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The Upper Deck Company has released 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier, the company’s second-last hockey card set of the 2009-10 season. O-Pee-Chee Premier and The Cup (Aug. 24) – both high-end brands – close out the 2009-10 season this August 2010.

“O-Pee-Chee Premier is always one of our most sought-after sets and this year’s release is no exception,” said Josh Zusman, Upper Deck’s hockey brand manager. “Once again, we’ve covered the gamut with incredible rookie memorabilia cards, autographs and legends of the ice. And since this will be the last time Upper Deck produces this high-end set for at least the foreseeable future, it should only add to its collectibility.”

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Packed with four great hits inside every five-card pack, Upper Deck’s 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier Hockey defines the essence of great hockey card collecting. Hitting store shelves today, OPC Premier is chock full of choice inserts including one autographed “Quad Rookie Memorabilia” card, one NHL superstar’s signature card, one manufactured patch card, and one triple- or quad-swatch memorabilia card or parallel card numbered to 25 or less, in every pack.

Leaving few pucks unturned, Upper Deck’s insert lineup is second to none. In addition to boasting renowned NHL names like Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull, Mark Messier, Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky as part of its newly unveiled “Premier Signings” autograph extravaganza, this year’s OPC Premier collection includes super-cool manufactured patch cards featuring nicknames, achievements and famous nicknames of some of hockey’s most celebrated players ever including Don “Grapes” Cherry and “Bam Bam Cam” Neely. Orr, Howe and Gretzky are all under exclusive contract with Upper Deck.

The lineup kicks off with the highly desirable “Quad Memorabilia” autographed rookie cards which are numbered to 299. The manufactured patch cards include OPC “Premier Stichings” versions numbered to 199 and OPC autographed “Premier Stichings” gems numbered to just 25. The outstanding array of memorabilia cards found within OPC Premier will satisfy the most rabid of hockey card collectors starting with “OPC Premier Remnants, Quad Jerseys,” numbered to 25, and “Triple Jerseys,” numbered to 35. Current standouts included in both lineups include Alex Ovechkin, Martin Brodeur, Joe Thornton, Jari Kurri and Ryan Miller. Retired greats include Howe, Gretzky, Messier, Patrick Roy and Steve Yzerman.

The overall assortment of autographed cards is one of Upper Deck’s strongest in years. The initial “Premier Signings” lineup is numbered to 50 and includes current superstars like Antti Niemi, Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Martin Brodeur and Ovechkin, alongside top rookies from this past season including John Tavares, Matt Duchene, Jonas Gustavsson, Victor Hedman and James van Riemsdyk. The additional levels of “Premier Signings” autograph card variations include: “Duals,” numbered to 25; “Triples,” numbered to 15; “Quads,” numbered to 10; “Gold Parallels,” numbered to 15; “Dual Gold,” numbered to 10; “Triple Gold,” numbered to 5; and “Quad Gold,” numbered to 1.

Upper Deck’s 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier Hockey boasts five cards per pack (one pack per box) and is currently available on hobby store shelves.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Upper Deck Company has posted the first images of 2010-11 O-Pee-Chee on its Facebook page. Five images have been posted, including the base card design.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=5030289&id=61698633950&ref=fbx_album

This year’s 2010-11 O-Pee-Chee set will feature 600 cards in the base set. The set will release in mid December and will feature new rookies who skate at the start of the new season in October. There will also be a retro variation seeded one per hobby pack. A typical hobby box may include 18 rookies/legends, one Action laminated card, nine retro parallel cards, one or two Black retro parallels, and nine O-Pee-Chee inserts.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Call me crazy, but do we need rookie cards in every hockey product? Okay, so you can call me crazy, but if we take 2010-11 Victory as an example, there are definitely some products that could use less rookie cards instead of more.

Rookie cards have become a staple to every (modern) hockey card set this past decade. In no way am I suggesting that products like Upper Deck or SP Authentic or The Cup (or the new Certified hockey by Panini) should offer less rookie cards. These products have developed a proven track record over the past 10 years.

While collectors buy those products for the rookie cards (and memorabilia and autograph cards), they don’t buy Victory for the rookie cards. Victory hockey is one of the best entry-level products. At less than $2 a pack, it offers young fans their first sampling of hockey card collecting. As such, the emphasis needs to be on the best of hockey – the all-stars, not the unknown rookies.

If you take this year’s 2010-11 Victory, rookies are seeded in every second pack. There are 50 different rookie cards, all of whom made their debut late last season. That means the selection is pretty weak – it features numerous “prospects” that may never play more than 50 games in their NHL careers.

So why not feature fewer rookie cards in this product? Maybe offer 10 rookie cards that are seeded once in every 10th pack. Ironically, these rookie cards would appear harder to get, even though the odds of pulling any particular rookie card would be identical. At the rate of 50 cards by 1:2 packs, it will take you 100 packs to pull a P.K. Subban rookie card. At the rate of 10 cards by 1:10 packs, it would still take you 100 packs to pull that same Subban rookie card.

To fill that 50-card sheet, the 40 non-rookies would be an additional insert set of star players. Victory hockey already features two inserts of stars – Game Breakers and Stars of the Game. (For the record, 32 players appear in both 50-card “star” subsets with 18 unique players in Game Breakers and 18 more unique players in Stars of the Game). So why not go topical? Create a 20-card insert of Stanley Cup champions (the Chicago Blackhawks) and a 20-card set of International Stars (Olympic champions?) or NHL All-Stars (with photos from the NHL All-Star Game).

So let’s rethink the rookie card and the products in which they appear. Let’s produce fewer Taylor Chorney rookie cards (16 is too much), but still just as many John Tavares rookie cards (19 is just right). Some times, less might just mean more.

Popularity: 2% [?]