My good buddy Phil has supported Puck Junk since I launched the site in 2007. He’s not really a hockey fan per se, but he was always willing to proofread my articles, and he’s always good for a game of NHL ’94 on the SNES. Phil has lived in Cologne, Germany for the past two years, and brought me some German Hockey Cards last time he visited Chicago.

These “playercards,” as they are called on the wrapper, are from the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL), which is the top-tier professional league in Germany. Each pack has 6 cards. You probably haven’t heard of most of these guys–but that’s OK, because I haven’t either.

#24 – Constantin Braun – Berlin Polar Bears
Braun is a defenseman and was a 6th round draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings in 2006.

#117 – Thomas Holzmann – Iserlohn Roosters
Holzmann seems to be a fringe player. A look at his stats on HockeyDB shows that he bounces between the DEL and the second-tier league in Germany.

#10 – Greg Moore – Augsburger Panther
Hey! A name I can pronounce! Greg Moore is an American who was drafted by the Calgary Flames in 2003. He played 10 games in the NHL–6 for the New York Rangers and 4 for the Columbus Blue Jackets–and spent most of his pro career in the American Hockey League. Last year was his first in the DEL, where he finished 4th in team scoring.

#146 – Danijel Kovacic – Krefeld Penguins
Danijel does not play a lot of games for the Krefeld Penguins–a team that uses an insane cartoon bird on their logo. The photo on the front shows some great action of Danijel about to trap the puck.

#115 – Jassen Cullimore- Iserlohn Roosters
I know this guy! I think we all remember Jassen Cullimore during his 15-plus seasons in the NHL. He played in 51 out of 52 games for the Iserlohn Roosters in the 2011-12 season, which was his first year in Europe.

#67 – Thomas Oppenheimer – Hamburg Freezers
Oppenheimer is currently in his 7th season in the DEL. You know…if they got rid of the advertisements, that Hamburg Freezers jersey would be totally awesome (and not just mostly awesome).

What I like about these cards
The design on the front is very clean, with the player name, number, position, team logo and league logo all nicely arranged at the bottom of the card. Since the players’ uniforms are so cluttered with ads, it was a wise move to design a card that is decidedly un-cluttered.

I also like the backs of the cards. You get a helmet-less photograph of the player, vitals and 5 lines of statistics. Such a nice, simple, effective use of space.

If Upper Deck Victory was designed as good as this set, I’d be a fan of Victory.

What I don’t like about these cards
The card number is very small and not very noticeable–it is buried in the lower right corner on the card back, if anyone is looking for it. Should I ever put a set of these together, it is gonna be murder sorting them out.

So, what do you think of these cards?

Even though I love everything about the new O-Pee-Chee set, I have yet to take the plunge and buy a whole box. Part of me really wants to buy a whole case, but in order to do that I need to accumulate a bit of disposable income (well, more than a bit actually). The summer months were rough for me financially, but now that I am teaching again (yay Fall semester!) I should have some funds to buy at least a few boxes next month.

In the meantime, I purchased a hobby pack to tide me over. It was not the pack to end all packs, but it was still a darn good pack. No, I did not get a Gretzky autograph or some 1-in-6400 deckle edge insert card.

Still, I think I got my money’s worth.

5 Base Cards

Let’s see…one Red Wing, one Flame, one Predator and two Sharks. Nice–none of those silly Eastern Conference teams!

1 Retro Parallel

One big reason that I am NOT buying retail packs is because you get a Retro Parallel in every other retail pack.. In hobby packs, the Retros are one per pack. Getting a Retro here is no big deal–because you are supposed to get one–but I enjoy the card nonetheless.

1 Rainbow Parallel

I can do without the Rainbow Parallels. These fall 1 in every 4 packs.

1 Sticker

Am I the only one who wishes that the sticker design was instead the base card design? I think the stickers look fabulous–a combination of old OPC hockey and old Topps baseball. Stickers happen at a rate of 1 in every 3 packs, so I think I did pretty good getting a 1-in-4 card and a 1-in-3 card in the same pack.

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Contest Update
Twelve hockey card collectors have participated in the One-Card Challenge so far. As of this writing, Captain Canuck is narrowly in the lead with 5 points. Kazi is in 2nd place with 4 points, and Dave H is in 3rd with 3 points.

But it is still anyone’s game! There are 13 days left until the end of the contest. Give a card–or receive a card–to complete a set and get a point in the standings. Give me a card (hint, hint) and get TWO points in the standings.

Rules for the contest and a list of what “last cards” are needed can be seen here.

(And Jimmy, I have emailed you about that Arturs Irbe card you have for me–twice in fact.)

What the heck is this? I found it at my local Target, but have never seen anything like it before. It has a hang tab, but it’s not a fat pack. We all know what fat packs look like–they’re tall, they’re fat, they have a lot of cards and they cost five bucks.

No, my friends, this is a FAT BOX. For $9.99, you get 42 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee Hockey cards. That’s not really a bargain, considering that two fat packs (at $10) would yield you 64 cards. This equates to about half of a blaster box, in both price and quantity of cards.

What intrigued me about this is that it promises 1 Marquee Legends Gold card, which I think you can only get in these particular fat boxes.

The 42 cards came wrapped in a cellophane wrapper. Here is what this “fat box” got me:

39 Base Cards

Other blogs have already posted their own review of this set. I’ll withhold doing a review until I have the complete set. But my overall impression is positive–at least for the card fronts. The photos on many of the cards are action-oriented. And the O-Pee-Chee logo is a whisper–as it should be–and not a yell.

Here are a few more base cards that had appealing photographs.

1 Marquee Rookies

YAY! A “leftover rookie.” Tyler Cuma played 1 game last year for the Minnesota Mild, er, Wild, going scoreless but getting 2 penalty minutes.

1 Sticker

How about that? I got a Marquee Rookie (seeded 1:2) and a Sticker (seeded 1:8) in the same fat box. I like the design of these stickers better than the base set–they look like a cross between the 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee cards and 1975 Topps Baseball cards.

1 Marquee Legend Gold

For some reason, I thought that a “Gold” card would be like a gold foil card, or be somewhat shiny. This just replaces the tan ink on the borders with gold ink. While Patrick Roy was an amazing player, this card really isn’t reason enough to buy these fat boxes.

I am still debating if I am going to buy boxes and try to build this set, or if I am going to just buy it outright.I really want all of the stickers, and I want to build the Retro Set, so packs would be the way to go. Buying a set wouldn’t be much more than $120 or so, but I’d still want the retros and stickers, too.

What are your thoughts? Are you building this year’s O-Pee-Chee set? What about the insert sets?

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Check out the One-Card Challenge contest, running from now until the end of September.

My third box of Enforcers–and probably my favorite. Continue reading “ITG Enforcers Box Break #3”

Oh yeah, I know, these cards are sooooooo January 2012. And here it is, July already. I may have busted these boxes 6 months ago, but I’m finally getting around to scanning and sorting my 3 box breaks. Continue reading “ITG Enforcers Box Break #2”

A while ago, I bought 3 boxes of In The Game Enforcers. I actually video recorded the breaks to post on my YouTube channel, but then my video editing software got all crazy and decided to crash every time I opened it. So, the first break (and probably the next two) will just be boring ol’ blog posts.

I think everyone who reads this blog and liked this idea has bought a box or two by now. For those who are not aware, a cost per box was $65. Each box contained 12 “tough” cards, including 5 autographs.

Here are the results for my first box: Continue reading “ITG Enforcers Box Break #1”

I was at my local Target yesterday and I have been pretty good about staying away from blaster boxes. But I always look for hockey card “repacks” that contain an autographed card. I found this–something called a “Hockey Cube.” For $19.99 plus tax, you get 2 autographed cards and a bunch of other cards you probably don’t want. So, I weighed the pros and cons of buying it:

Pro:: It has 2 autographed cards. I like autographed cards

Con: It probably has tons of Pro Set.

Pro: It has a Score Rookie and Traded Set that is still sealed.

Con: I already have two Score Rookie and Traded Sets (one for TTM purposes)

Pro: I want another Jeff Skinner from that set. Plus, I might get some good Gold Parallels.

So, the Pros narrowly outweighed the Cons. Here is what was inside the Hockey Cube: Continue reading “Hockey Cube Break”

It seems that whenever I buy a box of cards for $100 or more, I am left with:

• a stack of base cards
• a limited rookie card of a nobody
• jersey cards that no one wants
• a large dose of buyer’s remorse

Of course, I remembered none of that when I bought this box of 2011-12 SPx. I have never purchased this product before, and was itching to give something new a try.

Each box has 18 packs (4 cards per pack) –plus a “Bonus Pack”. Here is what I got: Continue reading “2011-12 SPx box break & Contest update”

Panini is a company that I generally like, but truth be told I haven’t really cared for many of their products from this season or last season. It’s like they try really hard, but in the end they do a few things I dislike (glossy parallels in Score, making Ice Kings really hard to get, no updates for many of their sets, and so forth). So I am generally cautious when buying any of their hockey cards.

But then I saw this box of 2011-12 Panini Contenders at a local card shop. On the box it said “Three Autographs Per Box”. I haven’t opened anything in a while, i like getting autographed cards and I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket.

The box had 18 packs, and each pack had 5 cards. Here is what I got: Continue reading “2011-12 Panini Contenders box break”

After much delay, here is my box break for my sixth–yes sixth!!!–box of 2010-11 Artifacts. Will I get yet another Buffalo Sabres autograph? Continue reading “2010-11 Artifacts Box Break #6”