Found in My Brother's Basement: NHL All Stars

In January 1990, the National Hockey League hosted its all-star game and activities in Pittsburgh. Although we didn't have tickets to any events at the Civic Arena, my dad took me, my brother, and my best friend to the hotel (probably the Marriott City Center) across the street on the Saturday before the game. I'm not sure what exactly we expected being at the hotel. I guess our hope was that players would go to and from the arena through the hotel. We weren't alone as there were dozens if not hundreds of people joining us in the lobby. I'm sure that the hotel staff was thrilled!

Sure enough, we did see players. While I'll always choose Mario Lemieux over Wayne Gretzky, Wayne was gracious in signing autographs for at least an hour. Meanwhile, Mario ran through the lobby as quickly as possible, signing only a handful of autographs. My brother was one of the few of the lucky ones. We got autographs from several other players too, so today, I'm happy to share a brand new found in my brother's basement!

I guess we thought that we might forget who signed the autograph or were unsure if we could read the signature. That's why you see the hand-written names near the autographs.

Thanks to Wayne, Mario (sort of), Mark Messier, Al Iafrate, Joe Nieuwendyk, and others for taking time to sign autographs for kids.

I should also mention that the Gary Anderson autograph was from a different event. Plus, I'm pretty sure the Will Clark autograph was part of the card.