Holiday Hits

I love the holiday season...as in a previous post I mentioned my love for the World Junior tourney but I do also love the exchanging of gifts. I am aware it is more blessed to give then receive and I do enjoy giving, but it is also fun receiving. My in-laws know my love for collecting and I really appreciate the support that they have for my hobby by giving hockey card related gifts. This year I received a few blaster boxes and a couple random packs. For the record, I am not a huge fan of blasters because the hit odds are against you with the packs usually being of the retail variety and the odds on those are usually pretty gross. But, some of the local merchants were having large sales on the blaster boxes so I received a few and they didn't cost the gift-giver too much either. Over the next couple posts I will share with you my results.

From my "stocking" I received two repacks of Upper Deck Hockey. One was a pack of 07-08 Series 2 and the other was of 08-09 Series 2. I am fond of Series 2 no matter what year because of the increased Rookie Card odds and frankly 07-08 was my first set to get me back into the hobby so it has a special place in my heart.

The 08-09 pack yielded absolutely nothing! Even the Victory insert was a base card of Curtis Joesph and the best UD base card was Gary Roberts who is now a training guru and is responsible for the amazing growth of Steven Stamkos but not very exciting as a card.

The 07-08 UD was a much better result. No rookies but I did get a Milan Lucic Rookie Materials Jersey Card. I know there are differing opinions on these cards but personally I love them. Sure they are "event-used" but they are released during the rookie season of the player. The production numbers are lower than most of their rc's and they look much better than most base cards.

In all I would say this is a nice surprise which can also be said about Lucic's season this year. After a injury filled 09-10, he is off to an excellent start. After 35 games he is already one goal away from tying his career best of 17 and he is on pace for a personal best of 37 goals and 62 points. Definitely a great holiday hit!