Have any of you noticed how beautiful hockey cards are??

I was bored and decided to look at some other box breaks from other sports so I stumbled across the hockey section and was just blown away at the quality of the cards. I hardly know anything about hockey but looking at those cards made me kind of want to collect them (Which will not happen).
I just wish Upperdeck had their license for MLB so they could make baseball cards look just as good. Any other baseball collectors notice the sharpness of those cards?

Examples? They look about the same as baseball to me, but maybe you're looking at something I'm not.

uniquebaseballcards said:

Examples? They look about the same as baseball to me, but maybe you're looking at something I'm not.

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I forgot to mention that I am talking about the high end products lol
They just seem to have more.. I dont know.. more to them than highend baseball. For example the Ultimate Collection just seems to jump out at me compared to some high end baseball products. Thats just my opinion.
Here are some links.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=142214
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=140763
some SPx
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=129028
Some other stuff lol
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=126558.
This is just my opinion though.

I agree....i've thought about making a thread about this too.

It seems like baseball gets too much of the retro-themed stuff, and not enough high-quality stuff. Not to mention Topps has been awful when it comes to quality control the last year or two.

ITG Superlative and The Cup. Nothing more needs to be said.

A sport that still has Upper Deck has better high end cards? Who would have thought?

hockey cards are probably the nicest loking cards around. i used to collect hockey and baseball but have since tailored my collection to BC and BDPP.

the swatches that are available for jersey and patch swatches are unrivaled for hockey cards. no other sport can match that. ITG make the best around with superlative and ultimate. the low end UD stuff leaves a little to b desired but their mid and high end stuff rocks the house.

hockey fans are nuts about certain cards and players, i would say more than other fans are about particular players, so the card companies for hockey tend to make high end stuff a lot nicer for them.

I think as far as overall quality, hockey has had the best looking cards in the hobby for the past decade and longer. That ranges from Base (especially Base) to Autographs. Just my opinion but I know several people on the Baseball boards alone agree with me. Its quality stuff.

I also feel that hockey cards usually have the majority of the best looking stuff on the four sport market. Even the base cards are often more desirable.

I consider myself a baseball card collector.. but even I had to grab some hockey since they are fairly cheap compared to baseball.

Absolutely. Not all of them, obviously, but for instance base UD hockey was usually my favorite set each year when I was collecting hockey in the 90s. The large areas of white that often appear set off the figures in a negative-space kind of highlight, the bright colors of the uniforms, the effort that shows on the faces in many shots, and the usually understated clean designs made it easy to put sets into pages and flip through them repeatedly. Plus, I was following the game and there were lots of players I liked, maybe even more than baseball. And new hockey sets would start appearing in the dead of summer when anything even giving the illusion of winter would be welcome in the Texas heat (more so than ever this year, when it probably won't drop under 100 till Christmas).

I mean, go on ebay and look for '1992 upper deck'. You'll see lots of great shots. This is one of my favorite cards of all time in any sport.


Then there was this one. I was never really sure what was going on here. Apparently, Kevin Stevens, amateur James Franco impersonator, was either trying to prevent or figure out how to insert two hockey sticks into himself.

smapdi said:

Absolutely. Not all of them, obviously, but for instance base UD hockey was usually my favorite set each year when I was collecting hockey in the 90s. The large areas of white that often appear set off the figures in a negative-space kind of highlight, the bright colors of the uniforms, the effort that shows on the faces in many shots, and the usually understated clean designs made it easy to put sets into pages and flip through them repeatedly. Plus, I was following the game and there were lots of players I liked, maybe even more than baseball. And new hockey sets would start appearing in the dead of summer when anything even giving the illusion of winter would be welcome in the Texas heat (more so than ever this year, when it probably won't drop under 100 till Christmas).

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Yes, even the base do look nice..

Thanks for all the comments guys!

I thought the exact same thing! I have never watched a Hockey game in my life (here in the deep south it ranks somewhere between womens soccer and womens volleyball I think :lol: ) but I have recently found myself searching eBay, tempted to buy a few hockey cards and start keeping up with it more. The Cup seems to be one of the more beautiful productions I've seen in any sport.

sigma_chi said:

I thought the exact same thing! I have never watched a Hockey game in my life (here in the deep south it ranks somewhere between womens soccer and womens volleyball I think :lol: ) but I have recently found myself searching eBay, tempted to buy a few hockey cards and start keeping up with it more. The Cup seems to be one of the more beautiful productions I've seen in any sport.

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I've always wondered why hockey isn't more popular in the U.S. (and the south especially). It's got non-stop action and hard-hits like football, minus the showboating after every damn tackle.

Also, love your avatar. That brings back some childhood memories!

saferseas said:

sigma_chi said:

I thought the exact same thing! I have never watched a Hockey game in my life (here in the deep south it ranks somewhere between womens soccer and womens volleyball I think :lol: ) but I have recently found myself searching eBay, tempted to buy a few hockey cards and start keeping up with it more. The Cup seems to be one of the more beautiful productions I've seen in any sport.

Click to expand...

I've always wondered why hockey isn't more popular in the U.S. (and the south especially). It's got non-stop action and hard-hits like football, minus the showboating after every damn tackle.

Also, love your avatar. That brings back some childhood memories!

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The main reason is that we as a country did not invent the game and the other reason is that most Americans don't understand the game. I know that sounds stupid but the majority of the people I have talk with all say the game is complicated. That response doesn't surprise me at all since I think the majority of the people in this world are idiots.

It's a winter thing. If you live in an area where snow is a rarity, ice hockey just isn't part of the culture. The importation of it into the south in the last 20 years doesn't make it take hold. Of course, back in the old days, hockey players would play lacrosse in the summer, so that doesn't explain why lacrosse isn't more popular. All that stuff about not following the puck and all that may be valid to some extent, but it's just one of those things that has no single clear explanation. It's easy to follow a soccer ball but soccer is less popular among US non-Latinos than most other sports, including hockey.

i was born in Louisiana and grew up there before moving to North Carolina back in 1993. I have always watched hockey, from a kid up through and including this last season. it is a great game. i guess i was always in the minority here in the south since none of my friends watched it. granted we usually just got the playoffs to watch on tv and that was it. i guess if it doesnt have a bunch of rednecks driving in cricles for 3 hours people in the south may not be to interested in it. the only part of hockey that is tough to follow is the icing call and how sometimes it is called and other times it isnt. my in laws are from buffalo and the guys played hockey growing up and even they cant figure icing out some of the times... party on wayne...

There are 2 sports where I'm from; football and offseason football :lol:

No, seriously I played soccer in high school for a team that was pretty darn good but we would be lucky to get 15-20 fans to a game....our HS football team hadnt made playoffs in 20 years and they still draw 2-3,000 fans every friday night.