More Fun With Explosives...I Mean Pack Busting

I swear this is the last 5 pack combo busting post for awhile. I only have a few more unopened rack packs/boxes left in there but the random packs are depleted. Overall I'd say I faired pretty poorly considering there was nothing of super value here. There was also nothing of substance to add to my PC other than about a half dozen or so. Maybe this final round will make up for everything...or maybe it won't.

Pack #1: 2005-06 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey

#289 Adrian Aucoin
#413 Jamal Mayers
#407 Joe Thornton
#450 Mikko Koivu (R) - Young Guns
#250 Marian Hossa
#422 Ed Belfour
#330 Martin Gelinas
#DP16 Sidney Crosby - Diary of a Phenom
#221 Nathan Horton - Victory Update Insert

Nice Pack!! Finally a couple cards that I can safely be happy with. The Koivu Young Guns is a fairly decent rookie to pull out of pack of these, barring the Crosby or Ovechkin. I'm also a fan of the Crosby DOAP cards since, of course, one of my collecting goals is to get as many Pens cards as I can.

Pack #2: 2007-08 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey

#323 Travis Moen
#293 Kurtis Foster
#411 Manny Fernandez
#307 Joe Sakic
#302 Cory Sarich
#368 Michal Rozsival
#420 Ilya Kovalchuk
#284 Ryan Smyth - Victory Update Insert

I'm not 100% but I think I need at least 5 of these for my set. Major positive there. I still love the photography on the Upper Deck cards. I don't even seem to mind the fact that they have produced the same product for the last three years with a different player name layout. They are just clean looking cards.

Pack #3: 2007-08 Victory Hockey

#26 Jaromir Jagr
#194 Alexander Frolov
#30 Mike Knuble
#184 Mike Ribeiro
#70 Brad Richards
#GB27 Tomas Vokoun - Game Breakers

Just like MVP, these tend to yeild either a rookie or Game Breaker insert in each pack. This was no exception with the Vokoun. I love goalie cards so this is nice to go in the binder. There was also another Jagr that I don't think I have yet (I think I always say that, whether I do or not).

Pack #4: 2008 Donruss Classics Football

#52 Ronnie Brown
#76 Kevin Curtis
#33 Jon Kitna
#28 Jason Witten
#85 Devin Hester

This pack was strangely similar to the last pack of these I opened, with the Brown and Curtis cards on top. It even had the Hester, although this one wasn't serial numbered.

Pack #5: 1997-98 Collector's Choice Hockey

#167 Wayne Gretzky
#238 Rob Zamuner
#9 Paul Kariya
#77 Mike Vernon
#123 Vitali Yachmenev

This is the first pack I have opened in a long while that actually had a Gretzky card that wasn't some kind of advertisement. It's him in his Rangers uniform skating behind the net. It almost looks like he was cropped from a different photo and placed onto this card because the proportional size of him in relation to the rest of his surroundings is a bit off. Weird. Of course these are Collector's Choice so they are about as good as furniture shims.

BONUS Pack #6: 2007-08 Ultra Hockey

#109 Anze Kopitar
#173 Alex Tanguay
#54 Simon Gagne - Gold Medallion
#106 Alexander Frolov
#190 Ilya Kovalchuk

I miss counted here but it doesn't matter. This was the last and final pack of 2007 Ultra Hockey. I am going to see how may I am away from at least a base set and maybe put this one together. Not a bad pack though, considering the talent.

Box Break - 2009-10 Upper Deck Victory (Blaster)

I couldn't resist this one. I had to get my hands on some fresh 09/10 Hockey. The first release out this year is Upper Deck Victory. Walmart's shelves were jammed with them.

11 Packs/Blaster
6 Cards/Pack
Box Guarantees: 1 Oversize Card, 1:2 Victory Rookies or Star Inserts (basically 1 per pack)
200 card base set (250 Total)

I pulled 54 base (no doubles) which is 22% of the set

Rookies (6):

Mike Santorelli #205
Byron Bitz #212
Luca Caputi #225
Jesse Joensuu #232
Andrew McDonald #240
Mike McKenna #243

Parallels (1): Brandon Sutter Gold #38 (avg. 1:36 packs)

Inserts (5): Game Breakers - Brad Boyes, Evgeni Malkin, Eric Staal; Stars Of The Game - Marian Hossa, Marty Turco

Oversize Card (1):


Luke Schenn

Summary:

The first cards of the year are always exciting, even if they are from the UD Victory product. Victory has, over the past few years, had a standard "run of the mill" type design that has not varied much from year to year. The same goes for 09/10. This year features a lot more white space, if that was even possible. The borders are even more expansive than last year, with the images centered on the card and a more rounded feel to the edge. The insert sets feature the standard Victory Game Breakers and Stars of the Game, which showcase the top players on each team. The Victory Rookies feature many of the guys that played at the end of 08/09 and the design of the card is an improvement over last year, in my opinion.

I would give the set itself a 6/10. The box...maybe a 5 1/2/10, possibly a 6 because I like these cards but definitely better than a 5.

Box Break - - 2001-02 Upper Deck Victory Hockey

Why you ask? Well, it was on the shelf, it was staring at me, and it was under 10 bucks. Plus, I don't think I have any 01-02 Victory in my collection. So, without further adieu, here is my latest junk wax break.

36 Packs/Box
10 Cards/Pack
Box Guarantees: Mr. Hockey's Greats subset cards average 1/pack
Includes Victory Gold Inserts, Mr. Hockey's Greats subset
440 Card Base Set (13 Update Rookies not included)

I pulled 344/440 (78%) cards in the base set with no doubles (2 extra cards)

Rookies (23):
Gregg Naumenko, B.Tapper/J.Vigier/D.Snyder, M. Murray/R. Fata/R. Petrovicky, Y.Babenko/R.Shearer, Steve Gainey, J.Williams/M.Kuznetsov, J.Shelley/M.Spanhel/R.Klesla, A.Podkonicky/R.Thompson, T.Scott/A.Lilja, Pascal Dupuis, M. Matteucci/D.Gustafson, Francis Belanger, P.Dagenais/M.Jefferson, Juraj Kolnik, P.Smrek/J.Ulmer/V.Yeremeyev, Joel Kwiatkowski, Maxime Ouellet, David Cullen, Tibb/Croz/Hedberg, M.Kiprusoff/M.Samuelsson, J.Obsut RC/M.Van Ryn, T.Ziegler RC/D.Afanasenkov, A.Ponikarovsky/J.Farkas, K.Beech/M.Pettinger

Gold Parallels (18):
Steve Rucchin, Ron Francis, Brain Boucher, Keith Tkachuk, Ron Tugnutt, Doug Weight, Alexei Zhitnik, Manny Legace, Joe Sakic, Randy McKay, Chris Osgood, Mike Dunham, John LeClair, Mariusz Czerkawski, Jeremy Roenick, Andrei Zyuzin, Robyn Regehr, Patrick Roy

Summary:
First off, there is a glossy finish on both sides of the cards that makes them stick together. It also makes it very difficult to sort through them like "normal". It is almost like a wax coating. The cards have a clean design on the front and have the typical stat lists and small write ups, much like Topps/OPC releases. It was nice to get no doubles out of an Upper Deck product. I like these cards from an aesthetics standpoint. The gold cards look just like the 99-00 Topps/OPC release and are only gold because of the border print...no foil, stamped or otherwise. Unfortunately, there is really nothing to gain here monetarily without the Update Rookies. Overall, I give the box a 5/10 and the set a 6/10. Fun to break.

Find The Gems - Series 2

Ok, I have always seen these boxes at the checkout counter but never actually bought one. I always wondered if it would be all scrub players and commons shoved into a plastic container or if there was a real shot at something good. At any rate, I broke down and bought one of the Gems Of The Game boxes that claims 10 Hockey Packs plus 1 Graded Card in every box. It also states that 1 in 6 have a Crosby or Ovechkin rookie. If that was really the case, why wouldn't you buy it? Ok, here goes.

Ok, the first card in the box is the graded card, of course. It is a BCCG 9 Steve Yzerman 1994-95 Parkhurst Vintage #V57. Not a common, not a high ticket but I am not disappointed at this juncture.

And now the packs.

Pack #1 2007-08 Ultra Retail

Colby Armstrong #41
Anze Kopitar #109
Michael Nylander #70
Mike Modano #132
Danny Bois (RC) Gold Medallion #208

Not awful, but not awesome either. The Bois Gold Medallion is nice.

Pack #2 2007-08 Ultra Retail

Miroslav Satan #73
Scott Gomez #83
Jay Bouwmeester Gold Medallion #115
Niklas Backstrom #100
Miikka Kiprusoff #168

Not impressed with that one.

Pack #3 2007-08 Hot Prospects (these have never been good for me)

Brad Richards #10
Niklas Backstrom #68
Steve Bernier #94
Guillaume Latendresse #31

Blah!!

Pack #4 2007-08 Hot Prospects

Nathan Horton #66
Jason Spezza #38
Jason Arnott #95
Jonathan Cheechoo #43

Double Blah!!!

Pack #5 2007-08 MVP

Henrik Lundqvist
Shawn Horcoff
Mike Ribeiro
Taylor Pyatt
Chris Phillips
Saku Koivu
Jon Grahame
Jack Johnson (RC)

The Johnson was not a bad pull, but the rest...unless you are a hockey fan you would have no idea.

Pack #6 2007-08 MVP

Marty Turco
Ryan Whitney
Antero Nittymaki
Thomas Vanek
Doug Weight
Vincent LeCavalier
Daniel Alfredsson
Rod Pelley (RC)

A much better mix of players. Better pack.

Pack #7 2007-08 Upper Deck Series 2 Retail

Travis Moen
Kurtis Foster
Manny Fernandez
Joe Sakic
Henrik Lundqvist
Cam Ward
Willie Mitchell
Viktor Kozlov - Victory Update

This was the "sideways" pack. The Moen, Foster, Fernandez, and Lundqvist are all sidways photo shots.

Pack #8 2007-08 Artifacts Retail (The one I was excited about. I like these cards.)

Marian Hossa
Mikael Tellqvist
Brad Boyes
Henrik Lundqvist
Jarome Iginla

A sad, sad batch...but I still like these.

Pack #9 2007-08 Victory

Mathieu Garon
Mikko Koivu
Ryan Whitney
Jozef Stumpel
Scott Gomez
Ryan Parent (RC)

Booooo!!!

And finally...
Pack #10 2007-08 Victory

Ilya Kovalchuk
Cory Stillman
Ryan Smyth
Daniel Sedin
Daniel Briere

Extreme Uber-Booooo!! And I got cheated out of another card.

I guess I should have expected this but at least now I know...Pick the box at the back of the shelf.