This year, $35 nets you 14 packs of
Upper Deck's
2016-17 O-Pee-Chee via blaster box, with 6 cards per pack, for a grand total of 84 cards, plus the two at the bottom of the box:
What one needs to know when purchasing OPC cards is that, for old times' sake, UD has kept the set's vintage there's-nothing-to-see-here approach of basic cardboard, matte colour on the side with the picture, dry on the other:
Once that much is clear, the 660-card set can be fun to collect, because all the cards are basically signature-ready (no coating), and each team has 15 or so players represented, factoring in the multiple (and mostly useless) inserts.
There are checklists cards, to ensure the fewest people possible want to complete their sets; I got the
St. Louis Blues and
New Jersey Devils, so nothing to write home about:
The rookie cards (a.k.a. "
Marquee Rookies") are cool, and I pulled
Anthony Mantha,
Kevin Gravel,
Daniel Altshuller, and
Scott Kosmachuk:
The
League Leaders cards as well,though they're really just an excuse to showcase the stars more often, such as
Braden Holtby:
One really stupid sub-set is the
Retro Parallel cards, of which I got
Tyson Barrie,
Nick Holden,
Justin Bailey (RC),
Viktor Arvidsson,
Seth Jones, and
Casey Cizikas:
There were cool foil versions of both regular and rookie cards, as can be attested by
Brett Connolly and
Brendan Leipsic:
There was also a flashback to my youth with this
Connor McDavid mini card:
But the best insert was without a doubt the
Playing Card of
Johnny Gaudreau:
Alex Galchenyuk was the only current member of my hometown
Montréal Canadiens that I pulled and I got very few players from Canadian teams, so my chances at TTM autographs are slim to none.
This is a box I wish I had paid $15-20 for, not $35 after taxes.
I give it a C+.
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