My Favorite Card of 2017...MEOW!

One of the best parts of our hobby is how many different ways you can collect.  You can be a set builder.  You can be a prospector.  You can player collect.  There are many team collectors.  Hell, you can do all of these if you really want to.

I've done all of these in the past and to some extent still do them all, minus prospecting.  I've always been a player collector.  It started out with Dale Murphy.  Then it was Will Clark.  During my teenage years I collected Russ Davis and Bob Sura.  I still collect some former players but my most recent fanatical collection was Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw.  I put a LOT of money and a good bit of time into that collection. 

Then came June 24, 2016.  I can't say that The Andrew Shaw project died that day, but it was certainly put into a coma.  The Blackhawks traded Shaw to the Montreal Canadiens and my collection hasn't been the same.  

It's been about 18 months and I've debated on selling off the cards and moving on. While I've sold some, I've still kept at least one of each.  I still add low-end cards to the box but it's nothing like it was.  One card that I will NEVER get rid of is my first Shaw card.  It's one that I pulled myself and it means more to me than any money I'd ever get out of it.  

LINK:  My Favorite (Andrew Shaw) Card - Round Three

I don't know that I'll ever try again to be a super collector.  I've been burnt by Blackhawks prospects that were later traded because of the salary cap (see: Tuevo Tervainen).  This past offseason my "new" favorite after the Shaw trade, Scott Darling, was traded.  I've already cut back on how much modern product I buy and this is a part of the reason.  

However, I denote this card my favorite of 2017.  It may not have the monetary value of others in P-Town Tom's contest, but that means nothing to me.

2017-18 Upper Deck Parkhurst #288 Alex DeBrincat

2017-18 Upper Deck Parkhurst #288 Alex DeBrincat (back)

The card will probably debut in Beckett as a $5 or $8 card, but it's the first Alex DeBrincat card I pulled from a pack myself and the first I had onhand.  The same happened with my favorite Shaw card.  Monday night I opened my second blaster of Parkhurst hockey and in the first pack, the first thing I saw was the back of the card and I just smiled.  I had it!  It will be placed in a one-touch just as the Shaw is and I will always know it was that EXACT copy that was my first.

Why Alex DeBrincat?  He's the "next big thing" for the Blackhawks.  Just look at that stat line on the back.  One knock on DeBrincat is his size, or lack thereof.  Another was that his numbers were a product of playing alongside Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome.  Those numbers you see from last season were sans McDavid and Strome.

The pick Chicago drafted DeBrincat with wasn't their originally.  It came to them in a trade for...Andrew Shaw.

Despite his size, DeBrincat has some toughness to him.  I found this on eliteprospects.com: "DeBrincat is a small player with a dynamic skill set and a pure sniper. He is undersized, but can be very nasty to play against and shies away from no one. He skates well and is very effective around the net. He is hard to contain for such a small player, and has great chemistry with anyone he plays with. A decade player in the OHL."

He hasn't shied away from larger players in his rookie season.  He's also showing up on the score sheet.  Through 33 games, he's scored 12 goals and has 11 assists.  He's also logging almost 15 minutes a game on the ice.

LINK:  Alex DeBrincat is defying your expectations

I know that his Young Guns and all parallels will have more value.  I'll eventually have at least the base Young Guns and the Canvas Young Guns, but I'm waiting until ePack hits.  I also bought five copies of the Upper Deck Game Dated Moments card highlighting his first career hat trick.  They aren't in-hand yet.  This card will always be the first.  That's why it's my favorite card of 2017.




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