In honor of the college hockey playoffs starting, I thought I'd share this puck. It features the founding eight members of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC), home to 7 of the last 9 D-1 national champions. The original teams are Denver University, University of North Dakota, University of Nebraska-Omaha, Universityof Minnesota-Duluth, Colorado College, St. Cloud State University, Miami of Ohio, and Western Michigan University. This was before Arizona State joined in 2024 and St. Thomas joins next season, giving the NCHC 10 teams.

Just got my Jake Guentzel Team USA card in today's mail. He's the first UNO alumni to earn a gold medal in the Olympics. USA! USA! USA!

Got a sweet looking RPA as my latest No Purchase Necessary win from Upper Deck, even though the Flames aren't my team. However, the letter accompanying the card states that this is from 2024-25 Premier, but the back of the card states that it's from 2023-24 Premier. Oh well. Free sweet card is free sweet card.

In honor of the Olympics going on, and Team USA's first game on Thursday, here are some Team USA cards of players I got to watch in college. Of these, only Brian Cooper was in the Olympics. Saville and Pivonka were Team USA World Juniors. Stolarz and Megna were IIHF World Championships Team USA. And Knoepke was on the USNDT prior to coming to UNO. I need to try and track down some Guentzel Team USA cards (either last year's 4 Nation Faceoff or any eventual cards from this Olympics). USA! USA! USA!

Here's my newest score. They were giving out 3000 of these tonight at the college hockey game, in honor of Jake Guentzel being named to the USA Olympic team. He led Omaha to their first (and so far, only) NCAA Frozen Four appearance in 2015, scoring the only goal in that semi-final game against eventual national champion Providence College. He then captained the Mavs the next season before joining the Penguins organization. He won the Stanley Cup and led the playoffs in points as a rookie in 2017.

He'll join my other bobbleheads Coach Gabinet and Durango (UNO's mascot) on my desk.