What's William smiling about? Well, before we reveal the close-up, we'll give you a chance to guess to what Upper Deck card he's holding!

Send your guess to hittheicebox@gmail.com and we'll draw a winner from all correct entries to receive an autographed 8x10 of Hockey Hall of Famer Johnny Bower! Entries must be received by 12:01 AM EST on Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, to be eligible.

The 2011-12 Upper Deck Young Guns are coming!

Michael Phillips of Upper Deck was kind enough to send along the information for this year's crop of Young Guns! Here's the list, and check out Upper Deck's blog for more information and pictures!

We'll be getting in our Series I boxes right before the Fall Expo and we are accepting preorders for boxes and cases! Stop by or email us today to reserve yours!

201	Devante Smith-Pelly	Anaheim
202	Maxime Macenauer	Anaheim
203	Greg Nemisz	Calgary
204	Roman Horak	Calgary
205	Justin Faulk	Carolina
206	Marcus Kruger	Chicago
207	Brandon Saad	Chicago
208	Gabriel Landeskog	Colorado
209	Cameron Gaunce	Colorado
210	John Moore	Columbus
211	David Savard	Columbus
212	Cam Atkinson	Columbus
213	Tomas Vincour	Dallas
214	Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	Edmonton
215	Anton Lander	Edmonton
216	Teemu Hartikainen	Edmonton
217	Erik Gudbranson	Florida
218	Brett Bulmer	Minnesota
219	Aaron Palushaj	Montreal
220	Alexei Yemelin	Montreal
221	Raphael Diaz	Montreal
222	Brendon Nash	Montreal
223	Jonathon Blum	Nashville
224	Blake Geoffrion	Nashville
225	Craig Smith	Nashville
226	Adam Henrique	New Jersey
227	Adam Larsson	New Jersey
228	Tim Erixon	New York
229	Mika Zibanejad	Ottawa
230	Colin Greening	Ottawa
231	Patrick Wiercioch	Ottawa
232	Erik Condra	Ottawa
233	Stephane Da Costa	Ottawa
234	Sean Couturier	Philadelphia
235	Matt Read	Philadelphia
236	Erik Gustafsson	Philadelphia
237	Joe Vitale	Pittsburgh
238	Harri Sateri	San Jose
239	Alex Stalock	San Jose
240	Brett Connolly	Tampa Bay
241	Jake Gardiner	Toronto
242	Joe Colborne	Toronto
243	Matt Frattin	Toronto
244	Ben Scrivens	Toronto
245	Cody Hodgson	Vancouver
246	Yann Sauve	Vancouver
247	Carl Klingberg	Winnipeg
248	Mark Scheifele	Winnipeg
249	Paul Postma	Winnipeg
250	Checklist (Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog, Larsson)	Edmonton, Colorado, New Jersey

Big Shea Weber pull at The IceBox!

Troy and Jasmine landed the 11-12 Artifacts Shea Weber patch/tag autograph 1/1 last night! Congrats to them!

 

2010-11 Upper Deck Ultimate checklist and odds!

Courtesy of our hard-working friend VodkaLodka on the Hobby Insider boards, check out his spreadsheet with the checklist and pull odds for Upper Deck's 2010-11 Ultimate Hockey:

VodkaLodka's 10-11 Ultimate checklist and odds

Many thanks to him, and drop by the store for yours today!

Customers Stu and Jeff went splits on a box of 2010-11 Upper Deck Series II and here's the big hit:
















That's a P.K. Subban Victory rookie magenta printing plate 1/1! Wow! Congrats, guys!

Holy cats!

Has it been this long since we posted something here on the blog? We apologize -- you can come to the store to yell at us for it. ;)

Just got back from the Vegas Industry Summit and thought I would share this link to an interview with Chris Carlin of Upper Deck from Sports Card Forum. Chris is a good guy and cares about collectors, no matter what you might think of his employers.

Give it a read and stay tuned for more posts, box breaks, hit and opinions!

Mark and John hit it big!

Mark and John stopped by before the spelling bee being held in the Kozlov Centre on Saturday and picked up a few packs of 08-09 UD MVP Hockey.

They were glad they did, pulling the 2-On-2 quadruple-swatch game-used jersey of Sidney Crosby, Dany Heatley, Rick Nash and Jason Spezza. Congrats, guys!

The Scourge of Pack Searching

Adam McFarland over at The Sports Lizard has an interesting article on pack searching where he used calipers to find the thick packs in a football box.

Adam actually picked a product that is a little weird in this respect, as Donruss tends to seed its autographs in packs that don't have a memorabilia card. Other possibilities for search were raised by readers, including weighing the packs.

And it's not even that tough. There are any number of products that come out every year that can easily be searched. 2007-08 Upper Deck SPx, for example, generally contains four jersey cards per 18-pack box. It's very easy to feel which packs have the jerseys in them because UD doesn't put decoys in the other packs.

There are tons of other examples, and they are the reason we don't allow customers to pick their own packs.

The more insidious problem, however, is store owners searching the boxes. I pledge to you that we don't, and here's why -- we have a reputation to maintain. We have a large enough number of regular customers that even if we decided to go the dishonest route, they would quickly ascertain that we were searching our boxes and stop frequenting us.

We also regularly tell our customers to be careful purchasing from retail outlets because no one at Wal-Mart is watching for searchers. Of course, there's already so few good cards in most retail products, it's tough to pull anything great even if you aren't cheating.

As for eBay, caveat emptor is the best policy. It's possible the best boxes have been pulled from cases, or boxes have been opened and resealed -- and I would never purchase a single pack on line, period.

If you have concerns, ask us, whether you're buying from us or anyone else. We're here to help. But as for us and pack searching -- never have, and never will.

There are also a couple of other blogs linked in Adam's article -- be sure to jump over and read those also.

What's up with this year's SP Game Used?

Every year I'm a huge fan of Upper Deck's SP Game Used. Even two years ago when the player selection for the base jerseys was awful, I cracked boxes and wholeheartedly recommended it to my customers.

This year, the cards are fantastic. Dual jerseys as the base memorabilia cards, lots of interesting patch inserts and autographed cards -- UD really could have hit a home run here.

Instead, there are tons and tons of damaged cards coming out of packs. Take a look at the people breaking it on the Beckett Hockey forum -- complaints galore. I have pulled two patch cards and both of them have had huge chunks out of the sides.

When will this stop? It's annoying for me, because by the time I get these cards back from UD, the resale value will be half of what it is now. For customers, it's frustrating to pony up big $$$ for a box and then get cards that look as if Richard McWilliams has been tap dancing on them.

I also don't know if this is substantiated or not, but I've heard the reason SPGU was delayed was so Upper Deck could work on quality control in these cards. I hope that's not true.

I trust Upper Deck to make good on these cards -- they generally do. I also understand damage will happen (despite the fact I mailed out an entire box of damaged cards last year for a customer and never received anything back from Upper Deck). But there's no excuse for the frequency with which these cards are coming out trashed.

This product will still sell and sell well. Heck, I'm still going to crack another box. But come on, UD -- pick it up a little. This is embarrassing.

A golden oldie from this year's O-Pee-Chee!

People have been raving about this year's O-Pee-Chee, and I don't blame them. A nice low price point, tons of RCs and a shot at pulling out a quad jersey or something even cooler.

Customer Stewie's definitely raving after nailing this beauty out of a box purchased from The IceBox on Christmas Eve:



That's right -- a 74-year-old card! When the redemption comes in, we'll put up a scan for you! Congrats to Stewie!

A customer goes Bolland in UD Ultimate!

Okay, it was a lousy pun, but Adam's not laughing. He's now pulled these two beauts from packs of 2006-07 Upper Deck Ultimate:



We're still carrying Ultimate at $369.99 per box or $94.99 per pack. Stop by and try your luck!

Crosby Ice RC /99 BGS 9.5 on eBay!

Just for fun, you might to keep your eyes on this beauty. I think it could hit $4K easily, and I wouldn't be surprised to see someone hit the BIN.

We had two of these bad boys last year -- man, do I miss them!

Thanks for the head's up, Big Bob!

Gretzkymania runnin' wild!

Chris stopped by this afternoon and busting a pack of our newly cheaper 2006-07 UD Ultimate at just $99.99 a pack, and pulled a Wayne Gretzky autographed jersey out of 50!

Not to be outdone, Adam dropped in just a few minutes later, bought a box of Ultimate (for just $369.99!) and pulled a Gretzky Ultimate Signatures autographed card!

That's right -- two Gretzky autos in five minutes! Top that!

Here are their smiling mugs, and the sweeeeeet cards!

Props to the Canadian dollar!

Thanks to the strength of the Canadian dollar, prices are falling on many products! Check these changes out:

* 2005-06 UD Series II Hobby -- was $4.49 per pack or $84.99 per box; now $3.99 per pack or $74.99 per box!
* 2006-07 UD Ultimate -- was $119.99 per pack or $429.99 per box; now $99.99 per pack or $369.99 per box!
* 2006-07 Fleer Hot Prospects -- was $9.49 per pack or $129.99 per box; now $6.99 per pack or $99.99 per box!

There are more great deals to be had! Call us for great case pricing with no-hassle CANPAR shipping inside Canada -- and no customs fees either!

Crosby Future Watch RC hit!

Paul just came back in to pick up a few things and reported he nailed a Sidney Crosby Future Watch autographed rookie out of his box of 2006-07 SP Authentic he purchased a couple weeks ago! We just keep hitting the Penguins stuff!

We'll have a photo of his pull up soon -- no trading, though, it's going out for grading!

Oh, the wrong box (but the right one for a customer!)

I was feeling lucky Saturday, so I cracked a box of 2006-07 Upper Deck Series I. I didn't get anything too exciting, but it's hard to complain with the quality of rookies available in the set.

Our part-timer, Colin, however, called on Sunday to tell me that another lucky customer bought the other Series I box and pulled the Crosby checklist High Glossy! Congrats to our mystery customer!

In other news, we had three big strikes in a row out of 2006-07 Fleer Hot Prospects:

Box 1) Jordan Staal two-colour patch auto RC out of 199!
Box 2) Hotagraph pack with a Sidney Crosby auto!
Box 3) Phil Kessel redemption patch auto RC out of 199!

With a guaranteed auto patch RC in every boxes, plus 2-3 jerseys and the chance of a five-auto pack, these boxes are becoming more popular by the day! Swing by and grab one -- or a case!

Oh, my achin' jaw!

After an extended bout with a jaw infection and a burned-up fuel pump (hey, Saab's are great -- until you get the repair bill!), we're back and writing again. Thanks to Dr. Steven Mocrae in the Kozlov Centre for the diagnosis and the quick prescription.

Reviews seem to be pretty mixed about this year's Upper Deck Ultimate. I've only seen a couple packs broken here, and it's nice stuff -- but as always with the higher-dollar product, your results will vary wildly from pack to pack.

I haven't cracked a box yet -- and I'm not sure if I will -- but it keeps calling to me from the shelf right over my left shoulder where I type this. I may give in b the end of the weekend.

In other news, we have placed our preorder for The Cup, and we'll be getting only one case to start. If you want to get your tin(s) (limit two per customer) in advance, let me know via email or through the web site. Tins will be $449.99 each plus tax. I think that's pretty reasonable, but we won't hold them -- you can only buy them in advance.

We also just had a nice run of consignment stuff sell, from a large whack of Blue Jays game jerseys courtesy of Ed Belfour to a bunch of nice high-end cards. Up next through our eBay store (eBay ID: hit_the_icebox) is a nice group of 1952-53 Parkhurst single with both set fillers and a couple beauts, some gameworn Blackhawks jerseys and a few other choice goodies!

On preorder this week: 2007 Benchwarmer Gold Edition at $114.99 + tax per box; 2007 UD Premier Football at $299.99 + tax per box; 2007 Razor Poker (6 autos per box!) at $119.99 + tax per box. Call or email with questions!

Adam strikes in SP Authentic again!

Okay, I have to tell the full story now.

A few days ago, Adam came back in with his prize pull from a box of Upper Deck SP Authentic. It was the dual Sign Of The Times Evgeni Malkin/Mario Lemieux -- and it came out of a box that's serial number ended in "71"!

When he came in, I was out of SP Auth boxes, so he bought the remaining 12 packs I had in the box on the shelf. Before he left, though, Stew came in with an order from our supplier, Grosnor, and in the order were more boxes of SP Authentic. Adam asked if he could swap the 12 packs back toward a full box, which I of course did.

When Adam left, Stew bought the 12 packs Adam had put back -- and pulled the triple Malkin/Lemieux/Fleury redemption. I felt terrible for Adam, as he could have had both the double and the triple Penguins!

Today, Adam came back in -- and I don't feel bad for him after all.



Those are the three big cards he pulled from the box he bought Tuesday -- an Anze Kopitar autographed Future Watch RC, a triple SOTT Staal/Heatley/Nash, and the redemption for this year's SOTT Sidney Crosby!

Adam picked up another box while he was in. I'm almost scared to see what he comes back with this time!

It's a plethora of Penguins!

No, the plethora didn't involve those guys, but on back-to-back days two different customers pulled big Pittsburgh cards!

Adam yanked the short print Sign Of The Times dual autographed card of Mario Lemieux and Evgeni Malkin. The next day, Stewie pulled the SOTT triple autographed card of Lemieux, Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury! Awesome!

This year's Upper Deck SP Authentic, in case you didn't know, is smoking hot! In addition to the normal autographed rookies, duals, triples and more, many autographs that ended up not being released last year (long story -- ask me about it) are seeded in this year's boxes. That means 3-4 autos per box, plus rookies and short prints!

It's drying up already, so if you're interested, come in and grab some now!