Hockey card collections are like cherished families with familiar faces that stare back for decades without speaking. In this case, a collector sets out to explore the stories and people behind some of his longest-held cards.
A hockey-card collection quickly becomes a cherished family you can’t speak to; faces frozen in time and memory as they stare wordlessly back from childhood through middle age.
Delving back into my 40-plus years collection after Seattle was awarded an NHL franchise, the familiar names and faces again jumped out and begged the question of who these men were. Not Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr or Gordie Howe, whose stories are known. More the obscure journeymen, who, through collecting their cards, became as familiar as those superstars.
It was time to seek out their stories.
My search, for time purposes and regardless of outcome, was limited to four cards culled from hundreds. They best depicted long-forgotten players I knew nothing about, yet are as instantly recognizable to me now as when first viewing them decades ago.
One was the collection’s oldest: a Parkhurst card from 1954-55 of New York Rangers center Nick Mickoski. Also, a 1970-71 O-Pee-Chee (OPC) card of California Golden Seals defenseman Dick Mattiussi, whose smile always seemed somewhat fatherly. There’s a 1973-74 OPC of Kansas City Scouts winger Doug Horbul, his flowing locks, receding hairline and purple uniform standing out.
Finally, a 1977-78 OPC of forward Mike Lampman of the Washington Capitals, whose mustached headshot still resonates. But it was the back of Lampman’s card that launched our conversation: showing his 30 games with the minor league Seattle Totems in 1973-74.
“I loved playing there,’’ Lampman, 68, said from Hawaii, where he’s now a bank loans officer. “The city was great, and the fans were really into hockey. I can’t wait to see how they do with the NHL.’’
Lampman lived downtown and rode the monorail to what’s now KeyArena before the Totems’ parent Vancouver Canucks lost him to D.C. in the Expansion Draft. His brother later moved here and lives in Kirkland, so Lampman still visits.
He’d followed a girlfriend to Hawaii after his 96-game career ended Dec. 3, 1976, while playing for the Capitals against Philadelphia.
“Icing rules were different then and we were racing after the puck to try to touch it and (Andre) Moose Dupont sent me flying into the boards,’’ Lampman said. “My neck was very sore. I knew it was bad. It’s funny, but the way the game was back then, the team doctor was going to clear me to play against Boston two nights later. But my chiropractor said ‘No way!’ until he had a look.’’
The diagnosis: A career-ending broken neck.
Lampman was only 26. But the injury would heal, and he’d earned his economics degree playing for the University of Denver.
“It was hard,’’ he said. “But I’ve made my peace with it. I was fortunate and wound up doing OK for myself.’’
Lampman cherishes his NHL tenure, including two final Capitals seasons under coach and current Camas, Wash., resident Tom McVie — “Please say hi to him for me’’ — and rooming at training camp with veteran Garnet “Ace” Bailey. Years later, while an NHL scout, Bailey died in the 9/11 terror attacks when he was a passenger on a plane that struck the World Trade Center.
“He was a serious player but knew how to have fun,’’ Lampman said. “I remember training camp under Tommy (McVie) was brutally hard. Every night, Ace would smuggle beer in to the hotel room and hide it in the back of the toilet tank. When camp ended we had a huge blowout party.’’
Lampman sports the same mustache — albeit grayer — as on his final hockey card, which erroneously lists him born in Lakewood, Calif., despite only moving there from Hamilton, Ont., at age 12. The mistake got Lampman invited to U.S. Olympic team tryouts before he informed officials he was Canadian.
But card mistakes happen.
Scouts winger Horbul’s card correctly spells his name in front but has “Horbol’’ on the back. Hailing from the same Saskatchewan town as Hall of Famer Elmer Lach, Horbul’s NHL career lasted just four games that season.
But Horbul proved a solid minor-leaguer and even shared an agent with Lampman. That agent, Richard Sorkin, was later imprisoned for bilking $600,000 from hockey clients. Lampman said he “got off lucky’’ losing $5,000, but it’s unclear whether Horbul lost money. After his pro career, Horbul, now 66, played with the senior league Trail Smoke Eaters in B.C. and lives nearby, though voicemails went unreturned.
The other un-interviewed card subject was ex-Rangers center Mickoski, who died at 74 in 2002 in his native Winnipeg. But his son, Robert, 53, happily discussed his father’s 1948 playoff debut with the Rangers at age 18 and subsequent “Broadway Nick’’ dubbing by teammates.
“They’d offered him $200 per game,’’ Mickoski’s son said. “The first thing he did was he went down Broadway and bought the best suits and some Stetsons and Cuban cigars. He really loved the scene.’’
After 705 games with the Rangers, Chicago, Detroit and Boston, “Broadway Nick” finished with the minor pro Western Hockey League’s San Francisco Seals — losing the 1962-63 scoring title by two points to Seattle Totems legend Guyle Fielder. But Mickoski’s Seals downed the Totems in that year’s seven-game final.
Mickoski returned to Winnipeg to coach a junior squad. Its owner, Ben Hatskin, planned a Winnipeg franchise for the World Hockey Association (WHA) launch in 1972 but needed a marquee player.
“My dad tells him ‘It’s got to be Bobby Hull,’ ’’ Mickoski’s son said. “Hatskin goes ‘Do you really think he’d come here?’ ”
“Broadway Nick” had played with Blackhawks star Hull in Chicago. They secretly met up, and Mickoski relayed that Hatskin would pay Hull a record $1 million signing bonus. Hull would later agree and became player-coach of the new Winnipeg Jets, with Mickoski his assistant coach their first two WHA seasons.
The final card researched was of Golden Seals defenseman Mattiussi, nicknamed “Blackie Carbon” during a 200-game career with Pittsburgh and California.
“It’s because I had jet black hair,’’ said Mattiussi, 80, whose card confirms it. “I guess now, I’d be ‘Whitey Carbon.’’’
He’d played in the minors in Cleveland with Bill Masterton in 1962-63 and they and their wives became friends. Later, with the NHL expansion Minnesota North Stars in 1968, Masterton died after hitting his head during a game.
“It was just a fluke thing and so, so sad,’’ Mattiussi said of Masterton, for whom an annual NHL sportsmanship trophy is named. “He was a very nice guy, and we were pretty close.’’
Mattiussi, post-NHL, played for the Boston Bruins’ minor league Rochester affiliate where he and coach Don Cherry were neighbors. They drove to games and dined out together.
Cherry was named Bruins coach in 1974-75. Mattiussi became Rochester’s coach and lived two years in Cherry’s vacant house.
“He was a bit of a patriot,’’ Mattiussi recalled. “He had pictures of all these old generals.’’
The irascible, opinionated Cherry — sporting colorful suit jackets — later became a famed Hockey Night in Canada television commentator still going today at age 85. But Mattiussi lost touch after leaving Rochester over “philosophical differences’’ following two coaching seasons.
Now retired from a security supervisor’s job at a paper mill and living in Gretzky’s hometown of Brantford, Ont., Mattiussi long doubted anyone remembered his NHL career. Then, he began receiving phone calls about — of all things — his hockey cards.
“People — maybe collectors — were calling from as far away as Russia asking if I could sign my card for them,’’ he said, laughing. “I guess that’s one way to be remembered.’’
Onetime Capitals and Totems forward Lampman agrees. He collected cards in his youth and still has a full Topps NHL set from 1961-62.
“It brings the past back to life,’’ he said.
And sometimes, can help long dormant stories finally be told.