Fun fact: Mike Bullard was born on the same day as yours truly, March 10.  He was a pretty damn good hockey player, scoring 51 goals for Pittsburgh in 1983-84, the year before Mario Lemieux arrived, so you know he didn’t have much help scoring all those goals, since Pittsburgh was absolutely atrocious in the pre-Magnificent One era.  Mike even scored 103 points for Calgary the season this photo was taken, 1987-88.  Looking at this card though, there’s something really off.  Mike looks well… there’s no nice way to put this… wasted.  I mean, there are much better photos of Mike out there, including this very 80s doozy.

That mullet is pretty nasty, but it was all the rage back then, so whatever, I can let that slide.  But at least you can see that Mike cleans up pretty well when given the opportunity.  What the hell happened the day Topps sent a photographer to shoot the Calgary Flames?  Did the photog’s camera button jam or something and he had no choice but to go with the one shot he had of Mike?  The poor dude has this sort of, “Huh?” expression on his face and a sort of glazed-over look in his eye.  Not to mention the fact his helmet looks slightly askew with hair sticking out of the front end of it.  He looks like he may pass out and impale is eye socket with the butt end of his stick.  Ah, Topps, capturing life’s awkward moments one hockey player at a time!