Josh Gorges Mega Show & Tell Thread - What a Career!

[RGM81]

As you guys may have seen in the main forum, my dude has officially hung up the skates and called it a career.

After 13 years, eight of which were spent with my beloved Habs, Josh Gorges is moving on to the next phase of his life. I'm very happy for him, a kid who was UNDRAFTED and started out his hockey career with his (and my) hometown Kelowna Rockets. So many guys who don't get drafted end up going overseas and the few who do make it to the NHL usually don't get more than a handful of games in the big time. This guy established himself as a leader, worked his bag off every shift of every game, and was one of the most well-liked players on the team. He never had a huge shot, he didn't throw huge checks, but he did all of the little things that help make a guy like him successful in the NHL. I still don't understand why they wanted to trade him, and I think had he been around and made captain after 2013-14, things would have been a lot different for some of the personnel in the years ahead. That's idle speculation for another time.

Anyways, here's a retrospective of Josh's career as told by the cards in my PC. Many years ago when I got back into collecting, I needed an alternative to Carey Price for collecting efforts. Josh was an obvious decision. Hometown boy playing for my favourite team! So here we are, at the end, and as of today I've got 259 cards in my collection plus an assortment of one-of-a-kind and super-rare items. I've had the opportunity to meet Josh numerous times over the years, and helped support him in two of his charitable events here in Kelowna in recent years--and looking forward to doing so again this year with the 2nd Annual Homebase softball event. Those opportunities have meant I've got a lot of autographs on things, and quite a few photos as well.

Let's begin at the beginning...

Josh's first hockey card, a team issued Kelowna Rockets card:


This item took me years to find. An Extreme Memorial Cup card:


His first major card company autograph:


A signed puck from the 2004 Memorial Cup Championship team:


Moving on to the NHL now....his SPA FWA, graded:


Cup RC:



Graded 9.5 Cup RC:


Cup Gold Rainbow #'d to only 6:


And the ultimate card for anybody, the Cup Black Rainbow 1/1!


All right, enough of that. Let's get to the Habs stuff!

This kind of became an obsession for me over the years. His first major Habs issued card, the Upper Deck Series 2 from 2007-08...might as well go High Gloss right? 7 out of the 10 copies.


Anybody remember the joys of the 2008-09 OPC Blank Backs? Another card that took me forever to get. Somehow over time I ended up with 3.


When Panini came along in 2010-11, things really started to ramp up for him in terms of cards. UD wasn't doing much, and you can't really blame them given his role on the team, but it's almost as though someone at Panini was thinking of me when making some of these sets. LOL

Here's his first game-used card:


And then along came Dominion that year. The 1/1 is still out there. I've seen it. But this, for Josh at the time, was easily the most prolific card he'd ever been featured on:


It was also around this time that I started to get into the memorabilia world a bit. Never huge, but dabbling. This was a great pickup. Note the error on the one glove. When I brought these to an event for signing, Josh and I both chuckled.



I'm fortunate to have good family members who have my interests at heart. Back in the day the Rockets would have an open event weekend for their Alumni, including a scrimmage game. This is the jersey Josh wore for that event in 2010:


A few years back I helped my pals at Players Choice (who have been amazing over the years helping me find stuff for this PC) with a big sale on some Habs memorabilia. This was my commission, a nice game-worn helmet.



It was also in this time period that a long-awaited redemption was finally fulfilled.



Panini was still leading the way for Josh's cards. This one....just wow. Thanks to @Quirkcards for the trade on this beauty.


2012-13 was probably around the time of peak Gorges, as far as cards go. He was included in a couple big sets, including Limited and Prime. This resulted in some of the most amazing cards being produced during the course of his NHL career.

Let's do Limited first...

Note the jersey card #!


Getting bigger...


Very difficult to imagine anything topping this!


This is his only standalone NHL Shield card, BTW.

OK now for Prime...again, incredible that these were made and even better I was able to get my hands on so many!

Logo


Laundry Tags


Letters


And...NUMBERS!


12-13 was also the year that UD finally got around to make some minty cards...









Our story is starting to wind down a little bit now, as 2013-14 was of course his final year in Montreal. But there were some reall nice pieces made that season:

Prime was once again stellar:


I like this one a bunch. I think I have two or three:


Always nice to share some space with Carey!


Love this one too:


He even got featured in Team Canada!


And boy there's a fun story here. When Panini did National Treasures a couple of my pals chopped a box. I joked that if they hit any Carey or the Josh shield they had to give it to me. Imagine the shock on everybody's faces when this came out:



That pretty much winds up the Montreal chapter. It was one amazing ride.

Things wittled down in Buffalo. He was not featured on anything other than OPC & UD base sets. That's OK, I still went after them:



Even the E-Pack goodies:


Ultimately, this would be his last NHL produced card:



Thanks to Club 1909, the Canadiens fan member rewards program, I've been lucky enough to obtain some pretty exclusive items...

This is a goal puck from the 2011-12 season. It was from the night that Lars Eller scoed 4 goals against the Jets.



I have actually since gotten this puck signed by Josh.

Additionally, I have this awesome piece directly from the Canadiens locker room.



It has been one heck of a great career for Josh, and I'm happy for him as he moves on to the next chapter.

Me, I'll work on filling those last few gaps in the PC!

[Flyers67]

Very cool collection! Amazing stories to go along with these cards to!

[aweeks]

Just awesome Richard.. Some great looking pieces there :)

[creasecollector]

Great thread Richard. It was an absolute blast scrolling through your thread and seeing some of your sweet Gorges pieces. Insane! I personally love the Cup Black 1/1, the shields, and the Prime Numbers. It's so great that you were able to obtain all of those pieces. The memorabilia pieces are also very diverse as well.

Best of luck tracking down more pieces for this incredible collection!

[gebernier]

Amazing!!!

[LecavalierFan]

That is a great collection. Thanks for sharing!

[odjickfan]

You have a great collection. Thank you for sharing :)

[Uhtred.the.viking]

Wow, so many great cards and items. The grouping from Prime is outstanding, lot of time & effort put into finding both Captain's Cloth cards I would imagine. Thanks for sharing!

[RGM81]

Wow, so many great cards and items. The grouping from Prime is outstanding, lot of time & effort put into finding both Captain's Cloth cards I would imagine. Thanks for sharing!

As soon as I saw his name on the checklist I knew it was going to be a big effort on my part. Guys like him don’t necessarily “fit” into high end products so I’m sure that people who hit his cards at first were probably less than thrilled until they popped them on eBay and I hit the BIN. Haha

[sparty07]

Saw this in one of my Facebook groups. Want me to try to make contact? Screenshot_20190218-111640_Facebook.jpg