Two Score 2012-13 Box Breaks

For the third year in a row, I decided to purchase two boxes of this year's lower-end product, the 2012-13 Score set by Panini. You can find last year's box breaks here. This year's design is reminiscent of their 1988 baseball or 1992-93 hockey sets, except the border is white, not coloured.

One reason why I jumped on pre-ordering these was in case of a lock-out: I thought it'd be rad to have my hands on a product for a season that may not even happen!

This year's set contains 548 cards, including ''highlights'' and ''award winners'' cards, as well as 48 Hot Rookies. There doesn't seem to be ''short-print'' rookie cards this year, which I view as a good thing. View the complete checklist here.

They still come at roughly a buck a pack, 36 per box, 7 cards per, good for 252 cards per box, and they fixed the lighting/photoshop problems on most cards, as well as corrected last year's major flaw, which was that they used the same picture for multiple cards. This year, they're all different (sorry for the awkward crop at the right):

Here is how the first box broke down:

36 packs, 7 cards per: 252 cards

Regular cards: 157

'Gold' parallel: 37 (including one Hot Rookie)

Hot Rookies: 19, one big name being Chris Kreider, the gold parrallel, Akim Aliu, also in regular version, and one Hab - Gabriel Dumont.

Award Winners: 5, including 2 different Evgeni Malkin cards.

The Franchise: 1, Jonathan Quick.


The Franchise Retro: 4 (out of 6 possible!): Johnny Bower, Jean Béliveau, Gordie Howe, and Ed Giacomin.

Net Cam: 3

First Goal: 3

Team Score: 2

Check It: 1, Wendel Clark.

Season Highlight: 13

Montréal Canadiens (my home team): 7, including 1 rookie (Dumont), and 1 guy in a Leafs uniform (Colby Armstrong).

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Here is a breakdown of the second box:

 36 packs, 7 cards per: 254 cards (two packs had an extra common card, one pack had only goalies in it)

Regular cards: 173

'Gold' parallel: 37 (including one Hot Rookie)

Hot Rookies: 19, no big name, the gold parrallel, Jaden Schwartz, and one Hab - goalie Robert Mayer.

Award Winners: 3

Sudden Death: 2: Ilya Kovalchuk and John Tavares.

The Franchise: 2

The Franchise Retro: 4 (2 doubles, 2 to complete the set): Johnny Bower, Bobby Hull, Johnny Bucyk, and Ed Giacomin.

Net Cam: 3

First Goal: 3, incuding Sean Couturier.

Team Score: 2

Team Future: 1, Richard Bachman.

Season Highlight: 15

Montréal Canadiens (my home team): 7, including 1 rookie (Mayer), and 1 Net Cam (Carey Price).

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No autograph redemption card this year, so I'll just have to continue gathering signatures TTM. All in all, though, I do find this to be a huge improvement over last year's product. Good job, Panini.