let's! rip! hockey!

it's been years since i bought any packs of hockey cards, but i was in target the other day and saw some upper deck series two blasters 

and figured i would shoot my (slap) shot at a connor bedard young guns card.  upper deck guarantees at least one young guns card per blaster, and they are listed as being inserted in 1 of every three packs. there are four packs per blaster, but each pack has 12 cards (remember those days?) so the cards wind up averaging about 50 cents apiece.

i feel i should mention that back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, i was collecting hockey cards probably at a greater pace than i was collecting baseball cards. i grew up in a hockey fan household and got to go to a couple of games a year. my dad made sure that we saw wayne gretzky play in the 1980 all-star game in los angeles, and when the great one joined the kings in 1988, i just happened to be living close enough to get to the forum several times to see him in person. even better, my dad purchased some hockey sets in his early collecting days, including the 1979-80 set. unfortunately, he chose topps and not o-pee-chee, but i have a wayne gretzky rookie card as a result so i'm not complaining. 

being from socal, our team was the kings, although i was an inaugural season season ticket holder for the ducks. same for the wild, who came into existence a couple of years after i moved to the twin cities.  anyway, i've let my hockey fandom lapse somewhat so i had no idea what to expect in these packs.

first pack was cole/colton heavy as far as the inserts were concerned. i got an outbursts parallel of colton sissons

an ecliptic insert of cole caufield

and an honor roll insert of cole guttman

i don't follow hockey that closely anymore (i've only been to one wild game this season) so these names are new to me. there was a wild card in the pack, that of joel eriksson

there was also a young guns card in there, but i missed it when i opened the pack since it was a kraken player - 

and not a blackhawk. with that first pack, i beat the odds which is nice i guess. the outbursts parallel is listed at 1:45 packs, and wound up being the scarcest card i pulled in the box. the other two inserts are listed at 1:6 for the ecliptic and 1:3 for the honor roll.

pack 2 had another wild card - mats zuccarello

plus a kirill kaprizov o-pee-chee glossy insert

kaprizov is good at hockey. those glossy inserts are 1:3 packs.

the pc's inserts are 1:4, and this pack had sebastian aho

in it. i had to look his name up because he is only "s. aho" on the card. it looks like "pc" stands for "player character" and not "player collection". the circle under aho makes me think that maybe there is a tie-in to a video game but there's nothing on the card to confirm this.

the last insert of pack 2 was a "dazzlers" card

of sid the kid. although i guess sidney crosby is no longer a kid. these cards are 1:4 packs and remind me of the pink fireworks parallels in panini baseball products.

pack 3 was the one that had the young guns card that i noticed, so i beat the odds with two in the box. and, even better, i noticed this one because it was a blackhawk! however, it was kevin korchinski 

and not bedard.  still, it features the memorial patch that chicago is wearing for their late ceo rocky wirtz, so i can find a place for it in my collection among the few other hockey memorial patch cards i have (here's a link to a post with many of them shown, including one for rocky's dad). i haven't kept up with hockey memorial patches in recent years, but i may go and find a card for the guy lafluer patch that the canadiens wore a couple years ago as well as the gordie howe patches that the red wings wore after he passed.

the only two kings cards in the box were in this third pack - kevin fiala

and gabe vilardi

there appear to be a ton of new and alternate uniform styles in the nhl. the vilardi card features one i had not seen before for the kings. vilardi is wearing gary shuchuck's number, by the way.

as for inserts, this pack had another honor roll card

and an instinctive card

of jake allen. see what i mean about the jerseys? i had no idea that the canadiens, of all teams, wore baby blues. anyway, those instinctive inserts are seeded at 1:4.

the fourth pack had another o-pee-chee glossy insert

a deep roots insert of andrew mangiapane

(which i believe reflects the fact that he is in his seventh season with the flames), and a canvas insert of tanner jeannot

i actually really enjoyed opening these packs even though i recognized only a couple of the players. i am reminded that upper deck puts out a quality product and now am pining for the days that they had a license to produce baseball cards.