Press Pass vs. Topps

Press Pass 1
Topps 0

Blasters vs. Fat Packs. A study in contrast.

catchy title, huh? What the hell was I thinking when I wrote that? Feels like I'm back in eleventh grade english.
Anyways... today's post will highlight a comparison between buying fatpacks, and blasters. For today's example, I will use the brand new 2009/10 OPC Hockey.
To give an acurate comparison, I purchased 4 fat packs and 1 blaster. The price of 4 fat packs = the price of 1 blaster. Am I going too fast? Here we go....
This year's product went old school with Wayne Gretzky in his Oilers jersey. For you youngin's, Wayne was hockey's version of Brett Favre. He just kept coming back year after year wearing odd uniforms of various teams. It was a bit embarrassing after awhile.

The base cards have a silver border with accents in the player's team colours.

sometimes it works....

sometimes not so much...

sometimes it just doesn't...

You get 31 or 32 base cards in a fat pack, along with a chance at a retro parallel insert, or a rookie/legend card. Both inserted at 1:3. In my 4 packs, I got 3 retros, no rookies or legends.

I have no idea why these are called retro... they don't look like any other OPC hockey set I've ever seen. Kind of a letdown after the HUGE success of last years retros. See what lawsuits do? They ruin everything.

Onto the blaster. Wayne! Lookout behind you!!! Where's Semenko when you need him?

inside were 14 little packs, 6 cards each.

aside from the base cards, in the blaster I found Rainbow parallels 1:8

Rookies/Legends 1:2 (found 3 rookies...)

(... 4 Legends)

The base set is cards 1-500. Rookies and Legends make up cards 501-600.

Also found were various shiny inserts 1:4

and my favourite insert set, Canadian Heroes 1:72

somehow I managed to pull 2 of these. At 1:72 odds, 2 in 14 packs. I guess that's where the "on average" comes in.

Okay, so now that the pretty picture portion is over, let's get to the hard facts.

4 Fat Packs-

125 Base Cards (1-500) 3 doubles

3 Retros ( Zach Boychuk, Patrick Marleau, and Mike Bossy)

0 Rookies/Legends (501-600)

0 Inserts

1 Blaster-

62 Base cards (1-500) 0 doubles

7 Retros

7 Rookies/Legends (501-600)

8 Inserts

So for the same $$$, fat packs give you twice as many base cards towards your set. But no rookies. Or inserts. But I wouldn't want to build the set either way. With the ratio for rookies such as it is, you need to go the hobby box route. For $45 (blasters are $25) you'll get twice as many base cards, with a better chance for rookies/inserts.

So there ya go.... I'm doing this, so you don't have to.....

Remember

Today is a day that we take the time to remember those brave souls that have served their countries. In Canada, that is symbolized by the Poppy.
A poem, written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) a Canadian field Doctor;

In Flanders Fields

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was so moved by what he read.

Thank you so much to all veterans out there, as well as those currently serving.

I, will never forget.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

This just in, a panel of drunken homeless people left over from the ticker tape parade have voted to give Derek Jeter, one of baseball's most horrendous shortstops, a gold glove for his "work" this year.
*crickets*

Yes, you read that correctly. Even ESPN has published an article questioning the mental stability of the voting panel. And you know if ESPN says something disparaging about the Yankees, it must be bad. After all, they had to crawl out of Jeter's ass to write it in the first place.

Derek Jeter UZR for 2009 - 6.6
Erik Aybar UZR for 2009 - 7.8
Elvis Andrus UZR for 2009 - 10.7

EDIT: I forgot about Cesar Izturis UZR 10.8 and Adam Everett UZR 8.9


The voters remarked on how Jeter committed the fewest errors of his career. That's because he couldn't bend over to pick anything up, let alone bobble it. A statue would commit ZERO errors. Let's give it a gold glove.

They probably would if it was wearing pinstripes.

Idiots.

New Hall of Famers

Today marks the day of induction for the NHL Class of 2009 Hall of Fame. We have five new members. Four players, and one in the builders catagory.

First up, the most deserving member. Steve Yzerman.
Three Stanley Cups as a player, one as an executive. An Olympic Gold Medal with Canada, Conn Smythe award winner, 9 time All Star, and hockey's 6th all time leading scorer.

Next, Luc Robitaille.

Calder Trophy winner, 8 time All Star, a Stanley Cup, and retires as the highest scoring Left Winger in hockey history.

Brett Hull.

He wasn't good enough to make the Flames roster, so they gave him away to St Louis. Oops.

Two Stanley Cups, 8 time All Star, Hart Trophy winner, and the third best goal-scorer of all time. The Golden Brett, son of Bobby, nephew of Dennis. Guess it is in the blood.

Brian Leetch

Calder, Norris, and Conn Smythe trophy winner, 8 time All Star, a Stanley Cup, along with an Olympic silver medal for Team USA. One of the top three best defencemen not born in Canada.

and finally, Lou Lamoriello.

Lou is the CEO, President, and General Manager of the New Jersey Devils. And has been since 1987. Lou is also very involved in giving back to college hockey in the U.S., as well as being involved in the U.S Olympic team.

There you have it. Certainly a lot more deserving class than last year.

Thank the gods for Donovan McNab

Wow. Philadelphia would have a great team if it wasn't for their below average quarterback.
They would probably have three Super Bowl rings over the last 10 years. Thankfully for us, Donovan is there. No worries. He'll find a way.

Dallas 20 Philly 16
My boy Tony and new star Miles Austin find a way to defeat the Eagles yet again. Dallas is up 56-44 all time in the head to head series.

Now Big D is alone atop the NFC East at 6-2. Green Bay is up next week. Gotta be careful of the trap game...

It's Sunday, and you know what that means

we all worship at the pigskin altar.
In honour of my friend from the deep south, the wicked one himself, I give you this;

Dolphins and Patriots.
This just in, the NFL has penalized and fined Joey Porter for thinking about sacking Tom Brady.

Awww Yeah.......

Yunel Escobar - Best shortstop in baseball 2010. 'Cause I said so.

this is an Achievement

Awhile ago, and I do mean awhile ago, I received this box in my mailbox. It had warnings posted on all 6 sides.
VALUBLE BASEBALL CARDS! - DO NOT SET ON FIRE!

Well, without looking I knew it had to be from Motherscratcher at Achiever Card Blog
I'm actually surprised it made it to my mailbox. Canada Post is known for a lot of things. Humour is not one of them.

After checking for traps, I sliced open the tape and opened the lid to see what was inside. A crowd had gathered by then. They tend to when I get out the portable home made x-ray machine.
Inside was around 300 misc. Braves from various sets and decades. I won't bore you non-Braves fans with them. Needless to say, they were awesome. And I was surprised at just how many I didn't already have. I might feature one or two of them in an upcoming post of their own.

Next up, the junk wax. Beautiful.

You may notice by looking at the picture closely, that the two packages of comic ball cards are merely wrappers. That's because the crowd immediately wrenched them from my hands with cries of "What's this?" and "Cool!"
All hell broke loose when one of the packs revealed this;

I've been searching the internet ever since for boxes of these at a good price with fair shipping. HA! Good luck to me.

After picking myself up off of the floor after getting trampled... I saw a glint from the bottom of the box. It was a top loader, under all of those Braves.
Scratcher had sent me this

it was a card from one of I am Joe Collectors box breaks. No. Scratcher does not have the Braves in the box breaks. He has the Dodgers. I have the Braves. This card went to him. Now he sent it to me. The world is right again.

Thanks dude! An awesome mailday. Sorry it took so long to post. I had to clean up and repair the anarchy that the comic ball cards caused.