6 Must Have 1968-69 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Cards

The 1968-69 O-Pee-Chee NHL hockey card set was significant for a few important reasons. It marked the first O-Pee-Chee set since the very early 1940’s. It also marked the first time players from the 1967 NHL expansion teams were featured on cardboard.

 

The set consists of 216 cards, 84 than the Topps sister set. The book value for a full set of 216 is $2,500 while a common card is valued at $8. Like all sports card set, this one celebrates the season before, in this case, the 1967-68 National Hockey League season.

While the whole set is important to any hockey card collector, there are six must have 1968-69 O-Pee-Chee cards. Not surprisingly, three of the six feature Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins.

Bobby Orr - 2

The number 2 card is the most valuable with a book value of $350 and is the regular card of Bobby Orr. $350 is great but a far cry from the $3,000 his 1966-67 Topps rookie card is valued at but still one of the more valuable Bobby Orr hockey cards. 1967-68 was Orr’s second year in the league and, due to injury, played just 46 of Boston’s 74 regular season games. The star defenseman scored eleven goals and assisted on 20 for 31 points.

In the Stanley Cup playoffs, Orr played all of Boston’s four games as the Bruins were swept in the opening round by the Montreal Canadiens. This was significant as it was Boston’s first playoff series since 1958-59 when they fell in the opening round to the Toronto Maple Leafs. It meant that the building of a championship team had begun and in just two short years, the team would hold the Stanley Cup.

 

 

Checklist - 121

The number 121 card is a simple checklist. Yet, this hockey card is valued at $250. Checklists first appeared as part of the 1961-62 Topps set. Often, checklists from vintage hockey card set are valued high.

 

In some cases, they are the most valuable cards in the set. Why? The checklist was a booby prize. These unwanted cards were often thrown away without a second thought. It is due to shear scarcity that they are sought after cards decades later.

Bernie Parent - 89

The number 89 card is the highest valued rookie card in the 1968-69 O-Pee-Chee set. Also valued at $250, this card features goaltender Bernie Parent of the Philadelphia Flyers. Bernie’s NHL career started in 1965-66 with the Boston Bruins. Despite being the number one goalie on the team and playing in 39 of Boston’s 70 regular season games, Topps did not release a hockey card with his mug on the front.

1967-68 was Bernie’s third year in the NHL. He probably would have been part of the 1967-68 Topps set but, as mentioned, players from the six expansion teams were not included for some reason. Parent played in the NHL until the end of the 1978-79 season. In 1973-74 and 1974-75, he helped the Flyers win consecutive Stanley Cup championships. In each of those seasons, Bernie was awarded the Vezina Trophy and the Conn Smythe Trophy. He is now a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Bobby Orr - 200

The number 200 card shows Bobby Orr as a First Team All-Star. This card is valued at $150 and is the highest valued of the all-star cards. 1967-68 was the first of eight consecutive years that Orr was named a First Team All-Star defenseman.

The other defenseman on the First Team was Tim Horton of the Toronto Maple Leafs. None of Bobby’s Boston teammates were on the first squad but Phil Esposito was Second Team centre and Johnny Bucyk was Second Team left wing.

Bobby Orr - 214

The number 214 card is yet another belonging to Bobby Orr of the Bruins. This time, Orr is being honoured as the recipient of the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman. Like his all-star selections, this marked the first of eight consecutive times he would win the award.

This is the highest valued of the special trophy cards in the set. The next most valuable belongs to a teammate of Orr. Derek Sanderson is on the front of card number 213 as the Calder Trophy winner as rookie of the year. Bobby Orr won the same award the year before.

Gordie Howe - 29

The number 29 card belongs to the great Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings. This card is valued at $100 and is a long, long way from the 1951-52 Parkhurst Gordie Howe rookie card that has a book value of $3,000.

In 1967-68, Howe scored 39 goals and assisted on 43 for 82 points while playing all 74 regular season games for Detroit. He placed third in the NHL for goals, behind Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks. Howe was eighth in the league for assists and third in the race for the Art Ross Trophy behind Mikita and Phil Esposito.

Gordie did this all on a Red Wings team that finished last in the six team Eastern Division and second last overall in the 12 team NHL. Detroit had the second most goals scored in the league but they also allowed more goals than any other team in the NHL in 1967-68.

1974-75 NHL Season By The Numbers

The 1974-75 National Hockey League season featured the Philadelphia Flyers finishing first overall and winning their second Stanley Cup championship in a row. It would be the end of a great run for the Broad Street Bullies as the following season would see the Montreal Canadiens enter their dynasty of four consecutive Stanley Cups.

1 – The Kansas City Scouts and Washington Capitals played their inaugural season in the National Hockey League. The Capitals stayed put and are a threat in the NHL today. The Scouts didn’t last long in Kansas City, moving first to Denver to become the Colorado Rockies then to the east coast to become the present day New Jersey Devils.

12 – Bernie Parent recorded twelve shutouts while leading the Philadelphia Flyers to the lowest goals against total in the NHL. The next best goaltender in the league had six shutouts. Parent earned the Vezina Trophy and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Stanley Cup playoffs MVP.

51 – The Philadelphia Flyers were the only team to achieve the 50 win plateau in 1974-75. Their 113 points tied put them in a three-way tie for first overall with the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens. The Los Angeles Kings were the only other team to cross the 100-point threshold with 105. Philadelphia was the top team in the Clarence Campbell Conference and the Patrick Division.

67 – The upstart Washington Capitals lost 67 of 80 games in 1974-75. The Capitals won just eight, the lowest total ever recorded since the league moved to a 70 game schedule for the 1949-50 season. Expansion cousins, the Kansas City Scouts, fared a little better, winning 15, losing 54 and tying 11.

135 – Bobby Orr won the second Art Ross Trophy of his career with 135 points. Orr finished eight points ahead of teammate Phil Esposito and fourteen ahead of Marcel Dionne of the Detroit Red Wings. Orr won his first Art Ross in 1969-70 and is the only defenseman to win the award.

374 – The Montreal Canadiens led the NHL with 374 goals. Guy Lafleur was tops on the team with 53. Ten Montreal players had 20 or more goals and five scored 30 or more. The league leader in goals was Phil Esposito of the Boston Bruins with 61.

1,047 – Eddie Shack, ‘The Entertainer’, played his 1,047^th and final game in the National Hockey League. Shack played 26 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1974-75 before retiring. Eddie started in the NHL way back in 1958-59 with the New York Rangers. Along the way, he also played for the Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penguins.

 

Bernie Parent: Backbone of the Broad Street Bullies

When Bernie Parent entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984, the selection could not be argued or doubted. Parent starred in the NHL from 1965-66 until an eye injury prematurely ended his career during the 1978-79 National Hockey League season.

With the Boston Bruins owning his rights, Parent played his junior hockey for the Boston sponsored Niagara Falls Flyers of the Ontario Hockey Association. That version of the Flyers is now the Sudbury Wolves of the Ontario Hockey League. He was nearly unbeatable between the pipes for Niagara Falls in 1964-65 as he led the team to a Robertson Cup victory as OHA champions and a Memorial Cup victory as Canadian major junior champs.

Parent played his first two seasons of professional hockey split between the Bruins and the CPHL’s Oklahoma City Blazers. The Blazers and Bruins were amazingly full of strong youth in net with Bernie, Gerry Cheevers and Doug Favell. He played 39 games with the Bruins in his rookie season, 1965-66, but that number fell to 18 the following season.

The Philadelphia Flyers joined the NHL for the 1967-68 season, along with five other teams, doubling the size of the league from six to twelve teams. The Flyers selected Bernie in the expansion draft and he played most of the rest of his career with the club.

It wasn’t until the following year that players from the six expansion teams were featured on hockey cards. The Bernie Parent rookie card is without a doubt the first highly valued impact card showing a player from one of the new teams. The card appears as number 89 in both the 1968-69 O-Pee-Chee and 1968-69 Topps sets and is the highest valued rookie card in that year.

In 1970-71, Bernie Parent was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs mid-season. He played the rest of that season and the next with the Leafs. In a long string of big mistakes by Toronto, Parent’s services were not retained and he jumped to the World Hockey Association for the 1972-73 season.

Bernie played 63 games for the WHA’s Philadelphia Blazers in the league’s first year of existence. The team was unstable, beginning life as the Miami Screaming Eagles but moving to Philadelphia before a single game was played in Florida. Two professional teams proved too much for Philadelphia and the team moved to Vancouver the following season. Bernie didn’t follow the team, staying in Philadelphia and rejoining the Flyers.

Parent’s return to the NHL was nothing short of magical. Bernie won 47 of the 73 games he played in 1973-74, a record for most wins by a goaltender that has since been surpassed by Martin Brodeur. The Flyers won the Stanley Cup in both 1973-74 and 1974-75 with Parent being awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy both years. Both years also saw him win the Vezina Trophy.

The year following his exit from the NHL, Philadelphia retired his number 1. As mentioned above, Bernie Parent became an honoured member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984 after a stellar career with the Broad Street Bullies.

 

Hockey Trivia: Bernie Parent

Bernie Parent is easily the best goaltender to ever wear the jersey of the Philadelphia Flyers. Until the untimely end to his National Hockey Career in 1978-79 due to an eye injury, Parent was one of the best goalies of that era in the NHL.

Test and expand your hockey trivia knowledge of Bernie Parent with the following four trivia questions.

Q. Bernie Parent played one season in the World Hockey Association. Which WHA team did he play for?

A. Originally signed by the Miami Screaming Eagles, after not playing a single game in Florida, the Screaming Eagles were moved to Philadelphia where they were known as the Philadelphia Blazers for the 1972-73 season. Parent played 63 games for the Blazers in their only season in the WHA before becoming the Vancouver Blazers.

Parent left the Toronto Maple Leafs to play in the WHA’s inaugural season. Upon returning to the National Hockey League for the 1973-74 season, Bernie returned to the Flyers, the team that had traded him to Toronto during the 1970-71 season.

Q. Bernie Parent played his first NHL game with what team?

A. Parent was originally a prospect of the Boston Bruins. He played 39 games with the team in his rookie season, 1965-66, winning only eleven games. He played 18 games with the Bruins the following season before being drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft.

In his first year with Boston, Parent moved right into the number one position, playing 39 games for the Bruins. Ed Johnston played 33 games and Gerry Cheevers appeared in seven. By 1966-67, Johnston and Cheevers had taken over as Boston’s goaltending duo and the 1967 expansion was a blessing for Bernie.

Q. In 2006-07, what record did Martin Brodeur break that Bernie Parent set in 1973-74?

A. It took over three decades for someone to break Parent’s record for most wins by a goalie in a season. In 1973-74 Bernie won 47 games for the Philadelphia Flyers while losing only 13 in 73 games. Brodeur’s season was four games longer than Parent’s and Marty had the advantage of overtimes and shootouts. In the end, Marty broke the record by just one win with 48. Bernie tied 12 games in 1973-74 which would have been potential wins in today’s game.

Q. Bernie Parent won a Memorial Cup in 1964-65 with what Ontario Hockey Association team?

A. Ironically, Parent’s junior success came with a team also called the Flyers. The Niagara Falls Flyers were an OHA team sponsored by the Boston Bruins. The team won the Memorial Cup in 1965 with the help of future NHLers Jean Pronovost, Derek Sanderson and Don Marcotte.

Niagara Falls met the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Memorial Cup final series. The series was entirely held at the Edmonton Gardens in Edmonton, Alberta. The Flyers won four games to one, outscoring their opponents 16-3 in the final two games. Bill Long coached Niagara Falls and would go on to coach the Ottawa 67’s and London Knights in the OHL.