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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.

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