What it is, what it will be

The '84-'85 O-Pee-Chee set has long been my all-time favorite hockey card issue. Not because I got them when they came out -- in 1984, I wouldn't have known how to get my hands on O-Pee-Chee cards.

But when I was in college down in Arizona, I frequented a little card shop called the Sports Page. The guy who ran it was a blast -- older fellow from Michigan who'd relocated to Tucson, and who knew more about the WHA than anyone I've ever met. He had boxes and boxes of hockey cards and memorabilia that no one ever touched, including big crates of the '84-'85 OPC.

I'd head over there, root through those boxes and listen to his stories, and as a result ended up with more cards from that set than any human being really needs.

I've also been a hockey autograph collector, for 15 years or so now, and in the last year I've been trying to step up attempts to get as many cards as possible autographed. I post a lot of autographs on my site, Czechfan.com -- but I can be kind of lousy about updating that, and this is a different/fun way to post the autos and go off on tangents of free association as I do it.

I'll try to update this every two days or so, either posting autos as they come in or digging them out of the collection I already have. Occasionally I'll toss in little oddities as well.

The Sports Page, alas, is long-gone -- I haven't been to Arizona in nearly a decade but one of the last times I was there I drove by and it was gone. The guy who ran it popped up on eBay, selling old WHA stuff, but I haven't seen him offering anything in a while. It still lives on, though, in the ten million '84-'85 OPC cards I've got.