My First hockey trading card
by
, 10-26-2015 at 11:32 AM (1492 Views)
Everyone has his first. As I recall, I got my first hockey trading card in summer of 2010. It was autographed 2008-09 Dinamo Riga Team Issue #15 Mārtiņš Cipulis. Of course I knew that such thing as sports trading cards exist before, but I've never had any interest in them before maybe because I've never had any. There have been Latvian team issued cards before, but as a hobby it's not that popular as it could be. Fortunately, the KHL league appeared in 2008 and thereby hockey trading cards became more popular. It started from Dinamo Riga issued cards and became as SeReal KHL official trading cards, which were produced in Riga, Latvia. But knowing the economic situation in Russia the 2014-15 season cards never came out.
But the fun fact about my first trading card is that my mother gave it to me and the story why this card is so special is that Mārtiņš Cipulis almost lives just around the corner. By Google maps it's 650 m or 8 min walking between our houses. For a 19.28 km2 (7.44 sq mi) city with a little more than 18 000 peoples with no skating rink Mārtiņš Cipulis was a superstar, at least for me. Here's some statistics:
- Mārtiņš Cipulis is fifth in all time statistics for National team of Latvia - 179 GP, 103 P (53+50), fourth best goal scorer, sixth best in assists;
- 14 games played in Olympic games, 4 P (2 G + 2 A). Participated in three Olympic games - 2006 in Torino, 2010 in Vancouver, 2014 in Sochi;
- 64 games played in World Championship, 34 P (15 G + 19 A), second best in WC TOP division, ;
- 9 games played in in Olympic game qualification, 4 P (2 G + 2 A);
- 302 games played in KHL, 82 P (41 G + 41 A) eleventh best from Latvian players, 28 games played in playoffs 2 P (2 G + 0 A).
So, after I got my first card, I began to take interest in this whole hockey card thing. First it was some base cards, then autograph, a little bit later - jersey and patch cards. And now there is no stopping and it keeps going further and further.
What's your story about your first trading card?