The Ultimate Bobby Ryan Auto

Or I guess I should have said, a 11-12 Ultimate Signatures Bobby Ryan Auto. A nice on card auto of a guy that used to be known as the guy picked behind Crosby. However, Bobby has shown that he deserved to be 2nd overall and has been scoring very consistently since his break out year in 08-09. He has four straight 30 goal seasons and that streak is likely only going to be broken because of the shortened season. Hard to believe the Ducks have considered trading him like rumours may have suggested, but if he remains with the Ducks (along with Perry and Getzlaf), the Ducks will be a force for a number of years.

11-12 UD Ultimate Signatures Bobby Ryan

A nice on card auto with blue sharpie and his number 9. I like that UD recognizes that Ultimate is a premium product and doesn't use sticker technology with their autos here. I was able to land this as part of the lot deal with my Ryan Johansen.

11/12 UD Ultimate Pick-ups

I have some really cool post ideas that are both very personal and very meaningful to me, but it just seems that I have no time to do these posts justice so they keep getting put on the back burner. Fact is, they likely won't interest many of my casual readers or any of my readers for that matter, but as time has done by on this blog I am beginning to realize one thing. What I have realized is that not only am I doing this for personal fun, not only am I doing this to be a member of a really cool community, but I am also doing this for my children. 

I have a son who can't read or write (because he is two) and another one to join him in February and anything can happen to me at any time. If I died tomorrow, you might see another post or two on here but that would be it, and further more my story about life, collecting etc., would be over. My passion for collecting and love of hockey would be extinguished too and my children may never know how much I really enjoyed it or why certain cards were important. 

My blog, does give me that opportunity because "the internet is forever" and what I say or do can be  read in the future by them whether I am around or not. I think this new focus will allow me to share more meaningful posts to an audience I never knew I might have...my family. I guess you can consider this a warning that my posts may get less interesting to you on occasion, or on occasion I will be more interesting....I guess it depends on what brought you to my site in the first place.

In the meantime, here is some 11/12 UD Ultimate cardboard!

11/12 Ultimate Signatures Brett Connolly

I am becoming a bigger collector of his by the day, here is a nice simple on-card auto of a future star in my opinion!

11/12 UD Ultimate Rookie Patches

Two rookie patches, three colours and numbered to an arbitrary 65. I love the card and it gives me some NJ swatches of one of our best prospects on the blue-line! The best part is both of these combined cost me less than a pack of Artifacts with shipping!

Just Wayne, and about time!

Ever since I got back into collecting  and heard about these "relic" cards, I have always wanted a Gretzky. Each year they pump more of these out and thus it lowers the price of the insignificant ones. I landed my first Gretzky relic for a price I felt was very fair and I am very happy to have it!

11/12 UD Ultimate Ultimate Jerseys UJ-WG Wayne Gretzky /100

This was from the 96 All-Star game and where he did nothing offensively. It is a shame he didn't score while wearing this jersey, but at the same time it is nice to have a swatch from the game's greatest player and KNOW what game it came from. To me, that is much cooler than a random swatch which appeared who knows where and featured him doing who know what.