We Gotcha Bonnie and Thank-You

 I did some more research about Bonnie Shea and I said once I got back her autograph I would post it in my next blog post. Today is that day but let's add a few more tidbits about Bonnie Shea.

Bonnie started playing hockey with the boys primarily because there was no girls teams. She has said to be the first girl to play on a boys team in Duluth, Minnesota. The year was 1951 at the age of 7 where she played for her home town team of all boys. When she was in high school her hockey coach invited her to try out for the high school team. When the High school principal found out he said that girls are not allowed to play on the boy's hockey team. At the age of 15 Bonnie had to stop playing the game she loved because there were no teams where a girl could play hockey.

One day she was watching television and saw an announcement that UMD was starting a club team for Women's hockey. Bonnie was 40 years old and she contacted UMD and said she wanted to play and I am 40 years old. She was told to report because Bonnie did graduate from UMD. Bonnie was a teacher and she would take the time and play floor hockey with some students. One student actually made it to the NHL as a goaltender. That player was Robb Stauber who played 4 years with the Los Angeles Kings and 1 season with the Buffalo Sabres. Stauber played in the 1992-93 play-offs with the Kings winning 3 and losing 1.

Bonnie is now with WHAM (Women's Hockey Association of Minnesota) this is for players who played High School or College hockey and they played against Men's teams. Bonnie was a very gifted scorer and was a quick skater, quick enough to see an opposing player (Man) going to hit her but with her quick speed she was able to avoid the check and the player went hard into the boards.

Bonnie also enjoys watching the NFL and her favorite team is the Minnesota Vikings where she has been a season ticket holder for 20 years. She was chose to blow the Gjallarhorn at a Vikings pre season game.

Bonnie signed the 2 cards I sent her and she did add a nice letter so without further ado here are those 2 auto's.

Another nice addition to my Women in Hockey Autograph Collection. One more thing of importance. Bonnie Shea will be inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame this coming fall 2026. Congrats Bonnie on a amazing career and I hope you are able to continue to play the game that you love and that you continue having fun playing.

These 2 cards are both from  Allen & Ginter. The card on the left is the N-28 while the card on the right is the N-43. The cards could also be found in an album that was made by A&G and they are now a days difficult to locate. The cards cut from the albums are a paper type much thinner but still quite valuable and more valuable if left intact in the album. I owned 2 different albums at one time.

This tobacco card is from the T-201 Mecca double folds and lifting the top of the card straight up you get the other player which with Cobb is Sam Crawford. The backs of the card have a 1 year stats of each player.

This card is the Old Judge card of Del Darling of the Chicago White Stockings. The Old Judges were issued by the Goodwin & Company New York. This is the largest set of tobacco cards issued from 1886-1890 and consists of over 4,500 card variations and slightly over 500 different players. There are numerous poses per player. One player Billy Hoy was Deaf, Dumb and earned the nickname as Dummy Hoy. Hoy played a important part of Baseball the signals were used to communicate with him and that is how the signals used in today's game were introduced back then. Billy Hoy was 99 years old when he passed away in 1961 at that time he was the oldest living major leaguer. I do have his Old Judge card and it is a very highly sought after card. I have seen less that 10 which makes it very valuable and highly sought after.

Will be doing my next post on more Baseball cards from Bubble Gum and other interesting cards and hope I get more Autographs for my Women in Hockey autograph collection. Until then Happy Collecting!!!