Sidney Crosby Case Hit - 2009-10 Black Diamond Hardware Heroes Pearson

In an effort to prevent myself from being burnt out on simple relic cards of Sidney Crosby, I have decided to look into a few of his case hits and other super-rare, non-relic non-auto cards. I've already picked up Crosby cards of 2011-12 Pinnacle Black and the Horizontal SSP w/ Barack Obama from 2012 Goodwin Champions. My favorite, so far though, has been the Black Diamond Hardware Heroes cards. I have already picked up his Marice "Rocket" Richard Trophy card from 2010-11 Black Diamond, and immediately decided that I have to get the rest.

This one comes from 2009-10 Black Diamond and is numbered 8/100. The card recognizes Crosby's 2007 Lester B. Pearson award. The award, which has since been renamed the Ted Lindsay Award, is given to the Most Valuable Player, as voted on by members of the NHLPA. The Hart Trophy is the other MVP award, but is voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. Usually those two awards end up going to the same person, but every now and then, the players and the writers have different opinions, most recently in 2011, when Anaheim's Corey Perry won the Hart and Vancouver's Daniel Sedin won the Lindsay. Crosby won both awards in 2007.

Like the 2010-11 Richard Trophy card I have of his, the card reflects a whole lot of shine off of the front, except for the player and trophy pictures. The card is also die-cut around the trophy to give it a good profile effect. I also like how much of the card surface is used for the acetate cut-out. Since that is the main draw to these cards, it's nice that they really took advantage of the available space.

The back of the card points out that not only did Crosby win the Hart and Pearson in 2007, but also the Art Ross Trophy as the league's leading scorer. It ended up being his biggest season so far, hardware-wise, unless you want to take into consideration that BIG trophy he and the Penguins got in 2009.

Unless there are some that I am unaware of, I just need two more to complete the Crosby Hardware Heroes Collection. There is also a Hart Trophy from the 2009-10 set and a Pearson Trophy version from 2010-11. After that, I just might have to go after all three Evgeni Malkin ones (Art Ross, Lindsay, and Hart) from the 2012-13 set.