06-07 Fleer

It doesn't seem like Upper Deck is going to be releasing a Fleer set this year, which is too bad considering this was the second best set of 06-07, in my opinion (which is the correct opinion). I already said just about everything I have to say about this set in a previous post, but since I got the set off of eBay for next to nothing, I thought it deserved it's own post.

Upper Deck should have released these cards as their O-Pee-Chee set instead of the ugly brown cards that got the O-Pee-Chee brand name. Everything about the Fleer set is closer to the traditional look and feel of the O-Pee-Chee sets of the past except that the backs only have stats from the player's last five NHL season stats.

Five of my favourites:

#45 - Nikolai Khabibulin - Judging from what I can see of his face through his mask, he must be the world's ugliest dude.

#94 - Rob Blake - Since this was one of the first sets of the 07-08 season there weren't photos of some of the players with their current teams, so they either used a photo of the player with his previous team and put the current team's logo in the corner, or, in Rob Blake's case, they hired a handicapped person to hold up his new jersey for a photo.

#114 - Scott Hartnall - As much as I liked Nashville's gaudy third jerseys, it's about time they were put out of the NHL's misery.

#125 - Trent Hunter - This guy looks like he was drafted from the dark corner of one of those internet cafe's where you see people playing war games online 24 hours a day.

#154 - Sidney Crosby - Ever heard of him?

06-07 Hockey Card Round-Up

By my count, Upper Deck released 30 different sets for the 06-07 season. Since I don't have the time or money to buy and write about each set, I am only going to cover the four affordable sets that I could find.

Upper Deck
Cost: $4/8 card pack

Easily the best set of the year. A nice simple, classy design plus lots of horizontal cards (five in my pack of eight cards) and lots of action shots. Probably my favorite set in the last ten years. Of course, like everything Upper Deck releases now, there are more subsets, inserts and game worn memorabilia cards than there are base cards. While that does make collecting the complete set from the pack difficult, it seems that there are lots of people who don't even want the base cards-- meaning you can buy the complete set off of eBay for about $10.

Best card from my pack: #143 - Robert Esche (back)

Fleer
Cost: $2/10 card pack

The more I look at and feel these cards, the more I like them. Fleer has that great rough cardboardy texture that I thought was extinct from hockey cards. While the photography in this set isn't particularly exciting, the cards aren't boring to look at either, and the fact that this set reminds me more of O-Pee-Chee than Upper Deck's O-Pee-Chee set earns it several bonus points. This is the closest anyone has gotten to the budget cards of the early-90's in a long time. Add five more cards to the packs, get rid of most of the inserts and drop the price of the full case to around $30, and this is a ten out of ten in my books.

Best card from my pack: #56 - Sergei Fedorov (back)

O-Pee-Chee
Cost: $1.50-2/6 card pack

Upper Deck really messed this one up. They took the most important brand in hockey card history, and instead of giving it a classic design deserving of its name, they farted out an ugly brown border and stamped the O-Pee-Chee logo on it five times bigger than it needed to be. I know that O-Pee-Chee's last set (92-93) was bad, but why did Upper Deck have to try to up the ante on ugly? The photography does manage to follow in the tradition of O-Pee-Chee cards: lots of close-up non-action shots. It's just too bad that that was the only point that they could get right. I suppose they did also make a simple, two colour back, but it's simple to the point of laziness. I can't think of any sets with backs that are more boring than this brown quadruple-spaced turd. They couldn't even be bothered to put in the right headings for the goalie stats. Pretty lame!

Best card from my packs: #419 - Vesa Toskala (back)

Victory
Cost: $2/6 card pack

I guess Upper Deck put all their effort into thinking of thousands of uncollectable subsets, so their actual sets were just thrown together when they needed something to package with their inserts. Victory is an uninspired set that looks like a second rate Score. Everything about these cards is unspectacular. Why is it necessary to have the big Victory logo behind the player when the logo is in the top left corner anyway?

Best card from my pack: #91 - Alexander Frolov (back)