Cards on Ice

I decided to have a little bit of fun with the blaster, and give away some cards. The winner is going to get a package of cards from their favorite team.

UD Collector’s Choice has a Warriors of Ice insert set. The art on these cards is a little bit sketchy. To win this contest, you need to identify the players depicted on these three cards, and try to explain them to me. Your identification needs to be accurate, your explanation should make me laugh.

Here’s the cards:

1)

2)

3)

Leave your answer in the comments, and don’t forget to leave me a way to get in touch with you if you happen to win.

Yet another classic Nike commercial.

Check it out here.

Other highlights:  Jordan Eberle naming his sticks, and “I was a skating fetus.”

I’m sure you guys have been waiting for this card as long as I have – its Phil Kessel’s first card in a non-photoshoot Leafs jersey.  He had a Priority Signings autograph that featured a photo from his press conference, but here he is  in his actual Leafs garb on the ice.

Having Toskala on there is kind of a downer, but he did have a shutout last night, so I am willing to go with it.

I paid $20 CDN for a Collector’s Choice blaster from Wal-Mart tonight.  That gets you 13 packs.  Each pack has a parallel and a subset card (rookies, three stars).  There are also a number of inserts – Cup Quests (three different tiers), Stick-Ums (oh yeah), Warriors on Ice (more on these tomorrow morning), and Badge of Honor (temporary tattoos).

I am obviously not the intended audience for these cards, but I had a great time opening these packs.  Obviously, they didn’t single-handedly erase the bad taste that the box of Black Diamond left me with – but they were a nice little diversion.  Not a product to crack by the case, but it definitely soothes the pack breaking urge.

Does anyone have these O Canada numbers from 07/08 ITG O Canada hockey:  Katie Weatherston, Gillian Apps or Kelly Bechard?

Someone I traded with a while back is working on the women’s master set (autos, jerseys, emblems and numbers) and he is down to these three.  If you have them, drop me a note and I will put you in touch with him.

And if you have a pressing want, let me know and maybe I can get it some attention.  Just to note – collectors who have a thousand different ‘white whales’ or whose ‘white whales’ are from a new set, please don’t contact me until you read “Moby Dick”.

I bought this box at my local card shop.  You might want to bookmark this break, because there is no way in hell I am going back for another box of thi stuff.

The Basics
Price: $97 + tax
Configuration: 6 cards per pack, 24 packs per box
Odds (just for shits and giggles, because they didn’t come close):  Double Diamonds (1:4); Triple Diamonds (1:4 – regular cards, rookies); Quad Diamonds (1:12 – regular cards, rookies).  Randomly inserted into these specially marked packs are the following:  Regular Set Parallels (1:30 – Ruby (#’d to 100), Gold (#’d to 10), Diamond (#’d to 1), Quad Jerseys (1:12 – Regular 1:13, Ruby (#’d to 50), Gold (#’d t0 25), Onyx (#’d to 10), Onyx Auto (#’d to 5), Gemography (1:48), Hardware Heroes (1:288, #’d to 100), Horizontal Variations (1:48); Horizontal Perimeter Die-Cuts (1:12).

So, let’s go over what you ’should’ get from an ‘average’ box.  6 Double Diamonds, 6 Triple Diamonds (why are they separate tiers if you get the same amount?), 2 Quad Diamonds, and 2 jerseys.

The Break

Base Cards: Well, they look nice.  They’d look nicer without all of the dinged corners.  The short set (single diamonds) runs 90 cards.  You shoud be able to finish it in one box.  These cards don’t scan very well (BD never has), and I am too angry to put a lot of time into it.  I might update later with scans, but when you get shorted the main hit, there isn’t all that much to scan.

Set Completion: 74/90 = 82.2 %
Doubles: 27
Triples: 4

Yeah, see what I mean by ’should’?  Absolutely brutal collation.

Damage Issues: Absolutely.  BD always has damage issues, and this year is no exception.  Maybe the foilboard just makes it much more noticeable, but pretty much every card has soft corners, and one of my jersey cards has this weird brown stain on the edge (we’ll get to that later).

I got the correct number of double diamonds (6) in my box.  I got shorted one Triple Diamond, and I think it wa probably a rookie card.  Oh, happy day.  I had  three base triples (Hawerchuk, Jordan Staal, Nash) and two rookies (Kris Chucko and Yanick Weber).

So, the main hits from BD should be your quads.  You should get a veteran quad (yes, Gretzky) and a rookie quad (conspicuously absent from this box).  Seriously, Upper Deck?  The quad rookie was the only reason I bought this box. Yes – on average means just that – but I am certainly not going to be happy about it.

I did beat the odds slightly and pulled a ruby parallel of Ryan Suter.  But, then I missed the odds again when I only got one Perimeter Die Cut card (Stamkos).  I hit my two jersey cards (Carey Price and Shea Weber).  Along one edge, my Weber card has a weird brown stain.  Think of the first thing that pops into your head when you hear ‘brown stain’ and that’s exactly what it looks like.  I counted the Weber as a hit, but I am probably going to end up throwing the card out.

So, yeah.  If you want a recommendation – stay far away from 09/10 UD Black Diamond.  Consider yourself warned.  I am aware that ‘on average’ means just that, and I don’t believe UD owes me anything to make up for it – but by the same token, I don’t have to be happy with a box that was short three hits – including what is usually the biggest hit in the box.

Just hit the card shop up.  Came home with two boxes.  I haven’t decided how I will be posting them yet, but I have these two boxes to bust this afternoon.

If you have been reading this blog over the last little while, you might have noticed my sudden interest in hockey photography.  Its not a career, but it is an interest of mine.  Its not yet a hobby for me.  I need to decide if I like it enough to make it a hobby, as it is not exactly cheap to get into.

As I sort through the thousands (yes, thousands) of pictures I have accumulated in the last little while, I wonder what to do with them all.  The ones that suck I have been deleting.  That seems obvious, but it took me quite a while to make that big step and actually delete a photo.  Even when it was just a red blur.

But still – what to do.  Eventually, I will be using some of my own photographs for TTM autographs.  I think it will be an awesome addition to my collection to have a player’s autograph on a photo from a game I attended (not to mention a photo I took).  I also share some of my photos on Flickr (Photostream here).  I am under no illusions of making money off these photos, so they are available under a Creative Commons license.  As someone who spends a lot of time looking for photographs of athletes to use for autographs, I always appreciate it when someone makes their photos available like this, so I chose to do the same.

Which brings me to one of the other things I have been doing with my photographs – making them available on Wikipedia.  Everyone uses it, so why not contribute and make it a better encyclopedia.  When you contribute to Wikipedia, you are agreeing that your contributions can be used and modified by anyone so long as proper credit is given.  Obviously, a lot of professional photographers are not really big on this idea as they need to make a living.  For amateurs like myself, it is a great way to get my photographs ‘out there’.  I don’t know how many page views Jordan Eberle’s page has gotten in the past few days, but I know everyone who checked the page out was looking at my picture.  Similarly, in the leadup to the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, Taylor Hall is likely to be on a lot of people’s minds – and they can look at my photograph while they do it.

If you want to check out a gallery of all the photographs I have uploaded to Wikipedia, you can do so here. And if you are getting into hockey photography (or any other sport), don’t forget that there are lots of ways for people to check out your work.

I got this in my email earlier today.

In The Game Announces the Class of 2010 Redemption Program

The release of the 2009-10 edition of Heroes and Prospects from In The Game is less than three weeks away and the company is pleased to announce preliminary details about an exciting redemption program that has been added to the product this season.

As hinted at previously, the Class of 2010 non-memorabilia insert cards will have a special redemption feature that could allow collectors to obtain a special limited game-used memorabilia card.

Each Class of 2010 card will feature a foil-stamped number on the back that is between 1 and 30. If the player depicted on the front of the card is drafted at the position noted on the back, collectors can redeem their insert card for a game-used memorabilia card that is limited to just 10 copies! Shrewd prospectors will be trying to predict where their favourite players will be selected are sure to try to scoop up every copy they can.

“While it is rare for In The Game to do a redemption of any kind, we felt that the Class of 2010 cards were more of a new product feature that makes Heroes and Prospects more interactive for collectors,” said In The Game’s President, Dr. Brian Price. “We think that collectors are going to enjoy looking at the cards they have during the 2010 NHL Draft to see if they are lucky enough to exchange their card for something special.”

Included in the Class of 2010 collection are two players that are considered to be neck-in-neck for the first overall position – Taylor Hall of the Windsor Spitfires and Tyler Seguin of the Plymouth Whalers. To determine which players would be included in this new insert set, In The Game staffers examined the NHL Central Scouting preliminary rankings from November, 2009 and looked at the lineup for the 2010 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game.

All but one of the players in this set are already named to the roster for the 2010 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game and hockey fans will get a chance to see some of the players in action for the first time. Once again, Team Cherry will face Team Orr and the participants in the contest will have a chance to make a big impression with the multitude of pro scouts in attendance. The only player in this insert set that is not participating in the game is Russian prospect Vladimir Tarasenko, who recently played for his country at the 2010 World Junior Championship.

The 2009-10 edition of Heroes and Prospects hits store shelves on January 27, 2010 and complete program details will be posted at that time. For a complete checklist, visit In The Game online at www.itgtradingcards.com

Class of 2010 Checklist

C-01    Taylor Hall
C-02    Kirill Kabanov
C-03    John McFarland
C-04    Cam Fowler
C-05    Tyler Seguin
C-06    Joey Hishon
C-07    Erik Gudbranson
C-08    Brett Connolly
C-09    Brandon Gormley
C-10    Stanislav Galiev
C-11    Quinton Howden
C-12    Jeffery Skinner
C-13    Mark Pysyk
C-14    Alexander Burmistrov
C-15    Vladimir Tarasenko

Yet another ’something extra’ in boxes of 09/10 Heroes and Prospects.  No word yet on whether the Class of 2010 inserts will be marked somehow and the returned to collectors.  From the sounds of it – no, which makes things even more interesting for set builders.  If you have your set completed, do you bust it for a memorabilia card?  I would.  Also, I guess we can peg the total print run for the Class of 2010 inserts @ 300 each, which could be useful when trying to figure out print runs for other inserts, if that is your cup of tea.