"Buddy"

#19 -- Real Cloutier, Sabres

I don't think I ever saw him play during his career, but Real "Buddy" Cloutier is one of the guys that symbolizes early 1980s hockey for me: the insane WHA scoring totals, the ill-fitting eggshell helmet, the mustache. He was also one of the very first signatures I got in this set when I started collecting it, back in the 1990s.

Looking at those early '80s Nords teams, I'm amazed by the level of scoring talent they had -- the Stastnys three, Cloutier (when healthy), Goulet, Tardif, Dale Hunter, Wilf Paiement. At least in that end of the rink, they were up there with the best, but they never got up there to the Oilers/Islanders level.

Checking up on him for this post, I was amazed: Cloutier's career was over at age 29. I knew he flamed out of the NHL relatively quickly, but I figured a) he was a bit older, given those long years in the WHA, b) he went and bounced around Europe for a while, or c) both of the above. But no. 97 points in '81-'82, 67 in '82-'83, a trade to Buffalo and 60 in '83-'84, and the year that this card came out, zero in the NHL, 43 in the IHL/AHL combined, and that was that. Sabres Legends has a good writeup on him, giving some insight into what happened.

I got this one through the mail in the summer of 2010, probably about the fifth time I've got a copy of this card signed.

Playing Catchup

Illness, home internet problems and general busy-ness have put this on hold, so I'll try to get back on track with a Two-For Thursday.

#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.

#108 - Harold Snepsts

Harold Snepsts is one of the earliest players that made a lasting impression on my young mind, alongside more obvious selections like Gretzky/Bossy/Potvin. His physical appearance was and is pretty distinctive -- the man-mountain build, receding hairline, and of course that mustache. I think that mustache has made him into something of a cult figure in recent years, and it's kind of overshadowed his abilities as a defenseman -- people remember him less as a good, solid player and more for the 'stache.

This card came in his first season outside of Vancouver, and is the first to show the scourge of 1970s-1980s O-Pee-Chee cards -- airbrushing. Snepsts had been traded to Minnesota in time for this card to be updated, but there were no photos of him as a North Star -- so -- someone got drafted to hurriedly update his uniform. In other seasons, you'd see a severely cropped photo with just a hint of the jersey, but in 1984-85, O-Pee-Chee went 99.9% with full-body action shots, so there was nowhere to hide. This is hardly the most egregious example of the airbrusher's art -- a quick glance and you wouldn't notice anything (the autograph does obscure it even more, too). The artist managed to make Harold's shoulders even more imposing.

He lasted only one season in Minnesota, then bounced around between Detroit, St. Louis, Vancouver again and the minors for a few years. I'm pretty sure he's a youth coach in the Vancouver area these days, and does some work with the Canucks.

Harold Snepsts' stats at hockeydb.com
Profile at Legends of Hockey
Profile at Hockey Draft Central
Profile at Hockey's Tough Guys