Monday, February 19, 2018

USA: The History of Hockey

On October 20th the US Postal Service and the Canada Post jointly issued a stamp dedicated to one of the most famous sports in North America: Ice Hockey. In the 1800s, the sport truly began to take shape in Eastern Canada. By the late 19th century, the game had grown popular in the United States. American Malcolm Greene Chace became interested in the game and assembled a group of players from various universities. In 1896, a team from Yale, which included Chace, faced Johns Hopkins University in the first college hockey game. The National Hockey Association began play in 1910 and evolved into the National Hockey League in 1917.

I'm happy to receive some covers with this nice stamp with first-day cancellation and even one cover showing a very nice souvenir sheet.





Stamps:
The History of Hockey (stamps + m/s) - Issued: 20-10-2017


Many thanks to Richard, A.W. Welch and Geoffrey!

Wednesday, February 07, 2018

South Korea: The PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games

Only three day left and one of the major world wide sport events is going to start. The XXIII. Olympic Winter Games will take place from 9 to 25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang County, South Korea. The 2018 Winter Olympics will feature 102 events in 15 sports, making it the first Winter Olympics to surpass 100 medal events. Four new disciplines in existing sports were introduced to the Winter Olympic programme in Pyeongchang, including big air snowboarding, mixed doubles curling, mass start speed skating, and mixed team alpine skiing. And of course for this special event Korea Post issued a series of stamps dedicated to this event. The design of the stamps includes the official mascot, Soohorang, participating in a number of winter sports including curling, speed skating and bobsleigh, as well as images of Olympic stadiums. I'm happy to receive this nice cover with also a nice special postmark showing the mascot Soohorang.


Stamps:
Winter Olympics 2018 (from a set of 10) - Issued: 01-11-2017


Many thanks to Choonjong Park for this nice cover!



Stamps:
Winter Olympics 2018 (from a set of 10) - Issued: 01-11-2017