Cards On Ice

As promised, here are some pictures from Score.  Base set is going old school, but the inserts that they have shown off so far, have a much more modern design.  You gotta love a Sidney Crosby Team Canada card.  The Rookie Cards…..well, they don’t really fit.

I will hopefully have pictures to go with this news in a post later on today.  Panini is finalizing some of their 2010-11 products and pushing the information out there, today the news is about 2010-11 Score Hockey.

Here’s the important info:

• 7 cards per pack, 36 packs per box, 20 boxes per case
• 18 rookie cards per box (using my amazing math skills, that means rookies are 1:2 packs)
• 36 glossy parallels
• 12 inserts (including The Franchise, Net Cam, Snow Globe Die Cuts, and Sudden Death)
• 1 Rookie Redemption
• On average: 1 auto per case
• 550 card base set (including 50 rookies)
• SRP:  $0.99 per pack
• Autographed rookie buybacks from 1990-91 Score, including Eric Lindros and Martin Brodeur.
• Scheduled Release Date:  October 13, 2010

That’s a lot of content from a low-end product.  Price point of Victory, but includes goodies almost on the level of Upper Deck’s recent O-Pee-Chee offerings.  I am looking forward to this product for sure.  The rookie redemptions are a nice touch as well. 

Biggest reason I am looking forward to this product:  autographed rookie buyback of Eric Lindros!  Say what you want, he’s always been one of my favorite players, and if Panini gets this done right, it could be a great way to kick off their hockey manufacturing career.

I’m sure most of you have probably heard the news by now.  The NHL has drawn a line in the sand, and said ‘Hey, you’ve made a fool of us for a few years now, but on July 20, 2010 – it stops.’  And that’s really all they did.  They’ve ignored very similar contracts to Kovalchuk’s in the past (Marian Hossa, Henrik Zetterberg, Chris Pronger, Roberto Luongo), but for whatever reason called the Devils on this one.

Its lame.  The NHL left a loophole in when they closed negotiations for the last CBA.  They spent a lot of time patting themselves on the back for getting a salary cap and cost certainty, and didn’t think there could possibly be anyone smarter than them out there.  And then some crafty agent came up with the long term contract. 

But – and this is important – there are two parties to any contract.  The very owners that were crowing over cost certainty are a party to these extra long deals.  If they don’t have a problem with it (and if it isn’t against the rules), the NHL needs to step back, lick its wounds and regroup for the next round of CBA negotiations.  Negotiations which have the potential to be very ugly indeed.

If you like Russian goalies, In the Game has a treat for you.  They have added Vladislav Tretiak to their stable of players.  Tretiak will be featured in several of ITG’s upcoming products, including Ultimate Memorabilia 10th Edition.

ITG has released much-anticipated and long-awaited information about their Update set for 09/10 Heroes and Prospects.   Each set will cost $39.95 and will have one autographed card and one game used memorabilia card.  This is an upgrade from the usual either / or that ITG has done with this set, and they have done this to make up for the delay in getting the product out.

Here is the base card checklist:

No, nothing so unimportant as free agency or anything like that.  Sportchek was having a buy 1, get 1 50% off sale on licensed merchandise today, so I snagged myself a couple of jerseys.

I picked up one of the green Team Canada jerseys from the World Juniors that were held in Saskatchewan.  Like the one first overall pick Taylor Hall is modeling for us here:

I also snagged a white Team Canada Olympic jersey, like the one shown by Team Canada goalie Shannon Szabados here.

You might be able to guess where this is going.  I need to decide on cresting, because I don’t like blank jerseys.  I have it narrowed down in each case, and I would like some input.  You can also make write-in votes, but I spent a lot of time narrowing this down, so you will have to make a pretty compelling case.  Also note – the player has to have played for the team that wore the jersey.  None of this jersey foul shit.  So, here goes.

Options for the green jersey:

• Jordan Eberle – Mr. Everything for Team Canada the last couple of years, hometown boy, etc.
• Taylor Hall – First overall draft choice, same last name as me – so I can put my name on the jersey, without having to be one of ‘those guys’ who put their own name on the jersey.

Options for the white jersey:

• Sidney Crosby – Pretty self-explanatory, only downside is that there are a tonne of Crosby Olympic jerseys out there.
• Hayley Wickenheiser – Also self-explanatory, but much rarer.
• Colleen Sostorics – Three time Olympic gold medallist, plus my minor hockey teammate.  Likely to be much rarer than either Crosby or Wickenheiser.

If you have been checking out the recent previews of Panini’s 2010-11 Certified Hockey product, you have probably seen this card floating around the internet.

Interesting, since Howe has had a long-term deal with Upper Deck for the past little while.  Maybe it expired?  Or, according to Upper Deck, maybe it hasn’t:

We’ve had some questions on this. Our multi-year exclusive spokesman deal with Gordie Howe remains in tact. UD remains the only place you can find signature trading cards of Mr. Hockey.

That’s interesting.  According to UD, there are no exclusive contracts for active players, but retired players (non NHLPA members) are still fair game for exclusives.

Here’s some pictures of the cards.  Things to note – they don’t look like foilboard, which is a plus, and also the addition of ‘PRIME’ on the patches is nice, but probably won’t completely deter patch fakers.

There is a new face in the hockey card world starting this fall, and information about Panini’s line of products is starting to be released.  It looks like the first product released by Panini will be 2010-2011 Certified Hockey.  It is not an entry level product, more mid-range, with pack prices in the $10 range.  The configuration looks like 5 cards per pack, 10 packs per box, 8 boxes per case.  That should end up around $100 for a box, if my math is correct.

This is a bit of a departure – for the duration of the Upper Deck Exclusive, the season kicked off with Victory and other low-end products.  As a higher end offering, it remains to be seen how well Panini does without the newest rookies, and also with player changes over the summer.  I’ve seen a checklist, and there are lots of TBA slots on it, so hopefully it can be as up to date as possible.

Panini is bringing back some of the old school parallels, including Mirror Black (1/1) and Mirror Gold (/25).  A box of Pinnacle Certified should yield the following:  1 autograph, 2 memorabilia cards, an additional autograph or memorabilia card, 1 Mirror Red (/250),  and 4 more parallels or inserts.

Notable insert sets for Certified include:  Big Men on Campus (featuring top players who spent time in the NCAA) and Junior Legacy (dual cards featuring players who came up through CHL ranks).  There are also rookie cards of the held back players from last season, including Nazem Kadri, Brayden Irwin and PK Subban.