Puck Junk

The third (and final so far) blaster box I purchased. I hit the jackpot!!!.

The breakdown:

– 69 base cards
– 7 Marquee Rookies
– 2 Base Parallels
– 1 Rookie Parallel
– 1 Stat Leaders
– 1 Record Breakers
– 1 Team Checklist
– 1 OPC Buyback (1989-90 OPC Jon Casey)
– 1 OPC Buyback Autograph (1983-84 Marcel Dionne)

This is awesome! The card of Marcel Dionne–a Hall of Fame player–is signed neatly in blue ink. The odds of getting one of these cards is 1 out of every 1440 packs (or so). Not only am I surprised to get this card in a blaster box from Target, but I got this after buying only three blaster boxes–42 packs total. It’s one thing to buy a ton of packs and finally get a card; it’s another thing to get a card relatively early on in collecting a set.

The Dionne auto came with a certificate of authenticity, from Upper Deck:

I am really glad that I bought all of the blaster boxes at Target that day, as they had three of them and I bought all three. As many of you know, I collect hockey autographs.

The second blaster box of 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee that I opened was better than the first one, as I got a Carey Price rookie card. I got six other rookie cards too, but nobody noteworthy.

Here’s the breakdown for my second OPC blaster box:

– 71 base cards
– 7 Marquee Rookies
– 1 Team Checklist
– 1 Stat Leaders
– 1 Season Highlights
– 1 In Action
– 2 base parallels

OK, I am totally convinced that Upper Deck could crap in a cardboard box, label it O-Pee-Chee, and people would still buy it.

I should know…because I am proof. Guilty as charged.

But my whole diatribe about the quality of the new O-Pee-Chee set will have to wait. Right now, I’m here to bust open some packs in the hopes of getting some good cards, and maybe even build a set.

Since I missed the boat on Upper Deck Series 1, I figured I would try and build out a set of 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee. I recently went to Target, and bought a few “blaster boxes”–14 pack wax boxes that are $20 each. I think what fueled my sudden desire to buy this set is that the local dealer told me that the new OPC set was “Canada only”, and apparently boxes were going for a lot on the secondary market.

Honestly, though, I just love hockey cards. And since I could not stomach the thought of buying some set that costs $100 a box(!), I figured this would be a good set to get into.

So, without further ado, here is my first OPC Blaster Box Breakdown:

– 71 base cards
– 7 Marquee Rookes
– 2 Team Checklists
– 1 Season Highlight
– 1 Stat Leaders
– 2 base parallels

I think I like this set a little better than other Upper Deck sets–but not Upper Deck proper–because the rookie cards are seeded 1 in every 2 packs, instead of 1 in every 4 or 6 packs, like other sets. So, that means that I’d have to buy, oh, 200 packs of these cards to get 100 rookie cards. Looks like I’ve got some work to do…

Last week, I received my 12 MVP Rookie Redemption Packs from Upper Deck. Each pack had three cards, for a total of 36 cards. Unfortunately, I did not get all 30 cards that I needed; I go 27 of the 30, plus 9 duplicates. Here are the cards I got in my 12 packs:

351 Johnathan Toews x 2
352 Carey Price
353 Bobby Ryan x 2
354 Sam Gagner
355 Patrick Kane
356 Nicklas Bergfors x 2
357 Eric Johnson
358 Nicklas Backstrom x 2
359 Anton Stralman
360 Jonathan Bernier
361 Bryan Little x 2
362 Kris Russell x 2
363 Andrew Cogliano x 2
364 Marc Staal
366 Peter Mueller
367 Ondrej Pavelec
368 Martin Hanzal
369 Matt Smaby
370 Brian Elliot
372 Matt Niskanen
374 James Sheppard
375 Kyle Chipcura x 2
376 Tyler Kennedy
377 Jiri Tlusty
378 Mason Raymond
379 David Perron x 2
380 Milan Lucic

It’s nice that I got a spare Jonathan Toews card (yay!), I am sorry that I didn’t get a spare card of Patrick Kane. I’ve heard of Bobby Ryan and Niklas Backstrom, so having spares of them can’t be a bad thing…but I’m drawing a blank at Bryan Little or Andrew Cogliano.

The three “update rookies” that I still need are:

365 Nick Foligno
371 Brett Sterling
373 Devin Setoguchi

Overall, I need those three update rookies, 26 other rookie cards and one base card, and then I’ll have the entire MVP set. I am planning on adding my want lists and trade lists to this site soon. In the meantime, if anyone has that Folingo, Sterling or Setoguchi cards for trade, drop me a line.