2008 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Rack Pack

I was perusing the card aisle of the local Target the other day when I noticed that 2008 O-Pee-Chee hockey had been released. I figured I'd pick up a couple of packs, 6 cards each with a price tag of $2.99. I was about to leave when I noticed they had 38 card rack packs for $4.99. I tend to be a set collector and don't care much about chasing insert cards, so it wasn't hard for me to choose between 12 cards for $6 or 38 cards for $5.

First Half

SH-12 - Mats Sundin - Toronto Maple Leafs - Season Highlights - Insert card right off the bat. This was actually showing through the back of the wrapper. I thought maybe there was one insert per rack pack, but I picked up another one yesterday and it was insert-free. I wonder which team he will land with when he eventually signs?

#101 - Zbynek Michalek - Phoenix Coyotes

#379 - Rick DiPietro - New York Islanders

#270 - Drew Stafford - Buffalo Sabres

#414 - Nick Tarnasky - Tampa Bay Lightning

#489 - Alex Tanguay - Montreal Canadiens

#112 - Tuukka Rask - Boston Bruins

#415 - Brian Campbell - Chicago Blackhawks - I really like how the team colors were incorporated into the borders of the card, but in cases such as this where the photo does not depict the player with his current team, it looks just plain ugly.

#251 - Pavel Datsyuk - Detroit Red Wings

#186 - Craig MacDonald - Tampa Bay Lightning

#460 - Barret Jackman - St. Louis Blues

#307 - Patrick O'Sullivan - Los Angeles Kings

#292 - Jordan Leopold - Colorado Avalanche

#24 - Braydon Coburn - Philadelphia Flyers - A young defensive star who was drafted 8th overall in the 2003 entry draft by the Atlanta Thrashers. They traded him to the Flyers for Alexei Zhitnik just before he really blossomed. I bet they wish they could undo that trade...

#387 - Scott Hannan - Colorado Avalanche

#163 - Jason Chimera - Columbus Blue Jackets

#343 - Jeff Tambellini - New York Islanders

#65 - Nathan Horton - Florida Panthers

#274 - Ryan Smyth - Colorado Avalanche

Second Half

#584 - Wayne Gretzky - Edmonton Oilers - Legends - Sweet! As far as I can tell, cards 1 - 500 in the set are standard cards, and cards 501 - 600 are comprised of Legends cards, League Leaders, etc. I'm not sure if cards 501 - 600 are short-printed though, does anyone know?

#409 - Jochen Hecht - Buffalo Sabres

#140 - Brendan Witt - New York Islanders

#165 - Henrik Tallinder - Buffalo Sabres

#27 - Niklas Backstrom - Minnesota Wild

#166 - Matt Stajan - Toronto Maple Leafs

#276 - David Krejci - Boston Bruins - David is one of a few up-and-coming young stars that have actually made the Bruins relevant again this year...

#216 - Peter Budaj - Colorado Avalanche

#157 - Chris Drury - New York Rangers

#167 - Marc Savard - Boston Bruins - Here's an card where the team colors in the border really stand out and make for a great look.

#480 - Radek Bonk - Nashville Predators - Full career stats, I love it!

#337 - Lukas Krajicek - Vancouver Canucks

#10 - Cory Murphy - Florida Panthers

#233 - Kris Russell - Columbus Blue Jackets

#243 - Ilya Bryzgalov - Phoenix Coyotes

#457 - Vaclav Prospal - Tampa Bay Lightning

#294 - Erik Cole - Edmonton Oilers

#249 - Andrew Raycroft - Colorado Avalanche

#234 - Jason LaBarbera - Los Angeles Kings

Pretty decent stuff overall, I'll be buying some more of this. Plus, I found out after buying the rack pack that hobby packs contain a one-per-pack parallel of the base set on the 1979 O-Pee-Chee design (Gretzky's rookie year).