#365 -- Mike Bullard, Penguins Goal Leader
Mike Bullard was one of those great second-tier scorers of the 1980s that sort of faded into the background because he played for a lousy team and because the first-tier scorers were putting up such insane numbers. I'm pretty sure he was Pittsburgh's first-ever 50-goal scorer, with 51 in 1983-84. He also had one of the great mustaches of the 1980s, a style that always makes me think of highway patrolmen in, say, South Dakota. Yeah, he may have just busted you for speeding, but you know you're dealing with a good guy here.
Bullard started bouncing around the league pretty quickly after Pittsburgh traded him to Calgary in 1986, going from to the Flames to the Blues to the Flyers in quick succession. His career sort of derailed, too, as he went from scoring 103 points to playing in Switzerland in the space of about three years. He came back for an encore with the Maple Leafs (and while that was one of the least consequential of his NHL stops, I usually picture him as a Leaf), then went to Germany, where he carved out a really nice decade-long career as one of the league's stars. He's now a coach there, with EV Landshut, and that's where I got this card signed.
This is one of two Bullard cards in the set, and it's the less attractive of the two, but the signed regular card is also signed in the same green ink and it's pretty much impossible to see. While I love the '84-'85 design, I'm not crazy about the team leaders cards. Pastel blue and pink?
#193 -- Doug Wickenheiser
The story of Doug Wickenheiser always makes me sad, and when Eagles fans booed the selection of Donovan McNabb at the 1999 NFL draft, I thought of him. Sadly, unlike McNabb, Wickenheiser wasn't able to outshine the player (Denis Savard) he was picked over, and Montreal fans weren't the type to let that slide.
He earned a measure of redemption playing in St. Louis, where he was a key part of one of the great moments in Blues history, scoring the winner in the Monday Night Miracle game over Calgary. He also had bad luck -- the year this card came out, he suffered a severe knee injury during a team outing and missed the better part of a year. (St. Louis Blues parties seem to be a bit cursed -- Bob Gassoff died after one, and now Erik Johnson is out for the season after hurting himself on a golf cart.)
Wickenheiser played a few solid seasons for the Blues, then shuffled between the NHL and AHL for a while, went to Europe, came back and settled in St. Louis after his career, becoming a pretty well-known face in the Blues alumni. Sadly, he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and passed away in 1999, at just 37 years old.
The St. Louis Blues 14 Fund was established in his memory, and his father-in-law wrote a book, "The Last Face-Off: The Doug Wickenheiser Story." The Blues haven't retired his number, and as a fan, I wish they would.
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