Well, tomorrow is National Hockey card day. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, Upper Deck is giving away one free pack of hockey cards per customer to local hobby shops and Retail card sellers. The details can be found at
Upper Deck's 2010 National Hockey Card Day website.
If you're looking for the whole set, be sure to make note of the retail stores involved. Currently, Toys R Us, Jean Coutu, London Drugs, Rexall and Pharma Plus are all listed as retails stores giving away the packs. If you're a frequenter of your local card shop, you might be able to deal for more than one pack though.
The set is comprised of 15 cards, 5 rookies, 5 Canada players and 5 'Heroes'. The Rookie cards don't look too bad. I like the Canada set, but I'd prefer to see the players in their team Canada sweaters. As for the heroes set, its a little disappointing. Don't get me wrong, the retro look in yellow and brown isn't too bad. What my real issue is that three of the heroes are current players. Here is a pic of this year's cards.
And here's a sample of last year's cards
Overall, I think Last year's heroes look way better and have a better checklist. This year's rookie design is better, and the two Canada sets are more or less equivalent. It is nice to see that they didn't reuse any designs, but did reuse colours which gives the set a nice continuity from '09 to '10.
If this year's release is anything like last year's, each pack will have a mix of cards, but it won't be totally random. There will probably only be three kinds of packs and if you get the same pack twice, get ready for 5 duplicates.
There were also some logistical issues last year. First off, not every shop advertised on the UD website actually had packs to give away. Some didn't get them till the day after and couldn't give them away on the day of. Secondly, my local card shop told me that they had to pay for the packs. Even though you're getting this for free, it may not be Upper Deck that's paying for it. Either his local distributor hoped to make some cash, or Upper Deck is getting the local shops and retails to pay for the cards and having a massive advertising campaing to get them to give them away for free.
When I went last year to get some packs, I saw mothers and children and boys and their girlfriends picking up packs together. Last year Walmart was also involved and that box of packs moved from the front of the store, then to the back of the store and eventually to the front again throughout the day. Things like this seem to me that they'll draw in the kids even more so than sets specifically geared to children.
I won't be going to pick up this year. Better to leave it for some other kid to grab some. If you want to get yours, go for it! Don't forget to spend some dough at your LCS as well.
Cheers.
