Ok, I thought I'd post a little about me finally...
IN THE BEGINNING
I grew up in a small Mid-western area and loved baseball. I played every chance I could get and loved every minute of it. I dreamed of growing up and playing like Jose Canseco, Frank Thomas, and Ken Griffey Jr. as these were relatively young players back in the day.
That of course, never happened, but I felt a great connection to them through collecting cards. I was introduced to this great hobby by our family friend, and my long lost brother, Mark.
THE MIDDLE YEARS
The collecting eventually tapered off as I went to High School and college, but I had a few friends that were starting to get into hockey (thanks NHL '94). We eventually started playing roller-hockey in a semi-abandoned tennis court in the summer time. We were barely old enough to drive and constantly teased the curfew laws by playing too late on most occasions. I was the goalie most of the time. I found a certain satisfaction in the denial of celebrations. Plus I was the "largest" :) . We had to make our own nets and fix our own equipment. It was paradise.
We all had our favorite team and favorite player. Whether it be the Penguins, the Avalanche, the Rangers or the, ugh... Redwings. We never missed an opportunity to taunt and rag on the other friends if our team beat theirs the night previous. It was almost like a unalienable right to do this.
GROWING UP
After High School, some went their own ways for college. A few of us were volunteered to play in a men's ice hockey league in the nearby city. We were basically fillers for the roster. We had never played ice hockey and had only skated during open skate sessions. I remember the flurry to buy second-hand pads at a local sport shop not knowing exactly what to buy. I turned into a goalie, naturally and for a self-trained G-man, I think I'm doing alright. I like to play out every now and then on LW, but my heart and soul is splattered on the goal crease.
We revisited roller-hockey in the summers and gained more players. Some of which are still great friends to this day. My hockey friends are definitely the majority of my friends right now. They are also some of the most loyal friends I have ever had.
Hockey cards came around as I was in college. I bought a couple packs of Pinnacle and Black Diamond and decided to see if I knew the names. I knew every name in the packs and found some of the coolest sport photography I had seen. The internet wasn't as prevalent as it is now, so finding some interesting hockey photos were few and far between. It was like looking at a photo album of the best players!
ADULT? WHO, ME?
To wrap up, I got a job, grew up (physically), started earning money, kept playing hockey, and now I have some extra cash to spend on the hockey card habit. I bought an auction from Teeks643 before eBay went postal on box breaking so I was extremely lucky to get linked with his site.
BOX BREAKING SOAP BOX
My philosophy is "Collecting should be fun AND affordable." Box breaking is not something that I wish to get rich at. Heck, if I just break even, I'll be happy. I'm glad this is also the mentality of Teeks and the 643boxbreaks.com site. I just want to try to allow collectors to purchase their favorite teams/players without having to spend the high price the premium cards run now days. Yes, I know the cards are filled with memorabilia, signatures, sticks, tags, patches, tape, sweat, spit, and hair samples, but I'm not sure if I could spend $100-$400 on a pack of 5 cards by myself. This is why I break! Lets get some great stuff and share it with everyone and hand out a crap-load of bonuses too!
THE END!
OK, that's about all I wanted to share. If you read it all, congratulations. If you didn't, good work. you probably saved yourself about 10 minutes :)
STP40
No comments:
Post a Comment