Another Olympic medal for Jessie Diggins this morning!! The US’s most decorated women’s cross country skier of all time, in her last Olympics, competing on bruised ribs. If you don’t know her story, there was a great article in the NY Times about her a week ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/magazine/jessie-diggins-ski-winter-olympics-milan.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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!

Truly a must have sports card to own. The most memorable Mark McGwire memory for me was his battle against Sammy Sosa for 62 hrs in a season. What a time to be a baseball fan. I was rooting for Sosa though. The great Slammin Sammy! I know it was the Steriod era but it was fun.

Women’s gymnastics is one of the premier events at every summer Olympics. In the 1984 Olympics, held in Los Angeles, Mary Lou Retton took the world by storm winning gold in gymnastics. I love this autographed version with a fantastic descriptions of 1984 gold USA. While it’s likely not worth a lot, I love collecting historic sporting events like this that are steeped in history and nostalgia. I had this one authenticated by CGC X JSA. Their slabs are beautiful and crystal clear!

While the gold medal game is likely the more sought after ticket, this is the very first game team USA played in the 1992 Olympics. This fact alone makes it incredibly special as it was the “debut” game. USA won easily over Croatia with Michael Jordan leading all scorers with 21 points. The Croatian team, however, was loaded with NBA stars such as Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja and Toni Kukoc and others. I believe this to be the second most important dream team basketball ticket after the gold medal game!