1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Juha Widing #46 Los Angeles Kings

Description

1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Juha Widing #46 Los Angeles Kings Long before the Finnish pipeline became a permanent feature of the NHL, there was Juha Widing, and this card captures him in the middle of his best years in Los Angeles. The 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Juha Widing #46 Los Angeles Kings presents the blond centre in the vintage gold and purple Kings sweater with the crown crest across the chest, framed by a brilliant green background that makes this one of the most colourful cards in the entire 341 card Canadian set. Widing was born in Oulu, Finland and raised partly in Sweden, arriving in North America at a time when European trained players were still a novelty and were routinely told they would not survive the North American game. He proved otherwise, becoming one of the first Finnish born skaters to establish himself as a full time NHL regular and one of the fastest skaters in the league, nicknamed Whitey for his pale hair. Originally in the New York Rangers system, he came to Los Angeles and became a smooth playmaking centre who led the Kings in scoring and repeatedly finished among the club leaders in goals and points during the early seventies, a genuine building block for a franchise still finding its footing in a non traditional market. His story is also a poignant one, as he died young in 1984, which has given his cards an added significance for collectors of hockey history and for Finnish fans tracing the roots of their country's NHL presence. This card comes from the first series of the 1972-73 issue, released during the Summit Series season and the first year of the World Hockey Association. The reverse is an authentic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, cream and orange, with English and French biography text explaining his nickname and his status as one of the best hockey players from Finland, a cartoon panel, and a career record grid for his Los Angeles seasons. It is a bilingual statistical back and not a puzzle back, with Printed In Canada printed at the base. the photos show a front with no creases or wrinkles and strong green and gold colour, corners that show light rounding at the upper right and lower left with the other two tips still reasonably clean, a few small white flecks along the top edge and the left border consistent with O-Pee-Chee rough cutting, a small dark speck in the green field near the upper left, and a cut that is noticeably diamonded with the top border tight and the bottom border wider, tilting the printed frame slightly within the card. The conservative estimate is driven primarily by that off axis cut rather than by handling wear. Grade Estimate: VG-EX 4