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It’s tough not to get all wrapped up into the draft hype when buying a box of In The Game Heroes & Prospects. After all, this brand has always been about delivering the next big thing, which today is the draft duo of Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin of the Ontario Hockey League.

In The Game’s “Prospect” scope, however, doesn’t start and stop with the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. There are plenty of up-and-coming kids that have been drafted and are just a year or two away from the big time in the National Hockey League. Prime examples are #90 Cody Hodgson (Vancouver Canucks), #130 Jodan Eberle (Edmonton Oilers), #78 Nazem Kadri (Toronto Maple Leafs) and #69 Brayden Schenn (Los Angeles Kings). With the exception of Hodgson because he was injured, those guys played for Canada at the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championship.

Collectors who picked up The Want List issue #4 will recognize many of the prospect names in this brand. Forty-two of the 50 “Best Teenagers in Canada” appear in the 2009-10 In The Game Heroes & Prospect set. It’s nice to put a card (a face) to those names.

There are also a handful of NHL rookies in this set, most notably those that were in the junior ranks last year like John Tavares (who we didn’t pull) and Matt Duchene. These players are indeed featured with their junior teams. These cards are not rookie cards.

There are also some NHL players that the NHL sets have missed this year. The best example is Tuukka Rask who is featured with his 2008-09 American League team, the Providence Bruins. Rask has somewhat surpassed last year’s Vézina Trophy winner Tim Thomas in the Boston goal, but he has yet to appear on a regular NHL card this 2009-10 season. It’s a good thing that In The Game Heroes & Prospects got him in as card 49.

As always, there are plenty of basic and special inserts to chase in this new In The Game brand. Basic inserts in our hobby box were Calder Cup Winners (John Carlson), Class of 2010 (Mark Pysyk), and Enforcers (Brent Henley). As for the special inserts, we pulled two autograph cards (Joey Hishon and Spencer Machacek) and three memorabilia cards (Peter Holland jersey, Martin Jones jersey, Brent Raedeke emblem).

Of yeah, we pulled 139 of 200 base cards, or a little better than two thirds of the set. We even got those draft prospects Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin.

For more information, please visit itgtradingcards.com.

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