Box Break: 2020-21 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey

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For the past couple of months, every time I'd seen boxes of Upper Deck's 2020-21 Series 1 boxes, they were well over $200, because the market was going nuts for a certain rookie card. They're back around $120 at the moment for retail boxes, so I thought I'd give the product another try.

I was able to land a couple of foil Dazzler cards of Anze Kopitar and Sidney Crosby, though the Crosby is dented and has the bottom-right portion of the card bent:

It'll have no retail value, but my kids will be able to play with it and I won't get a heart attack if they tear it apart

I got three "regular-issue" Canvas cards, featuring Jonathan Huberdeau in a weird angle, Roman Josi playing soccer, and a view from the ceiling of Bell MTS Place of Kyle Connor (look closely, he's there):

There was also this great-looking Canvas Young Guns card of Pavel Francouz:

I pulled a jersey card of Braden Holtby, featuring three-dimensional round spots:

I guess I'll have to not only get used of the Portraits sub-set, but also of getting repeated duplicates of Jack Hugues, Max Domi and Nathan MacKinnon:

But this Portraits Rookie card of Martin Kaut was a pretty sweet pull:

Of course, the main reason why the cost of these boxes went sky-high is the Young Guns inserts, such as Lucas Carlsson and Martin Kaut:

There is also Artem Zagidulin and Ryan McLeod:

And, yes (FINALLY! On my second Retail box, after two Tins!) Alexis Lafrenière and Kieffer Bellows:

Of note, because of the closed border and confinement rules, the picture was taken at my alma mater, Collège Notre-Dame, where (former) NHLers Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre, Ben Guité, Mathieu Darche, Tom Draper and Alex Burrows also played, as well as Team Canada Olympians Ann-Sophie Bettez and Lauriane Rougeau.

Box Break: 2020-21 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey Tin

Whenever anyone asks me what I want for Christmas, the normal answers usually come out of my mouth: world peace, a job in hockey, and hockey cards. This year again, I was more than happy to receive a tin of Upper Deck's 2020-21 Series 1 hockey cards (buying from that link may result in my getting a commission for directing traffic). As mentioned previously earlier this month, I'm a big fan of the set, it looks and feels great. I had issues within my first break with many repeats, but I'm glad to say it didn't happen with the tin, fortunately, because having doubles of entire packs when there are just nine of them in total would have been insulting. Speaking of which, the tin came wrapped in a cardboard strip that looked like this front the front:

And like this on the side:

The way it says "8 packs per pack" and "10 packs per box" leads one to think there are 80 UD Series 1 cards plus the additional three O-Pee-Chee glossy rookie cards, but in fact, there were only nine packs of Series 1 cards and the OPCs came in their own foil pack, which brought the total card count to 75:

Speaking of which, two of them were seemingly of the regular-issue kind, Kiefer Bellows and Jake Evans:

The other one, featuring Josh Norris, was of perhaps a "Gold" variant:

In terms of standard UD cards, I was graced with three Young Guns, of Joel Kiviranta, Peyton Krebs and Evans:

I also landed a Canvas card of Rasmus Dahlin:

I pulled a Dazzlers card of New York Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin that appears golden to the naked eye, instead of pink like the scan:

And there were Portraits cards of Max Domi and Jack Hughes:

This means one of my packs had no inserts whatsoever, although I did get repeats fo the regular set Checklists that I had already gotten in my first box.

I couldn't have asked for a better present, but UD has to be more careful about how they label stuff, there could eventually be massive penalties in Canada from the many Consumer Protection boards resulting in millions of dollars in fines.

As far as this year's collection goes, I'm sticking with my original grade: 8.5/10.

Box Break: 2020-21 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey

Upon realizing that the market is going crazy over Alexis Lafrenière rookie cards - in a "Pro Set signed Patrick Roy mask card" kind of way, not just a "hey, it's a fun year", which makes me think the bubble will burst soon - and that Upper Deck's 2020-21 Series 1 boxes might not be around for long and may see a dramatic increase in price, I shelled out the $129 for one, of the "Retail" variety. My first thought was that this was the best-looking flagship set in a long time:

I really like the full-frame pictures with the silver foil column with the player and team names and the fact that the backs show the complete career statistics.

As usual, Upper Deck used an array of cool photography, including their classic wide angles:

There are also ice-level shots with regular lenses that capture the action well or make Alex Ovechkin look like he weighs 350 pounds:

There are players in cool or awkward positions:

And there are nice, fun celebrations:

As a jersey enthusiast, I appreciate the chance of looking at the pretty ones that mark special occasions like outdoor games or milestone seasons:

Which means I have to suffer through the terrible ones as well:

But it's all worth it for the vintage jerseys:

As for as the usual chase sub-sets, just about one in every five packs had a Young Guns rookie card, so I pulled Olli Juolevi, Nick Robertson, Alex Belzile, Reid Duke and Jake Oettinger:

There were also three Canvas cards, of Nikita Gusev, Elias Pettersson and Jakub Vrana:

And because UD loves to mix-and-match, a Canvas Young Guns card of New York Rangers prospect Vitali Kravtsov:

As is customary in my boxes, I pulled both Checklist cards:

But at least I also got the Young Guns Checklist, featuring teammates Lafrenière and Kravtsov:

I was also lucky enough to get an UD Game Jersey card of Viktor Arvidsson:

The design is pretty neat this year, incorporating the jersey swatch into the image of a stick, as if it were the tape, giving it a purpose of sorts.

The Portraits are a bit of a mess, with O-Pee-Chee-levels of ugliness, but instead of harking back to the 1960s and 1970s like OPC is wont to do, this is chock-full of 1989-1991 pretend-lasers and bright colours, making Connor Hellebuyck, Quinn Hughes, Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk seem like they're in Sixth Grade:

A new sub-set is Dazzlers, with firework/departtment store TV section foil designs meant to act as an epilepsy detector, here with Tyler Seguin putting himself at risk to protect us (just kidding, UD, but there is a lot happening there):

Had that been all, I would have graded it as a near-perfect set, but the collation was awful. Apart from the insert which changed in every pack (a handful of packs did not contain any), no fewer than five of my packs had twins, which means that out of the 192 cards I bought, 35 were doubles, so 18% of the box. To put it another way, only 122 of the cards were unique - or 63.5%. Those are shitty odds at over $100 a pop, especially if the doubles are of Jeff Carter wearing the ugliest Los Angeles Kings jersey ever and similarly hard-to-appreciate cards.

That being said, I did get half a Lafrenière card, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the cards and how happy they made me feel.

This one is a solid 8.5/10.

Good job, Upper Deck!

2019-20 Upper Deck Series 1 "Mega" Canadian Blaster Box Break

I didn't receive any of Upper Deck's flagship 2019-20 Series 1 cards for Christmas this year and felt they were overpriced compared to other products (namely Parkhurst and O-Pee-Chee, and Topps's Stickers set), so I was ready to wait until a good deal presented itself, and I felt that it did in the form of this "Mega" Blaster Box because of the Canadian Exclusive extra, which we'll get to later:

Here is what the base cards look like:

The Justin Schultz card on the left shows the diversity of jerseys one can find in these, and the Brent Seabrook card on the right shows that the back displays the player's complete career statistics as well as a short blurb, regardless whether said player is a rookie or a veteran - none of that "past five years" crap. It's a very glossy set as well, so great for the eyes, a headache to get signed; collector advice: even erasing multiple layers of gloss may leave signatures a bit smudgy.

As usual, the set features amazing photography:

I was able to land a couple of insert cards, including a couple of Young Guns, Danil Yurtaykin and Josh Brown:

I also fell upon a Canvas card of Josh Bailey:

There was also a Shooting Stars card of Brendan Gallagher:

I was under the impresion that these concerned mostly young guys, but veteran Gallagher is a bona fide star and likes to shoot the puck, so that works.

One insert I can definitely do without is UD Portraits, which are at best creepy and/or tacky, and for goalies wearing their masks, utterly useless, as can be attested from this Henrik Lundqvist card:

Which brings me to the bonus two-card pack of Team Triples, which for some reason shows only player (the Vancouver Canucks' Quinn Hughes):

I pulled two historically tough teams, the "Broad Street Bullies" Philadelphia Flyers (featuring Claude Giroux, Carter Hart and Nolan Patrick) and the "Big Bad" Boston Bruins (with Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and Tuukka Rask):

I'd have been more interested if they'd been signed or jersey cards, but as it stands, they're trade bait or Ebay-ready, hoping they find someone who'll show them more love than I can give them.

All told, I got 74 cards: 9 packs of 8 cards for the regular Series 1 set, and the two Team Triples, for $44 ($37 plus sales taxes) - two hours of work at a good-paying job and just under four hours of work at minimum wage (before income taxes, so roughly three hours at a good-paying job and five at minimum wage). Not as nuts as a concert or hockey game ticket, but a significant enough investment that it's likely not an impulse buy.

The cards look and feel great, and they're perfect if you're looking to build a set, and UD even made unannounced variants of two dozen cards where the players are depicted in another jersey and oftentimes in a differnet orientation (vertical vs horizontal), giving it more collectability.

However, between the retail packs, fat packs, retail boxes, hobby boxes, regular blaster boxes and special-edition blaster boxes, it really feels like the 2019-20 iteration is over-produced in the same way that Pro Set cards used to be; it sells at a higher price than it used to but isn't rarer. I don't feel that any of the cards I pulled are worth the 50 cents I paid for them, and wouldn't be surprised if once the mass-production numbers come out, this set's value falls off a cliff.

Despite all of this, I'm not exactly underwhelmed by it either; I'm just not super-excited.

It's slightly above "meh": I'm at 7/10.