Got'em Need'em.

Flemington Road Public School was where I attended grades four, five and six and I remember the school librarian. She was an older narrow faced woman, although I do not remember her name. Her nephew was Don Awrey who played defence for the 1970 & 72 Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins while I was a student.

I would literally spend hours of my free time sitting in the library looking through all the hockey books while dreaming of someday playing in the NHL. I always thought my librarian was so lucky because she had a nephew who played in the league that I could only dream of someday playing in. My librarian never made a big deal that her nephew played for the Boston Bruins, but it was always a pretty big deal to me.

I played all the trading card schoolyard games before school, at lunchtime and during recess. The games were what most kids in Canada played back in the late 60's and early 70's and I only played them with hockey cards. Got’em, need’em, got’em, got’em, need’em. I gotta collect every card, I gotta collect the complete set. I used to check off all the cards I had on the cardboard checklist. I would also trade for or try to win the cards I desperately needed to complete my checklist. I just had to have every box on the checklist checked off.

Winning needed cards meant flinging cards towards a brick wall trying to knock down the eight or ten cards that were leaning on an angle against the school wall about six to eight feet away. The game was called 'knocksies' and the player who knocked the last card down would win all the cards strewn all over the ground. That game was by far the easiest way to increase your stack of cards when you won. It was also the quickest way to make your stack much smaller when you lost.

Another popular game I played was called 'topsies' and we also played 'farthies'. Each player would fling a card or cards against the wall and whosever cards corner was closest to the wall would win all the cards. Arguments would ensue and would always lead to play overs when the naked eye could not determine whose corner was closer. Needless to say I only used my traders for all those schoolyard games.

I loved the flavour of the pink stick of stale bubble gum that came inside each pack of cards for a dime. By the end of the season my stacks of cards became all worn and creased, so on to my bike spokes they would go for another summer of motorcycle sounding bike riding.

I remember the year when the player’s picture appeared on what looked like a woodgrain TV screen. The year was 1967 and it was Bobby Orr’s rookie year. I drew mustaches on all my Bruins cards and I most likely would've had a few of Orr's rookie cards. I hated the Bruins. Many years later I attended a card show in the early 90's and a mint raw Bobby Orr rookie card was selling for almost $2000. Had I not drawn all those mustaches and I kept all my Bobby Orr cards in a box from when I was a kid, I would have had a nice wad of cash today.

Who knew?

Hockey card collecting was by far my favorite childhood hobby and I would always take a stack in my suit pocket to the Kingdom Hall. I would place the cards within the pages of my bible and I would secretly study every card while my mother assumed I was reading scriptures. I would memorize everything about the players and their stats from all my cards. 

When I was a kid I worshiped hockey players and not Jehovah at the Kingdom Hall. 

How great it would be to have my name and number stamped on the shaft of my stick like the players on my cards. For me a true sign that you had made it to the big league was when your name was stamped right there on the shaft of your custom made pro-pattern stick.

The smell of bubble gum always dominated my newer cards, but after a week the smell was gone because of my daily handling. Hockey cards were forbidden in school classrooms. On a few occasions my teacher confiscated my stack and she stored them in her desk until she felt like returning them.

Some years the packs of cards featured inserts like team logo stickers. This would be my opportunity to study those logos and then try to recreate them by drawing them on larger pieces of paper. I never was much of an artist, but I used to love drawing the team insignias. My favourite was the blue Maple Leaf, but it always turned out the same, off centered. It never mattered how hard I tried to be perfect, it just never looked right and it always seemed to look lopsided.

I drew dozens of blue Maple Leafs when I was a kid. I would draw them everywhere and I always got in trouble when I drew them inside my bible. I would scribble a Dave Keon signature under my artist rendition Leaf logo. It was not an autograph, but it would have to do until the day when I could get Dave's real autograph. 

Oh, how I used to daydream about getting autographs from not just Keon, but all the Leaf players. Hell, the whole team could sign my bible. Someday I knew I would, but in grade school my only connection to the NHL was that Don Awrey's aunt was our school librarian.

She was my librarian.

*Update. I purchased my first mid-grade non-mint Orr rookie for $5000 in 2017. A higher grade Orr rookie easily fetches well over $10,000 and a mint grade will fetch well over a $100,000

*Update. I eventually purchased both a higher grade Bobby Orr for $26,000 and a Gordie Howe for $17,000 rookie cards in 2023.