Leading all head coaches in Devils history with wins it's Jacques Lemaire with 276 wins in the regular season plus a Stanley Cup in 1995 as head coach. As much as I loved all the Devils Cup wins, the first one was probably the most memorable and important as it turned our franchise from a Mickey Mouse one to a legitimate organization. This past week was Jacques' 71st birthday and I hope he is having a good time as the Special Assignment Coach with the Leafs.
2012-13 ITG Forever Rivals Autos Jacques Lemaire
Oddly missing from my collection for a very long time was Lemaire's auto. I have autos from pretty much every member of that Cup winning team except the head coach (perhaps a few others I really should check). I came across this about 7-8 months ago at the LCS when the owner said he got a huge binder of these in and was looking to move them. I'm sure I could have found a home for all of them but this was the only one I bought. Now that I have this one crossed off, it takes care of part of my HOF project with him and my informal "let's get all the '95 Devils autos".
The card itself is a nice on card auto in red ink. I don't have many red ink autos but given it's the main colour for the Devils and Habs I believe it's very appropriate to use it on this card. In all this was a very well done product by ITG despite no license. As the years have gone by I have been less and less into ITG for reasons I am not too sure of. Leaf seems to be running the ship and oddly I see less and less of their stuff in the LCS and in the media in general. Have you noticed that too? Or is it just where I live and it's more prevalent in the USA now? I'm curious to hear your thoughts and as always, thanks for stopping by.
That's a beauty Dave! You should definitely take a look at the roster of that Stanley Cup team and see what you still need for autos, sounds like a fun project (and set of blog posts!).
ReplyDeleteThanks and Shane that's a great idea. I am going to have to do some digging but from what I initially saw I am pretty close.
DeleteNice card! I'm curious about your 1995 Devils autos- are they all card company certified like this one, or are some in-person/TTM? I once had a 01-02 Fleer Greats Lemaire auto and I was fascinated by his signature; it looked like "eeeeeeee" lol.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chris! From the ones I have at the moment, it is various companies, mostly certified but a few are TTM or ones other people got in person. I'm not super picky like some collectors but I could see some striving for a card company one for their collection.
DeleteThat sounds like a pretty cool card, I love the look of that set.