Back when I was just a few months old the Blue Note AKA St. Louis Blues participated in its first Stanley Cup Finals 1967/68. The Blues were one of 6 expansion teams in 1967-MN North Stars, LA Kings, Philly Flyers, Penguins, and the California Seals. According to Wiki, St. Louis was chosen over Baltimore for the 6th city. The owner of the Blackhawks owned the St. Louis Arena and he wanted a team in the Arena.
Well the Blues did make the Stanley Cup finals the first three years of their existence, 1967/68, 1968/69, and 1969/70. Hold your amazement for a few minutes. The Stanley Cup Finals were REQUIRED to have one of the 6 expansion teams. Yep, what nonsense-as a result and to no ones great shock the Blues were swept by the Canadians in the first two, and the Bruins in the last one. This was the last time the Blue Note even sniffed the finals, well almost the last time-they choke and choke often, which is really the reason I don’t get too excited when they make the playoffs because I have zero expectations.
Up until I was about the age of 11-roughly 1978-my dad was a construction foreman that had a very generous boss who gave us tickets to games through out the season. So I have some memories of those early teams. I was an avid fan until the late 90s when I moved to Michigan. While in Michigan I watched a lot of Don Cherry and Hockey Night in Canada as well as minor league games on CBC. After the move I lost track of the Blues. Now living in the Bay area I hear a lot of Sharks talk (IMO no snow, no hockey). But I wasn’t interested much in hockey. I would keep my eyes on the end of year standings to see how well the Blues did-then would watch them get knocked out of the play offs. Lo and behold last year we discovered we have NHL TV, which I love!
Couple this with a passion for cardboard, graphic design, and pop culture and bam! You have a potent combination, which has resulted in adding the Blues to my team collection. However, there is a limit to this-only cards until 1987-88. I am not interested in picking up every Blues card ever (my wife has a sigh of relief). In my youth
I remember watching Gar Unger, and the Plager boys play.
Recently for a decent price-I picked up the 1974/75 Topps team set-cards were in great condition with the exception of one very miss-cut card.
Who were the 1974/75 Blues?
They had a record of 35-31-14 for a total of 84 points which landed them in 2nd place in the NHL's Smythe Division. But as is the pattern of the Blue Note in the playoffs they were knocked out in the first round by the Penguins in a sweep.
1
Garry Unger C (Both T/OPC)
2
Pierre Plante RW
(T, OPC)
3
Wayne Merrick C
(T, OPC)
6
Ace Bailey LW (OPC)
8
Bill Collins
RW (OPC)
9
Floyd Thomson LW (OPC)
12
Barclay Plager D (T, OPC)
16
Bob Plager
D (T, OPC)
21
Don Awrey
D (T, OPC)
22
Rick Wilson
D (OPC)
27
John Davidson G (T, OPC)
28
Dave Gardner C
(T, OPC)
29
Phil Roberto RW
(T, OPC)
34
Eddie Johnston G
(OPC)
Greg Polis not on roster-but has Topps and OPC card
Wayne Stephenson not on roster-but has Topps and OPC card
As a flip on the Topps/OPC baseball set size, the Topps Hockey sets (264) are much smaller than the OPC (396) version. Topps are not bilingual English-French and were generally printed in a better quality-OPC is very well known for being mis-cut, having print flaws, rough cuts, and off for being off-centered. Otherwise the only difference as with the baseball sets is the color and type of paper used. Because of the large check list-OPC of course included many more players than Topps. As the list above illustrates-I noted which players had both a Topps and an OPC card, and those that just had an OPC card.
The fronts of the 74/75 Topps featured a partial hockey stick border with a team specific box at the bottom-in this case the Blues are blue. The players are either featured as a portrait or in posed action shot.
The reverse reminds me of the Topps football cards of the same period-grey stock with boxes in a nice reddish color with blue print and borders. Of course there is a cartoon and player bio and stats. You can see the difference between the OPC and Topps cards here. I am not sure if there are different shots of the players in the Topps and OPC sets. I thought may be I would try to do the season by season series like I did with football-but in case anyone noticed-I fizzled on that desired. So instead when I complete a team set I post about it then.
Topps 1974/75 team set 13 of 13, OPC 3 of 19
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