Collecting Whalers - A Couple of '70s Essentials

When I got back into sports card collecting in 2007, there were a few key Whalers cards that I knew I really wanted to track down.  Two of the most wanted were a couple of team cards from the 1970s.  Well, it only took me five years or so, but I am excited to have them both in the collection at long last.

The first card is this New England Whalers team logo insert from 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee.  I actually used one of these inserts, the WHA league logo card, for my WHA Card of the Month post this past March.  These inserts are relatively difficult to come by and draw plenty of bids whenever they crop up on eBay.  In fact, examples of this particular card in good condition regularly go for $50 +.  This was undoubtedly one of the toughest Whalers cards I've had to track down to date.

The card itself looks great in my biased opinion.  I've always liked the New England Whalers' logo.  The ring of rope around the outside edge is a very fitting maritime element, and can you think of another logo that features a harpoon gun?  I didn't think so!  Another thing that makes this card great is that it was released during the WHA's inaugural '72-73 season, and the Whalers were actually champions of the new league that very first year (the only championship of any kind for the franchise before it moved to Carolina in the mid-'90s).

The other card I was excited to acquire was this 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee NHL entry checklist.  As everyone knows, when the WHA folded after the '78-79 season four of its franchises merged into the NHL.  In the '79-80 Topps hockey set all four franchises are represented on a single card.  In the O-Pee-Chee set though, each team received its own card on the checklist.

I snagged this one for just a couple bucks on Check Out My Cards this past fall.  It may not be as nice looking as the New England logo, but the Hartford Whalers logo isn't too shabby either.  In fact, for a simple design it's pretty genius.  I'm sure there are people who have looked at it more than once and not even realized that the white space in between the green 'W' and the blue whale's tail actually forms an 'H' for Hartford.  For the longest time I was just as ignorant about the Milwaukee Brewers logo with the baseball inside the glove.  I must have looked at that logo 1,000 times as a kid and never realized that the glove itself is actually comprised of the letters 'M' (fingers) and 'B' (thumb and palm).

So there you go, a couple of Whalers team cards.  Are there are any team logos that you've just overlooked certain elements on?  If so I'd like to hear about it in the comments!