2016-17 Parkhurst Hockey Box Break

First off, let's start by saying there were a few things wrong with the release of Upper Deck's 2016-17 Parkhurst collection, starting with the fact that they were supposed to be sold exclusively at Canadian Walmart stores in December of 2016, but because there were issues with an Ontarian distributor, they found their way into American Walmart stores instead for the longest time.

I bought an Ottawa Senators team pack - containing 10 of the 11 cards of Sens players in the set - during the playoffs last year before I saw a box anywhere. That changed yesterday when I went to a Walmart Supercenter, shopping for a play set for my cat and saw them; I put down the Marvel Daredevil figurines I had laid my hands on and took this box instead, for a cool $29.92 (plus taxes, which amounts to $34.50).

What I got was 120 cards - so, 40 cents each - but there were so many inserts and variants that I was left with a satisfaction I hadn't felt since... well, since Panini produced Score sets for the NHL, which reminded me of my youth.

The cards are thin and fragile, and super glossy; they'll be a pain to sign for players, and they'll be easy to crease, as they seem to be half as thick as regular cards (Series 1, O-Pee-Chee, MVP, etc.). However, they look good, the design feels right, and there's just enough variety that I was happy even though I didn't pull an autograph or a jersey card.

Here's a breakdown of what I got:

89 regular-issue cards with a green border, with the back showing statistics from the past four seasons, which is enough to see how players are trending:

There were, however, seven doubles: Matt Beleskey, Jake Allen, Colin Greening, Jamie McGinn, Roman Polak, Jonathan Toews, and Kyle Okposo.

The variants come in either the "red" or "black" variety, which look like this (notice how the alternate border extends to the back of the card as well):

Adam Lowry, Boone Jenner and Ben Hutton are the only three players whose regular-issue cards ended up being variants for me, but I did get a few Rookies that were of the "red" variety (Pontus Aberg, Charlie Lindgren, and Thomas Chabot) to go with my 18 other "Rookie" cards: Mitch Marner, Lindgren, Lawson Crouse, Chase De Leo (twice), Alan Quine (twice), Oliver Kylington, Brandon Carlo, Pavel Zacha, Gustav Forsling, Matthew Tkachuk, Ivan Provorov, Frédérik Gauthier, Travis Konecky, Stephen Johns, Kasperi Kapanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand:

I also landed one "Rookie Parade" card of Connor Brown:

There was one "Checklist" I could have done without, despite it featuring Auston Matthews:

I also fell upon three "NHL Centennial Salute" cards, including these two of Mark Messier and Jonathan Quick, as well as one of Glenn Hall:

And the goalie nerd in me was happy to pull two foil "Protectors Of The Net" cards, Carey Price and Pekka Rinne:

Again, despite landing no "real hits", I was left with a giddy and satisfying feeling after opening this box, the likes of which I hadn't felt in maybe five years of when opening boxes - and this is for a box of a product that is a season old.

This is a solid 8.5/10 for me.