future as an enforcer. Over the next two seasons with Medicine Hat, Kordic put up 30 points in 129 games, but unlike his first year, he accumulated 372 PIMs. That number is still a bit deceiving, though, as he dropped the gloves only fourteen times (but fourteen more times than I have ever dropped them). If he was being groomed to be an enforcer, his time with Medicine Hat did not really reveal that fact.

Kordic’s break came in 1990 when he was drafted 88th overall by the always-tough Philadelphia Flyers. Although he would spend the 90-91 season in Medicine Hat, the big show was not far off.  In his last season with Medicine Hat he netted eight goals and helped out on fifteen others for a total of 23 points in 67 games, while also dropping the gloves six times and earning 150 penalty minutes.

At the start of the 1991-92 season, the Flyers gave Kordic a look. In the pre-season, the role of enforcer seemed to find him as he squared off against Bruins tough guy Lydon Byers. Now a left winger, it didn’t take long after that for Kordic to make a name for himself in the NHL. On October 17, Kordic dropped the mitts in a great, but quick, bout against Wayne Van Dorp of the Quebec Nordiques where the two went toe-to-toe with Kordic prevailing. The rest of his rookie season was sort of up and down in terms of fighting. He held his own against guys like Odelein, Churla, and Kocur but met his match on November 23rd. Playing the New Jersey Devils, Kordic and Randy McKay went at it in a slugfest. McKay got the better of Kordic, leaving him battered and bloody. Dan would drop the gloves three more times that season for a total of eleven fights and 126 PIMs in 46 games. He scored a solitary goal and helped on three others.

Kordic would spend the next most of the next four seasons with the Flyers’ AHL affiliate, the Hersey Bears. He would occasionally get called up, but would last a game or two before getting sent back down. He was used primarily as an enforcer when playing in whatever game the Flyers called him up for. During the 1995-96 season, Kordic suited up in nine games for the Flyers and dropped the gloves three times…against Rob Ray, Donald Brashear, and Marty McSorley. If Kordic was to ever have a future in the NHL, it was going to be with this fists and not his stick.

It wasn’t until the 1996-97 season that Dan Kordic got his biggest shot in the pros. He would play 75 games that season, scoring one goal and assisting on four others, but that wasn’t his role. No, his 210 PIMs and 27 fights were his bread and butter. He fought just about every big gun there was that season. Dennis Vial, Stu Grimson, Brantt Myhres, and Darren Langdon. His most memorable moment of the season, though, came on March 9th against the Washington Capitals when he faced off against Brendan Witt AND Craig Berube. Not one, but TWO toe-to-toe slugfests against two legitimate tough guys. That was Dan Kordic. He would end the season with a great bout versus Ryan VandenBussche.

The following season would be Kordic’s last full season in the NHL. He would lace up the skates for 61 games, score his usual goal and help on another. He duplicated his PIMs with 210 while his fights dropped to a still respectable 18. He would battle Sandy McCarthy, Gino Odjick, cement head Donald Brashear, Mick Vukota, Stu Grimson, and old dance partner, Ryan VandenBussche.

The next season was Dan’s last in the NHL, playing in just two games. His last professional fight was against Krzysztof Oliwa, someone whom he fought twice the previous season. The scrap was spirited but short, much like Kordic’s career. He would finish the 98-99 season between the Philadelphia Phantoms of the AHL and the Grand Rapids Griffins of the IHL. His last opponent in hockey was Eric Cairns.

Unlike his brother John, who was a bad boy on the ice and a tragic figure off the ice, Dan was able to keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble. Today, Dan Kordic is an enforcer in a different sense. He has traded the fightstrap for the whistle and the orange and black for the zebra stripes. Kordic is now enforcing the rules of hockey on the ice as a referee.

The card is from the 1997-98 Be A Player set and is the autographed version. This is a great set to get signatures of many NHLers who normally might not have a signed card. Kordic’s signature is neat and compact, legible and artistic. So often, I find that the tough guys have the best signatures in the league and Kordic is no exception.