Things to do without hockey. Part1.

The Dallas Stars do not play a game now until Thursday, November 12th against the San Jose Sharks. That’s four whole days without needing to run for the TV remote or look on nhl.com or the Stars site or even… dare I say it… Twitter.

I figured – rather than over analyzing everything so far this season – I would have a bit of fun during this down time and keep you all up to date with how I’m faring on my quest to bring hockey to the greater masses of the UK.

My current project sees me utterly dumb-founded in the fact that my darling wife has had a favourite hockey team all along!

Nope. I couldn’t believe it either.

During a browse through the Stars online shop last night, I was drooling over the road jersey (don’t think too much to the home one… bit plain) when from behind me I heard these immortal words;
“I love the Philadelphia Flyers one”.
Ladies and gentlemen let me tell you, if I’d had a mouthful of any kind of drink, my monitor would have been dripping with it!
So elated was I with this revelation that I opened the NHL site, browsed for the Flyers and found out the price of their jerseys. I even went to the trouble of converting it from US dollars to pounds sterling (for those interested, a Flyers jersey in UK currency is £69 without personalization or shipping. Bargain). So it seems my wife is well on the road to hockey appreciation.

Next up is my 8 year old son.

My boy gets swamped with soccer stuff whether he likes it or not from pretty much every quarter. He has about 12 soccer balls, 2 or 3 soccer kits, trading cards… you name it.

After having sorted through my extensive Mike Modano card collection last night, I condensed my collection into one box rather than having loads of different ones all over the place. With a spare plastic case now available, I did the Dad thing and handed it to my lad. I told him if he looked after that case for a week, I would give him some of my Modano swaps to keep in it. Then this happened:

“Can I pick a favourite hockey team and get some cards for them as well?”

Holy Moly!!!

My task for today is to compile a list of all NHL teams logos and / or jerseys and email them to my boy while I’m at work and he in turn will pick his favourite. I reeled off a few team names to him last night, the Anaheim Ducks, Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings seemed to get the most interest but (thankfully) there is still time.

Once he has his team, I’m thinking of getting him set up with a few cards from various places (he absolutely LOVES trading cards) and seeing if he’s still interested in a couple of months or so.

Further to this – it has been years since I bought any of these things – I’m wondering if anyone can recommend anywhere to get a hold of hockey trading cards that will deliver internationally at a reasonable price?

More updates to follow…