Upcoming McFarlane hockey toys

NHL Series 17
McFarlane Toys has added photos of NHL Series 17 to their website.

Due out in January of ’08, Series 17 will give us figures of Evgeny Malkin, Jason Blake, Ryan Miller and a new pose of Alexander Ovheckin–all wearing the new RBK Edge Jerseys.

Even more exciting is the inclusion of two more figures–Joe Sakic as a Quebec Nordique and Trevor Lindin wearing a retro Canucks uniform. And I don’t mean those weird “stick logo” jerseys–I mean the flying skate, baby!

I guess McFarlane Toys has to do something with all of those “obsolete” figure molds. The tooling for an action figure costs toy companies a lot of money. So, companies try to re-use tooling as much as possible, hence repaints, goalies that use the same pose, etc. Hopefully, we can grow to expect more “retro” figures using the “old style” of jerseys.

What are you waiting for? Check them out!

Hockey Goal Display Stand
Taking a cue from their success of last year’s Hockey Rink Playset, McFarlane Toys will also issue a Hockey Goal display stand. This is much needed, considering that all new goalie figures no longer include a net. Half the time, the best thing about adding a goalie figure to your collection was getting a “free net” with it. This new display, however, will be a vast improvement, as it will have room for both a goalie and a shooter. Better yet, it will come in both Classic (pictured) and Modern designs. More about those here.

Even more figures
McFarlane Toys has also announced the figures for NHL 19, NHL Legends 7 and NHL 3-inch Series Six. I won’t list them all here, but I think I speak for all of us in saying that it is awesome that they are making a figure of Guy Lafleur as a Nordique! You can read up on all this here–scroll about halfway down.

O Canada!

O Canada, the new hockey card set from In the Game, launches today. The focus of the set is on Canadian National Team players, as well as a few “formidable” International foes.

Sigh.

It’s times like this that I really miss competition between hockey card companies. Right now, Upper Deck pretty much runs the show, since they have the exclusive rights to make NHL hockey cards. I admire what ITG has done without having an NHL license, with their sets focusing on international play, or “Heroes and Prospects”.

But it seems that all the cards that ITG makes are so expensive, due to autograph and memorabilia inserts.

And guess what? Upper Deck cards are expensive too. Well, the Victory cards are cheap, but not very exciting.

I guess if I’m going to spend $80 on a box of hockey cards it’s going to be NHL hockey cards.

But maybe I can pick up a base set of these O Canada cards on the cheap.

Click here to find out everything you would want to know about the O Canada set.