2008-09 Upper Deck Champs Hockey

I guess I really haven't been keeping up with recent releases, as I wasn't even aware that 2008-09 Upper Deck Champs had been released earlier this week. This set looks like Upper Deck's answer to Allen & Ginter baseball, it's incredibly similar as you'll see. I very nearly picked up a hobby box on eBay last night for just over $100, but at just 24 packs and 5 cards per pack I wanted to see what it looked like before going for it. Here's one of the two packs I picked up...

#1 - Alex Hemsky - Edmonton Oilers - From the quick breakdown I saw of the set, there is a 100 card base set of regular sized cards, like this Hemsky card. I think you typically get 2 of these per pack. Pretty cool that the first card I pulled from a pack of this stuff was card #1.

#140 - Alex Goligoski - Pittsburgh Penguins - I believe the rookie cards are short-printed. Not a bad looking card, but I think I like the simple design of the base cards better. Goligoski did see a good deal of action with the Pens this year, but was recently sent down to their AHL affiliate.

#C141 - Paul Stastny - Colorado Avalanche - These mini cards were what really drew me to the set. They're roughly the same size as A & G minis. I'm pretty sure these fall two per pack as well, although I could be wrong about that.

#C332 - Cave Bear - Awesome. I'm a sucker for oddball cards. This one comes from the Natural History Collection subset, and it's a mini as well in case you couldn't tell. Some experts think the Cave Bear grew as large as 2,200 lbs. and most seem to agree that it went extinct somewhere around 27,000 years ago.

#97 - Vesa Toskala - Toronto Maple Leafs - My final card was one from the full-size set. I seem to pull Vesa Toskala cards in every product I buy, even products I seem to only pick up a pack or two of. Unfortunately for me I don't think this guy is in the picture for the Maple Leafs' future. I've watched 3 or 4 Leafs games this year where he started and have not been impressed.

I'm really liking this set. I may have to pick up a hobby box after all...