Hockey Cards Archives

2024-25 Parkhurst Champions Hockey Box Break

Released at the end of the season, the 2024-25 Parkhurst Champions set gives retro flair to modern players. The cards are designed to look like they could be from the 1950s, with cut-out players superimposed over a bright, solid-colored background.

A box of 2024-25 Parkhurst Champions is currently selling for around $130 for a 20-pack box, plus one bonus “Retro” pack.

Each of the 20 packs have eight cards. Packs have six base cards plus two other cards which are either a short print, a parallel, or an insert. A box contains one autograph, memorabilia, or lenticular (“magic motion”) card.

2024-25 Parkhurst Champions Bonus Pack picturing Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe.

The “Bonus Pack” has five “1953-54 Retro Cards,” which use the 1953-54 Parkhurst design. It is possible to get an autograph or parallel “Retro” card in this pack.

I recently opened a box of 2024-25 Parkhurst Champions Hockey. Let’s take a closer look at what you get in a typical box.

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2025-26 MVP Hockey Box Break

In recent history, MVP has been Upper Deck’s first hockey card set of the season, usually hitting shelves in August or September. The 2025-26 MVP set was released on July 30 – almost 10 weeks(!) before the start of the season. MVP gives you a lot of bang for your buck. A box costs about $60 USD or $90 CDN and has 20 eight-card packs. Each pack has an insert card and it is possible to pull a serial-numbered card, too.

Let’s take a look at what’s inside a box of 2025-26 MVP Hockey cards.

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2024-25 Upper Deck CHL Hockey Box Break

Spotlighting many future NHL draft picks, the 2024-25 Upper Deck CHL hockey card set features the best players from the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The set consists of 300 base cards and 100 short-printed cards.

A box of 2024-25 Upper Deck CHL contains 12 packs and costs around $70. Each pack has 14 base cards, one short print “Star” or “Star Rookie” card, and one insert or parallel card. Each box contains either an autographed card or an Outburst parallel card.

I recently opened a box of 2024-25 Upper Deck CHL hockey cards. Let’s see what I got:

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2024-25 SPx Hockey Box Break

Upper Deck changed its configuration for SPx with its 2024-25 SPx set. Once upon a time, a box of SPx had more than just a handful of cards. Back in 2015-16, a box of SPx hockey cards had 10 packs, each with four cards, for a total of 40 cards. The next season, SPx downsized the number of cards you got in a box significantly, lowering the quantity while raising the quality. Here’s how many cards SPx had over the past seven seasons:

- - 2016-17 SPx – four cards per box
  - 2017-18 SPx – four cards per box
  - 2018-19 SPx – four cards per box
  - 2019-20 SPx – four cards per box
  - 2021-22 SPx – four cards per box
  - 2022-23 SPx – five cards per box
  - 2023-24 SPx – five cards per box

As you can see, you didn’t get a lot of cards for your money, but all of the cards were some sort of “hit” – be it an autograph, a jersey card, a low-numbered insert, or the like.

This year, Upper Deck upped the number of cards in a box of SPx, including many more base cards in a box so you can actually build the base set. A box of 2024-25 SPx contains eight packs, each with three cards, for a total of 24 cards. Each pack has one base card plus two other cards – be it a rookie card, parallel, or insert.

Let’s see what was inside my box of 2024-25 SPx Hockey:

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2024-25 Upper Deck Extended Series Box Break

2024-25 Upper Deck Extended Series Hockey comes out today. As the name implies, Extended Series extends Upper Deck’s flagship release by another 250 cards for a total of 750 cards between the three series.

Since 2020-21, Extended Series has made a good thing better by making Upper Deck’s flagship release the largest set of the season. Extended Series usually brings along with it loads of fun, retro-themed insert cards, drawing inspiration from the late 1990s to mid-2000s. In the past, many of the inserts you found in Extended Series were seral numbered, too.

A box of 2024-25 Upper Deck Extended Series is selling for around $120 for a 12-pack box. Each pack consists of nine base cards and three insert cards for 12 cards total. There is even a very long shot at pulling an Alex Ovechkin Young Guns buyback autographed card. There’s only eight of those Ovie Autos floating around, so your chances of getting hit by lightning are probably better. And no, I don’t mean Victor Hedman…though he does have a card in this set.

Today, I opened a box of 2024-25 Upper Deck Extended Series Hockey. Let’s see what was inside.

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2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers Box Break #5

After opening four boxes of 2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers, I was down to needing 71 stickers to complete the 800-sticker set. And yet these Topps sticker sets are notoriously difficult to build, so I knew that would probably be impossible. But I figured having more doubles on hand to trade could only help. Plus, there are those parallels. My fourth box had a Red Foil Parallel. Would this box also have a Red Foil Parallel? It could happen, as they are found one in every five boxes, or about three per 16-box case. Or could this box have two Blue Foil Parallels of players that I collect, or even – dare to dream – a Gold Foil Parallel?

That said, let’s see what my fifth and final box of 2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers had inside.

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2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers Box Break #4

Since this year’s Topps Hockey Sticker Collection consists of 800 stickers, you would need to purchase four 50-pack boxes (or at least 160 packs) to get enough stickers to try to build a set. I don’t like buying single packs because they cost $1 each, whereas a 50-pack box can usually be found for $35 or $40 if you look hard enough. Heck, even paying $50 for a box is OK because you know you will get the two parallels inside.

Over the past few days, I’ve opened three boxes of 2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers (see the first, second, and third breaks before reading this). I’m down to needing 122 stickers to finish my set. Let’s see how I did with my fourth box.

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2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers Box Break #3

I love opening packs of stickers – and hate sorting them. But writing these blog posts about what I get in my boxes of 2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers has motivated me to sort these in a hurry so I can write about them. Plus, it’s more fun to complete a set while the season is still going on, instead of over the summer or even years later, like I’ve done with other sets. Heck, it took me 17 years to complete my 1990-91 Panini Hockey Sticker set.

Anyway, a box of 2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers has 50 packs. Each pack has 4 regular (paper) stickers and one shiny foil sticker. Let’s see what was inside my third box of this year’s Topps NHL stickers.

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2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers Box Break #2

The 2024-25 Topps NHL Sticker Collection consists of 800 stickers. A pack has five stickers, so you need at least 160 packs to get 800 stickers. Of course, you are going to get doubles. That’s the nature of the beast.

Since packs cost $1 at retail, I decided to instead buy full boxes, which consist of 50 packs and cost around $35 to $40 if you buy them online.

This year, I decided to buy five boxes of Topps NHL Stickers because the set is so massive – and because you get two Blue Parallel stickers, serial numbered out of 100, per box. Yesterday, I posted the results of my first box break. Let’s see what’s inside my second box.

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2024-25 Topps Hockey Stickers Box Break #1

Topps has made a set of NHL hockey album stickers since the 2019-20 season. Each year, packs of five stickers sell for around $1, with the album selling for around $2. Unlike Panini, who made NHL stickers during the prior decade, you cannot order a few stickers you need directly from the manufacturer. That means that you either have to get every single sticker you need in the packs you open – which is highly-unlikely – or you have to trade your doubles and/or buy the singles you need on eBay or COMC.

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