Hockey Card Stories by Ken Reid

Author:Ken Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hockey
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2014-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Bryan Maxwell

1976–77 OPC #54 (WHA)

I have always been fascinated with the WHA, though I can’t remember watching the games. Maybe it was because an old friend of the family used to work the lines in the league. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a fan of ’70s fashion. Maybe it’s because as a hockey nerd, the WHA produced so many stories and had such a huge effect on the game in such a short amount of time. It’s likely a combination of all of the above. Based on what I’ve read, watched and been told, the final couple of WHA seasons were crazy times. Teams were on the move, addresses were changing and players were caught in the middle of it all. It was a case of permanent flux.

And that, of course, meant that card makers had to be on their toes. Keeping track of the whereabouts of players was no easy task. Think about it. Everyone’s go-to reference, HockeyDb.com, was still decades away.

But there were positives. The turbulence and the chaos of the WHA brought us this fine piece of cardboard—Bryan Maxwell’s rookie card.

This is not just any rookie card. Sure, it’s your run-of-the-mill WHA pose shot. But then the airbrushing takes over. It’s a Cincinnati Stingers card, but as you can plainly see, the airbrush doctor made no attempt to draw the Stingers’ logo. They didn’t even bother trying to colour the thing black and gold. It resembles a simple white sheet, draped over the body of an unsuspecting player. Few players, I am sure, would like to be airbrushed on their first ever hockey card. But it’s not the doctoring that Maxwell talks about all these years later.

“That’s not even me,” says Bryan Maxwell. That’s the kicker. The airbrush, maybe you can live with that, but a case of mistaken identity combined with an airbrush job on your first card? Now that’s a double whammy.

So, of course, after all these years, there’s no mystery as to who the man on the card is … right?

“I don’t know who it is on my Cincinnati card,” says the former player turned coach turned businessman, who runs a shuttle service, ShuttleMax, between Lethbridge and Calgary. His reaction upon seeing the card now is the same one he had the first time he saw it decades ago: “Holy geez! Who the heck is this?”

Maxwell’s rookie card started a trend as far as his cardboard went. It seems he was one tough guy to identify. He was a journeyman on the ice. In the ’76–77 season, he played for the WHA Stingers and the American League’s Springfield Indians. The following season he suited up for three teams: Minnesota in the NHL, the Binghamton Dusters of the AHL and the WHA’s New England Whalers.

Apparently all that moving and shuffling around created more confusion. Maxwell didn’t have a card for the ’77–78 season, but when ’78–79 rolled around there was more trouble. His second-ever hockey card was much like his first one.

“On my North Stars card, it’s Brad Maxwell on the front—it’s not me.

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