The Hockey Bobblehead Database is mind-bogglingly fun

Andy Wallace joined the Washington Capitals blog Capitals Outsider Capitals with one goal in mind: Chronicling all of the bobblehead dolls that had been created for the team through the years.

Hey, some people set out to solve world hunger; others want to know if there’s ever been a Troy Brouwer bobblehead doll with a mustache.

Thanks to Wallace’s new site, Fourth Line Bobbles, we know there has been one. That it was released on Nov. 5, 2013. That Brouwer had an assist and 12 penalty minutes the night his doll hit the masses.

Fourth Line Bobbles is “The Hockey Bobblehead Database,” in case you were worried your job productivity didn’t have enough distractions haunting it. Is it the most aesthetically pleasing thing? No, but then again, neither are bobbleheads.

We asked Wallace a few questions about this potential addiction:
Q. Why take on this project?
Building the Capitals bobblehead database was a pretty quick project that didn’t take too long to finish. So basically after a while I got that urge to create a database again, but instead I thought why not do something different and unique that instead of having to be a Caps fan to enjoy it, you just had to be a hockey fan?
That’s when I decided that I would take my bobblehead knowledge to another level and log every game day giveaway hockey bobblehead in existence. I also didn’t want it to end and this gave me something that I could consistently do throughout the year instead of doing only a few bobblehead reviews and calling it a season.

Q. How many do you have on the site?

So far we have every NHL bobblehead, to our knowledge, posted onto the site, which brings the total 285

What’s your favorite cool bobble head? What’s your favorite oddity?

My favorite cool bobblehead has to be the Glenn Hall bobblehead given away by the Chicago Blackhawks back in 2013.

The detail on that bobblehead is phenomenal and the throwback pads are what, in my opinion, sets it above the rest.
My favorite oddity has to be the Jonathan Cheechoo bobblehead given away by the Cleveland Barons back in 2003.

It was a two sided bobblehead so on one side it’s Cheechoo in his Barons jersey and on the other it’s of him in his San Jose Sharks jersey. If you look at it from the side it looks like something from a freak show.

Q. Are you going to bring in the minor leagues, etc?

Yes we haven’t even scratched the surface with this site yet. Putting up each player profile takes on about 3-5 minutes between the AHL and ECHL alone we have over 600 bobbleheads to put up which will obviously take a long time. We hope to have the AHL bobbleheads up something in December or January and then depending on when we finish the AHL we hope to have the ECHL up sometime in the Spring. On top of the three major North American Leagues we also plan to include the CHL, SPHL, USHL, NAHL, UHL, IHL, WHL, WCHL and QMJHL. Basically if a hockey league had a bobblehead night we want it on our site.

Here’s something extra as well. Were hoping that once this gets more attention that fans across the country would come and write about the bobbleheads of their favorite teams so in a way have a reporter for each team to go to each game and tell us about the bobblehead. For now I’m doing monthly previews but we would love to expand it.

Visit Fourth Line Bobble here. If you don’t … give your head a shake.

Read more here.