Card of the Month - August 2009

1993-94 High Liner Greatest Goalies - #8 of 15 - Tony Esposito

I've said this before, but probably the single greatest thing to come out of writing a blog about sports cards has been all of the friendly and generous fellow collectors that I've had a chance to meet. This month's Card of the Month illustrates that point. Sal, who is an avid Chicago Blackhawks fan and runs the great blog Puck Junk, has become a great trading partner and friend, and we've helped each other get a whole lot closer to completing some of our hockey sets. When he attended the Blackhawks Convention recently (if you missed his write-up of the event on Puck Junk you really owe it to yourself to check it out!) he emailed me letting me know that he had found a great odd-ball card he thought I'd like and was sending it my way. A couple of weeks later I got a package in the mail and in it was this Tony Esposito card, the likes of which I'd never seen.

A quick search on the internet revealed that this was a 1993-94 High Liner Greatest Goalies card. Apparently High Liner is a company from Nova Scotia who markets frozen seafoods and pasta. They must've included these cards with some of their products back in the early 90's. The picture above is actually of just the card itself, however the example Sal sent along still has the perforated game piece that came with each card attached. Here's a full scan of the entire card:

As you can see, attached to each card is a Shoot & Score Contest game piece. As tempting as it is to scratch these I don't think High Liner would redeem a prize at this point, so I'm going to leave the card as is, mint and unscratched. Would this have won someone a Chevy Astro van or a Super Nintento (ha!) back in the day? I'll never know. The card has a nice clean, simple design. Here's the back:
The back features a black and white mug shot along with a brief paragraph explaining why Tony was chosen as one of the "greatest goalies". Career stats are also listed and broken down by regular season and playoffs.

I kept thinking when I first saw the card that the photo looked very familiar, and sure enough, I believe it's the same photo that the artist who painted Esposito's Upper Deck Masterpieces card used for reference:
Thanks so much Sal for thinking of me when you were at the Convention and for contributing such a cool odd-ball card to my up and coming Tony Esposito collection! I'll be showcasing another great card from Sal on Shoebox Legends very soon!