edging closer...

My wife went shopping last night at the new super wally world. Normally I wouldn't even notice, except she came back with 09/10 Blaster of series 2 hockey for me. No strings attached. 12 packs, 5 cards per....

Here's the highlights...
and two of the elusive Young Guns...

I hope with a name like this, he talks like Scrooge McDuck...

But the really cool thing is that of the 60 cards in the box, less the 7 inserts, I got 45 cards I needed for my set. These, along with the cards that Dog Faced Gremlin is sending me, leaves me only 5 cards short of the set. Not including the SP Young Guns of course, but I'll never finish them.

UD series 2 box break

No messing around with glitzy titles or false promises. Steak and potatoes. That's me. Well, actually it's the Olympic Gold medal winning women's bobsleigh team from Canada. Heather Moyse and Kaillie Humphreys are from Calgary and Prince Edward Island. Get it? Steak and potatoes? Alberta and P.E.I??? Ah... forget it. Canadian humour.

Anyways. I busted a box of Upper Deck Series 2 hockey yesterday. 24 packs, 8 cards per... yadda, yadda, yadda. Price? $60 shipped from Montreal.

The base cards are the same as series 1, as well as their baseball and football counterparts.
the backs...

8 cards per pack is a bit misleading... one card in each pack is the series 2 cards for their Victory set. Kinda like the whole updates/highlights/heritage debacle.

in each box they say you'll get two relic cards. (on average) The first one I pulled was from my favourite team!!!

but it's of the one guy I don't like on my favourite team. This one may be destined for ShoeBoxLegends. He'll appreciate it I'm sure.
They brought back the Heroes insert set. this time it's Mark Messier. Yawn. I got two in the box.

The problem with UD is their insistance on inserting 30 million insert sets. In each series. This one is called Playoff Performers. I got this Patrick kane and Marc-Andre Fleury.

a carry over insert set is draft day gems. A waste of cards... I got Lidstrom and Tim Thomas.

A new to series 2 insert is this horrible early '90's Score looking Rookie Debut card.

Bringing back a set from last year, Captain's Calling returns.

A set that I was really excited about was The Champions. I was hoping it was UD's version of the Canadian Heroes set in OPC. My first card was of the U.S. women's hockey team competing in Vancouver. I love it. I'm going to complete this set. Or I was anyways....

until this..... WTF? A card of a figure skating silver medalist??? Maybe if it was an event used relic bat card.... ( poor taste, I know, it's my blog, deal with it)

my second relic card was of potential rookie of the year, John Tavares.

But what really drives the price, are the Young Guns. These are what the kids chase after, before they discover girls, and then again after they marry one....

You get six per hobby box.

even I haven't heard of that guy. Oskars?

cool. A local dude.

my favourite team again...

Young Phil is doing well...

ooh... Tyler is a first round pick. He's played one game. He has one goal. He's on pace for an 80 goal season!!!!!!

And finally, young Jonas Gustavsson. Jonas is still having nightmares of rubber bullets coming at his head. Toronto needs to improve the "D". Acquiring Phaneuf helped.

Still with me?? I ended up with 145/200 base cards. And this is either a pro, or a con, no duplicates. Great collation, but now I have no dupes to trade.... Now I have to find somewhere that sells packs.

Who else is collecting this set???

an alternative to a hobby box

Even if you don't collect hockey, most of you know that Upper Deck's latest version of their flagship set came out awhile ago. In it, you may find RC's of young phenoms John Taveres, Victor Hedman, Evander Kane, etc...

I dare you to find a Young Gun of John Taveres selling for under $60 on ebay. Yeah. UD does the hockey RC right. You can actually get your money back off a box break. Who knew?

Anyways, when they came out here in Calgary, three stores carried them. The cost? $85, $75, and $64.75 per box. You know which one I shop with.

The problem. He is an hours drive from my house. It's two weeks before christmas. Ain't gonna happen. Still hasn't happened. Life is just now returning to my version of normal.

What to do.

Enter Wal Mart and their Boxing Day sale. The had these wonderful little tins on sale. 8 packs per tin, 8 cards per pack, plus an oversized card in each tin. $15 each.

Hmmm... that's 24 packs, 196 cards, for $45. A hobby box is 24 packs, 196 cards for $65. What luck! I'm a genius! (Well, my wife is, she found 'em)

Now with each hobby box, you get 6 Young Guns, 2 jersey cards, and a chance at the case hit. An oversized jersey single colour patch card.

Let's see what you get with these retail tins.

The base cards are of course based on their '09 baseball release. The photography was not as good as last year's set. But it would've been tough to top that effort. Out of the three tins, I got 128/200 in the base set.

Holy Crap! Young Guns! In a retail pack! Two per tin! Woot!

Young Guns I found, Evander Kane, Antii Niemi, Michal Neuvirth, Brian Salcido, Ivan Vishnevskiy, Joel Rechlicz.

Now, Joel is pictured in his blue Islanders jersey, just like Tavares. When I pulled Joel, I thought it was Tavares. What a let down.

All World team; Patrick Kane, Henrik Lundqvist, Anze Kopitar, Daniel Alfredsson

a hobby box would only have two of these.

I pulled two Marty Brodeur Heroes inserts, but they were both the same.

Top Guns Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Semin

I also got the usual smattering of other insert sets that infect the hobby these days. But I was really pleased to be able to buy retail, save $20, and still get the 6 Young Guns that a hobby box would provide. Losing out on two jersey cards is not a big deal to me. Especially for a $20 savings.

Unfortunately, this is a one time deal, as these tins are normally $24.95 each. In which case, hobby wins out every time. But as the planets aligned during the Boxing Day Sale, i was able to fake it with retail no less.

If anyone wants to trade their doubles, I have my list up HERE, along with everything else I'm looking for. Thanks in advance.