It wasn’t hockey cards for me. It was baseball and I was hooked. So hooked, in fact, that I asked for a case of cards for Christmas. A CASE! Santa came through.
I remember excitedly opening up the packages at our rarely-used dining room table and examining the cards one by one in hopes of getting a rookie card or some superstar, and then sliding them, in order (first alphabetically by team, then individually by number because that’s just the kind of person I am) into the plastic sleeves held in one of two big binders.
I still have them to this day. (One is red and the other is blue and I wish they were the same colour, but never mind that.)
Back then I liked the Oakland Athletics. It was 1989 — the Rickey Henderson years. With Jose Canseco before he got weird, Mark McGwire, and some cool pitchers like Dennis Eckersley, Rick Honeycutt and Dave Stewart.
They swept the San Francisco Giants in the World Series that year.
I also became mildly obsessed with the 6.9 magnitude earthquake that coincidentally rattled San Francisco 29 years ago to the day I’m writing this (Oct. 17) at the start of Game 3 of that series. I still have the scrapbook I made out of newspaper coverage. Morbid…but fascinating nevertheless.
But enough about me. Let’s talk about a cool nine-year-old hockey card lover instead.
I was scrolling around Facebook the other day when I came across a plea from a mother. It was a simple request but three days after it was posted there had still been no response. At least publicly anyway.
“My son is looking for someone to trade Tim Hortons hockey cards with,” wrote Maple Bay’s Rhyanon Bridger.
How sweet is that?
I contacted Bridger to see if she’d had any responses privately.
The answer was “unfortunately, no.”
He’d even included a photo of the cards he’s got available for trade. Surely there’s got to be somebody out there to trade with?
Bridget even posted a photo of the cards her son Bradaigh Bridger-Taft, has made available for trade. He’s home-schooled so he doesn’t have the option of bringing cards to the classroom.
So, I’m asking you, my dear readers, do you want to trade cards with this young fellow?
After I talked with his mom, I received a letter from young Mr. Bridger-Taft himself.
“I asked my mom to put my cards on Facebook because I was hoping to get some cards for my collection that I am missing and maybe make some new friends!” he wrote. “I love Tim Hortons hockey cards because hockey is one of my favourite sports and looking at stats is so much fun. I love finding out where players are born.”
Bradaigh’s best card is an Edmonton Oiler: Connor McDavid from the Top Line Talent Set, “because they are really hard to find.”
His favourite card, though, is one of his favourite player, Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The Oilers are his favourite team. (Mine too, after the Canucks, of course).
“He is a big supporter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation on the Island and I have Cystic Fibrosis,” Bradaigh explained. “I would be happy to get any of the cards that I am missing from my collection but I am looking for a couple specific ones.”
Bradaigh is seeking out a Connor McDavid card from the base set, a P.K. Subban card from the Super Star showcase set, and the Game Day Action Erik Karlson card.
“The best card I could get would be Leon Drasaitl from the Clear Cut set!” he noted.
It kind of makes me wanna go grab a pack and see what I get.
sarah.simpson@cowichanvalleycitizen.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
