HockeyDen

One autograph per pack makes for great value.

It was in the mid 90’s that the concept of memorabilia-based insert cards were introduced into the hockey card genre. One of the first companies to take this on was called Be A Player, now known as In The Game. Their Be A Player product was unique from that of Upper Deck’s by way of the fact that in the UD packs your chance of pulling an autograph were one in hundreds, whereas Be A Player guaranteed you an autograph in every pack. This came at a premium of charging upwards of…………$8 A PACK!!!

Now, also different about this product was the fact that the company only had a contract with the NHLPA meaning they couldn’t show ANY NHL owned images, including team and league logos. What this meant was you had players appearing on the cards in either in rather generic jerseys, posed portrait shots or cavorting outside the rink photos. Worked sometimes, other times looked really hokey, but you do what you have to do, right?

Fast forward to present day. Be A Player is no longer a company, just a product, and it is now produced by Upper Deck. It is produced in much the same way as earlier releases (one autograph per pack), but is now NHL and NHLPA licensed and contains a lot more goodies:

CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS:

- One signature card in every pack.
- Collect 1 Rookie Card or Rookie Redemption Card #'d to 99 - or a Rookie Card parallel #'d to 10 - in each box on average.
- NEW THIS YEAR: Rookie Jersey cards, #'d to 299! They combine with regular card parallels (#'d to 15) to deliver another box hit.
- Pull 1 dual signed card in each box on average.
- Look for autograph cards of 3-8 players (averaging 1 per case).

PRODUCT BREAKDOWN:

Autograph Cards (combining to deliver an avg. of 1 per pack)
- Be A Player Signatures - inserted 1:2
- Be A Player Duals - inserted 1:8
- Be A Player Trios - #'d to 35
- Be A Player Foursomes - #'d to 10
- Be A Player Six Star Signatures - #'d to 8
- Be A Player Eight Star Signatures - #'d to 6
- Be A Player Signatures Player's Club - #'d to 15

Rookie Cards
- Be A Player Rookies - #'d to 99
- Be A Player Rookie Redemptions - #'d to 99

Rookie Jersey Cards
- Be A Player Rookie Jerseys - #'d to 299

Parallel Cards
- Regular Cards, Player's Club // - #'d to 15
- Rookie Cards, Player's Club // - #'d to 10

Regular Cards
- 180 Regular Cards

Average Price
An eight pack hobby box (5 cards per pack) is going to run you about $100 to $120.

Base Cards

The base cards in this set are colour schemed according to the player’s team, which adds a variety across the base set. The design is a simple full colour/full body shot over a team colour scaled upper-body blow up of the player as a background. Player’s name, position and team are printed vertically down the border. Simple but nice. The card stock is a little thin for my liking, making me worry about potential damage during shipping, but the packaging is adequate enough to keep me from worrying too much about it.

Take a peek:

Base Card

Henrik Zetterberg 

Autographs

The only complaint here is that we seemingly ran into a “1 per pack (averaged across the production run)” problem here, landing only 7 autographs across the 8 packs. This sucks, but given what else we landed (you’ll see) it didn’t hurt that much!

Evgeni Nabokov

Andreas Lilja

Alex Edler

Eric Staal

Oscar Moller

Andrew Ference

Vanek/Pominville

Did alright to be honest. Great lands on the Nabokov and Staal singles and Vanek/Pominville dual auto, while Lilja and Edler were good average player lands. The only real dud was the Moller card, but we can’t pull a gem from every pack, can we?

Jersey Card

Making up for the missing 8th autograph was a great rookie jersey:

Steve Mason

Landing the rookie of the year as a jersey card? Priceless. What more can you say.

Rookie Cards

This was the Dud-zilla part of the box. Pulled one legit rookie card:

Jonas Frogren

I’m sure Jonas is a wonderful son who loves his mother and treats her well, but he does nothing for the value of the collection. We also pulled a rookie redemption card, but with all the big name rookies already included in the set (Stamkos, Mason, Oshie, Brassard, Turris, etc…) what’s the rookie got the potential to be? Well that’s where things get interesting! These redemptions are actually for rookies in the 09-10 season, adding a bit of mystery to the whole process! A shot at a Tavares, Hedman or Duchene? Yes please!

Verdict

We actually really like this series for what it is. It’s not a set builder or a RC heavy release. It’s all about the memorabilia! Did that part come through? Yeah, We would drop our money on this before a UD Black or The Cup, sacrificing rarity for volume of chances.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know!

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