Hockey - Canada’s national sport. Yet for fifty years they had not managed to bring home the gold medal from the Olympic Games in this, their sport. All that changed in February 2002 when both the men’s and women’s team defeated Team USA in their respective gold medal games to end the nation’s frustration. With the significance of the win (never mind the collective sigh of relief around Canada) it was no surprise when merchandise started appearing to commemorate the historic acheivement. However, amongst all this, it was McFarlane Toy’s tribute that had my attention! Already a fan of the ultra-detailed NHL figures this company was producing, the announcement in April that the company would be pay tribute to the Gold Medal winning men’s team with two limited edition boxsets was welcome news indeed. Each boxset would feature three players and one netminder in Team Canada uniform. The bad news was that these were to be made available as an exclusive to Wal-Mart stores in Canada - it’s obvious to see these were never going to be the biggest sellers in the US!! So, a few trips to eBay later, I was proud owner of the two box sets. The first box included Mario Lemieux, Curtis Joseph, Chris Pronger and Steve Yzerman while box two included Joe Sakic, Martin Brodeur, Paul Kariya and Eric Lindros. At the time these were released, all but one (Joe Sakic) were repaints of figures that had been released in the existing NHL and NHLPA series already by the company. The Joe Sakic figure would eventually be included in the third NHL series in his Colorado uniform. As usual for this range of figures, the level of detail on each figure - down to the two Team Canada emblems on the back of the helmets (see picture below) is astounding - the pictures of the individual figures shown here were taken by me at home with a friend’s digital camera and in no way do these magnificent pieces justice. |
