A little recognition from Upper Deck

A little over 3 years ago my life changed as the birth of my first son happened! Quinn came into my life and as unlucky as I was to have had my parents divorce (and other subsequent divorces too) but at the same time I had two fathers who I would have considered to be very influential in my development as a man. My biological father was key in nurturing my scholastic abilities and athletic interests and my step father was key in nurturing my athletic abilities and collecting interests. Neither father was pushy on my and both did their best to bring the best out in me. They had radically different approaches but both have had long lasting impacts on my life and as a father myself now I am trying my best to use the best parts of both of them.

I have mentioned a few times about my step-father and our shared passion of collecting and that is something I hope to do with both my boys Quinn and Rhett. Quinn is 3 now and he knows about my cards and he likes to look at them from time to time. He also have a few of his own, which he will put in and out of pages and he seems to really like to "organize" them. Rhett is now 7 months old and he loves looking at his mobile while I am getting his bath all ready or doing some work in his room. People would often comment on how cool they thought the idea was, so I finally sent a tweet to Upper Deck showing my handiwork and it actually snowballed into a pretty cool post, check it out here! Thank you Upper Deck for the recognition, I do believe that kids are never too young to start collecting. However, Panini and their 9+  age suggestion on packs may disagree!

My Hockey Card Mobile


I made this mobile from a shower gift that I was given. Having not liked the little flowers hanging from it I used fishing line and a few of my extra hockey cards kicking around. I was purposeful in my card selection, at the centre was Martin Brodeur and David Clarkson (see Clarkie you cut me deep). I had some cards from 89-90 OPC, 90-91 UD because those are sets I really liked. Then I picked current and former Devils both in and out of Devils uniforms including the Niedermayer Brothers which is very appropriate considering I ended up having two boys.

Both boys loved the mobiles as infants and like my fathers I will not push them to play hockey or collect but if they choose to pick up the game or hobby, I hope to help create similar memories to ones I had and hope that they will have as much fun as I did.