Saturday, November 29, 2008

2008-09 Upper Deck Hockey

Time for another 2008-09 hockey offering. The Upper Deck base set was actually released a few weeks ago. I picked up two hobby packs, 8 cards a pack. Cards 1-200 are base cards, cards 201-250 are Young Guns rookie cards, which I believe are short-printed. Here's the better of the two packs:

#188 - Tobias Enstrom - Atlanta Thrashers - I'm not going to lie, I have absolutely no idea who this guy is...

#142 - Jared Boll - Columbus Blue Jackets

#183 - Manny Fernandez - Boston Bruins - Nice. Manny's been stuck competing with Tim Thomas for ice time, who leads the league in Goals Against Average and has probably been the top goaltender in the Eastern Conference through the first quarter of the season. Still, he's made the best of his opportunities, boasting a 6-1-1 record with a 2.48 GAA.


#165 - Rod Brind'Amour - Carolina Hurricanes - Rod is one of the few remaining players from the era when I began watching hockey. I wonder how much he's got left in the tank?


#8 - Roberto Luongo - Vancouver Canucks - I would love a hockey set containing all horizontal cards like this one. How about it Upper Deck?


#2 - Alexander Semin - Washington Capitals - Despite playing in only 16 games so far this year, Alexander's 13 goals are good for 5th in the league, and he's managed to tally 27 points. If it wasn't for injury this would be your NHL point leader.


#43 - Marc-Andre Fleury - Pittsburgh Penguins - As usual, Upper Deck does not disappoint with the photography on these cards.


#HT9 - Henrik Zetterberg - Detroit Red Wings - Hat Trick Heroes - Alright, I guess Upper Deck has done and insert set to commemorate every hat trick scored last season. This is an instantly forgettable insert set...

These cards are pretty decent, a clean design and good crisp, full-bleed photography. They would look great in a binder, but I won't be putting up $60+ for a hobby box or buying any more 8 cards packs at $3.50 when I can pick up 6 card packs of O-Pee-Chee for less than half that price. I bet you can get the 200 card base set fairly cheap on Ebay...

7 comments:

William said...

Wow, Rod Brind'Amour still plays? I saw that card and wondered if he had a kid or something haha.

shoeboxlegends said...

I know huh? Bill Guerin, Sergei Fedorov, Nick Lidstrom, Joe Sakic and Chris Chelios still play too, to name a few...

ernest of canada said...

wouldn't it be nice if ud gave up the concept of the insert set altogether and simply stuck to autograph and jersey cards (if they felt they were still necessary)?

Captain Canuck said...

if the photos are at least half as good as the football, this will be an awesome set.

*must resist buying a box...*

shoeboxlegends said...

ernest, I agree completely, it would be great if they did away with inserts altogether. To me, that Zetterberg card is just a base or Young Guns rookie card that I didn't get.

The more I look at these the more I think I actually do want a hobby box. I bought two more hobby packs and will be ripping them in the next day or two so check out my blog if you want to see some more images.

RoofGod said...

I was at tat game when Zetterberg scored the hat trick that earned him that card. The great thinga bout it was that he scored all three goals in the 3rd period to give the Red Wings the lead.

shoeboxlegends said...

RoofGod, believe it or not I actually pulled a double of the Zetterberg insert card today. If you'd like to give me your address I'll send it off to you...