2002-03 Pacific Quest for the Cup hobby box

There are times when the latest and greatest just gets........ old, if only for a moment. Sometimes one years for something just a few years back, for "new" variety.

Pacific Trading Cards manufactured hockey cards from 1997-98 to 2004-05. Throughout their history, they were known as the company who were bold enough to try new things. Cards with strange die-cuts, parallel sets, cards with netting inserts...... you name it, they tried it. Some things failed, some things were....... well, really cool. They were also willing to be wide open enough to admit when they were wrong. Michael Cramer, Pacific's founder, railed against Upper Deck's idea to insert game used hockey jersey pieces into hockey cards, saying it was a fad that wouldn't last. Then, he realized something - people really, really liked it.

So sure enough, in 1999-00 Omega, a late surprising addition was a jersey card - one in every 5 boxes (1:180 packs). Not only was this the first jersey cards for Pacific, but the pack insertion rate was better than UD's (1:288)! After that, Pacific broke out the first jersey-in-every-pack set with Private Stock, and the hobby has never been the same. So while their efforts were often panned - many people HATED the parallel cards they used to do - one cannot say that they were boring. Upper Deck? Boring. In The Game? Less boring, but product prices that were crazy for the offering.

When you opened a pack of Pacific cards, you knew that you were likely to get something. A parallel, a neat insert, and memorabilia cards that were attainable at a decent pack price. Yes, the aftermarket prices were rarely high, but for pack rippers like myself, the rewards were almost always high with Pacific. The only possible knock was a lack of autographed cards. You didn't hit home runs, but you rarely got shut out. I really do wish they were still around. Upper Deck cards are simply boring. They use the same concepts every year with subtle changes. They could do revolutionary things never seen before. But why do that when you can do the same thing over and over again and violate the card collectors of the world? In The Game does a few different things - they have to without an NHL license, but their cards all look the same to me, and always have.

With this in mind, when I saw a box of 2002-03 Pacific Quest for the Cup hobby on eBay for a decent price, I decided to get it. Rookies 1:5 packs, gold parallels 1:5 packs, jerseys 1:9, Pacific Complete subset 1:1, Calder Contenders 1:13, Chasing the Cup 1:5, ITECH Masks 1:25, and Raising the Cup 1:9. So really...... with 24 packs, there's something in every pack. There should be 3 jerseys in 2 out of every 3 boxes. Ooooooooh......... and Marty Turco autographs numbered out of 500 randomly inserted. For a Stars fan like myself, this is the big hit.

So even though it's 24 packs...... I'm doing a pack by pack! Here we go. (player - C means the Pacific Complete card)

Pack 1 - Leetch C, Ronning, Brent Johnson, Spezza Calder Contenders, Zhamnov, Vokoun
All names I know. Shiny cards. I really do like them.

Pack 2 - Boughner C, Gaborik, Demitra, Heatley Chasing the Cup, Thibault, Biron
...... ok, an Atlanta Thrashers Chasing the Cup card? Odd. Kind of like a Vancouver (ok, Memphis) Grizzles NBA Championship Hopefuls card.

Pack 3 - Holmstrom C, Fernandez, Lidstrom, Gagne Gold 091/325, Fleury, O'Neill
The gold card is sweet. Fleury's card drunkenly tried to swing its stick at me when I opened the pack. Then it mooned me. Weird. Actually, looking at it, it IS an odd one. He's got a "You got a problem with me?" look on his face. That, or he just soiled himself and is too embarrassed to say so.

Pack 4 - Yelle C, Dupuis, Joseph, Eric Godard RC 053/950, Daze, Kovalchuk
I'm looking for the Spezza, Nash, or Zetterberg rookies. Eric Godard's mom might be looking for him, but I'm certainly not.

Pack 5 - Marshall C, Potvin, Hull, Shanahan Raising the Cup, Havlat, Heatley
For foil cards, the base cards have far less chipping than I expected, but the insert cards are a little banged up. Just something I noticed.

Pack 6 - Fedoruk C, Roy, Kapanen, Mark Messier jersey card (blue swatch), Burke, Hossa
I'm far from a Messier fan, but pulling a jersey card of a hall of famer is never a bad thing. And not nearly as easy to pick out of packs as UD packs.

Pack 7 - Kraft C, Shanahan, Fedorov, Kovalchuk Chasing the Cup, Bonk, Ozolinsh
Ok..... seriously..... TWO Atlanta Thrasher Chasing the Cup inserts????? Yes, I suppose they wanted as many Heatley and Kovalchuk cards as possible, but come on..... the Thrashers are due to win the Cup in NEVER years. Anyway.....

Pack 8 - Wallin C, Cloutier, Turgeon, Langenbrunner gold 079/325, Alfredsson, Kariya
The first Dallas Star I pull is Pierre Turgeon. Nice. And by that I mean "thanks for the kick in the junk". That being said, the gold card of Langenbrunner - who should STILL be a Dallas Star - kind of makes up for it.

Pack 9 - Richardson C, Bertuzzi, St Louis, Rick Nash RC 394/950, Messier, Giguere
One of the big RC hits of the box. I'm a big Nash fan, so this is a great pull. Between the Nash and the Messier, the value paid for the box has been hit. Upper Deck, are you reading this???????

Pack 10 - Holik C, Sundin, Lecavalier, Forsberg Raising the Cup, Lindros, Legwand...... and a small piece of card
Thinking of the Avs raising the Cup is nauseating. Not Oilers raising the Cup nauseating, but I would turn the channel. The note in this pack is the 1/18 size piece of card. Looks like it belongs on the end of the Legwand, but my card is full size, so...... hmmm..... next pack?

Pack 11 - Perrault C, Lehtinen, Roenick, Joe Thornton jersey (white, with slight puck stain?), Hedberg, Cechmanek
Two notable things - first current Dallas Star, and the Thornton jersey (I pulled a black Thornton jersey piece out of this product in 2003). This likely means this is a 3 jersey box.

Pack 12 - Pronger C, Mogilny, Khabibulin, Thornton Chasing the Cup, Denis, Zednik
Two Thrasher Chasing the Cup cards, and one Bruin. Wow. Really, if I collected Joe Thornton cards, I would rarely have to buy them on the secondary market. For some reason, I pull his cards out of packs constantly - patches included.

Pack 13 - Sanderson C, Palffy, Nabokov, Ronning Gold 264/325, Francis, Perrault
Pack 1 of the right side of the box is easily the worst of the box. Oh well, 11 more to go!

Pack 14 - Hlavac C, Allison, Salo, Dennis Seidenberg RC 361/950, Turek, Koivu
Pack 2 isn't much better.

Pack 15 - Demitra C, Luongo, Comrie, Ales Kotalik Calder Contenders, Iginla, Satan
The Calder Contenders cards are well done.

Pack 16 - Chelios C, Jokinen, Carter, Naslund Chasing the Cup, Drury, Thornton
Ok, in 2002-03, with the NOTABLE exception of Dan Cloutier, the Canucks could have been considered Cup contenders. Certainly far more than the Bruins or Thrashers.

Pack 17 - Turgeon C, Lemieux, Gagne, Olaf Kolzig jersey (white, with slight puck stain again?), Forsberg, Lalime
So likely no Stars jersey, but you won't find me complaining much more than that. 3 nice looking memorabilia cards. And the Turco auto is still possible!

Pack 18 - Khabibulin C, Smyth, Yzerman, Naslund Gold 220/325, Kovalev, Murray
The Khabibulin is the first damaged card of the box. Upper Deck, again, are you reading this????

Pack 19 - Sean Pronger C, Nylander, Guerin, Jim Fahey RC 933/950, Bure, Hackett
Hmmm. I think we'll just move on from here.

Pack 20 - Shanahan C, Kolzig, Whitney, Jagr Raising the Cup, Yashin, Langenbrunner
Jagr won't be raising the Cup anytime soon.

Pack 21 - Bierk C, Jagr, Weight, Kariya Chasing the Cup, Peca, Friesen
Finally a Chasing the Cup that is worthy of the card.

Pack 22 - Blake C, Naslund, Tkachuk, Radovan Somik RC Gold 046/325, DiPietro, Elias
Gold RC? Glad the Nash wasn't.

Pack 23 - Daze C, Modano (yeehaw), Amonte, Chistov Calder Contenders, Hejduk, Turco (......... non-auto)
Two Dallas Stars in a pack is a good thing. Was a little excited when I saw the Turco....... no auto is disappointing, but a Turco card is good.

Pack 24 - Gill C, Morrison, Stillman, Jay Bouwmeester RC 151/950, Blake, Brodeur
Solid final pack. Bouwmeester is a mid-range rookie in the set, certainly not the worst one you could get.


That was a good box of cards. Something to look at in every pack, and very good value. I do rant on and on about Upper Deck. And boxes like this strengthen my distaste for them. Why can they not offer a decent product loaded with inserts and memorabilia at a decent price? The only result I can come up with is that they simply don't have to. If you want NHL cards, you will buy Upper Deck cards, even if they are too expensive.

The more I see this, the more I realize that I might just buy my packs on eBay. The blasters I buy are in the $24.99 range. This box was $40 with shipping from Quebec. Take a look at the H&P blaster above, and compare it to this box. I didn't get near the $24.99 for the H&P. I eclipsed the $40 easily. When I open this, I get the urge to stop feeding the UD propaganda box machine and go with these, buying the current cards online.

Nonetheless, this is not about Upper Deck. This is about celebrating an old company that was a good one for my collecting years. Much maligned by many, but a great one in my mind. I will again buy a Pacific box somewhere, and let the memories - and value! - live again.

It's been a while

So I haven't given up collecting, but it's certainly a little more sparse. Upper Deck is again flooding the market, and using almost the same things as last year with different designs. Still overpriced. I've been collecting O-Pee-Chee (the bastardized UD version, of course) because it's relatively cheap, and the buyback cards are cool - they bought cards from previous O-Pee-Chee releases back to..... well, who knows when, but I've pulled a couple from the 80's, including one that was autographed! Nice product, very recommended for the price point. My local dealer actually refuses to let me buy several of the UD products. They are THAT bad.

But I'm a collector, and I like to try new things. 2007-08 Fleer Hot Prospects hockey just came out. Nice looking set, and it seems like there are a lot of hits. I have a blaster retail box sitting here (10 packs plus 1 BONUS pack!!! Why they can't just say 11 packs I don't know.....), and those that collect know the drill on these. You might hit a long shot, you might get nothing. Thankfully, you don't pay much.

HP's major attraction every year are autographed rookie patch cards and a load of memorabilia and inserts. One might call it a poor man's SPx, but one would be generous in saying that. It's one of those sets that has its fans, but many ignore it completely. I like the set myself - but again, like other UD offerings, it's too expensive for what you get.

Anyway, time for the pack by pack. Will I get gold, or golden bladder water? We'll find out.

(First thing I notice on opening the box? Packs in these are usually pretty unruffled and evenly set. Not this one. Looks like it was packed by a monkey. Anyway.......)

Pack 1 - Satan, Naslund, Koivu, Hasek
A friend of mine is a Naslund collector. He'll have a new card. Kind of disconcerting for the first card to be the player whose last name is the same as..... well, you know.

Pack 2 - Kariya, Parise, Getzlaf, Phaneuf
Nice clean design on the cards. Limited use of foil, done very well. 3 good young players in the pack. Could be worse. And if I was a betting man, I would say there WILL be worse.

Pack 3 - Hemsky, Carter, Roloson, Jokinen
Wow. Already. If I were a betting man, I would be rich. With these 4 cards INCLUDING two Edmonton Coiler players, this is the bottom of the barrel for me.

Pack 4 - Shanahan, Williams, Weight, Gaborik
Shanahan, Weight, and Gaborik would probably be a devastating line.
They are also provide devastatingly low value for this pack.

Pack 5 - Nash, Jarret Stoll 2 colour Hot Materials jersey, Gionta
.........ok. Clearly someone is playing collecting tricks on me. I HATE the Edmonton Oilers almost as much as I like any other sports team. But if I am to pull an autograph or game used memorabilia card, there is seriously a 50% chance it's an Oiler. Stoll is from my old home town, and eventually he will leave Edmonton for a place that doesn't suck so badly, so I'll let this one slide. Nice looking card anyway.

Pack 6 - Khabibulin, Mason, Vyborny, Arnott
Huh.

Pack 7 - Hossa, Guerin, Cheechoo, Tanguay
No Shane Doan or Dallas Star cards yet. That would make me upset.

Pack 8 - Sakic, Miller, Ovechkin, Gagne
Ovechkin is cool.

Pack 9 - Daniel Sedin, Gionta, Pronger, Savard
A double (Gionta) already???????? Upper Deck still has no idea how to collate cards.

Pack 10 - Mikko Koivu, SHAAAAAAAANE DOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!, DiPietro, Samsonov
A Shane Doan card that I don't have redeems almost any box. At least that's what I tell myself.

Pack 11 - Cheechoo Hot Commodities insert #841/999, Drury, Kiprusoff, Pitkanen
Wow, even gone to cheap dot matrix style inkjet printing of serial numbers rather than gold foil. Shame shame, UD.

So what is there to say? 10% of the box was Oilers, which sucks most of all. 1 jersey, 1 insert, and one Doan. No Dallas Stars. No rookies. I would call it a dud, but then again, there's no odds on the box, which probably means that I struck....... oh crap, I didn't even think of this........ oil! I did strike Oil, didn't I. Hardeeharhar. Anyway, when UD puts no odds on the box this year, it means "good luck finding anything in here". Since jerseys/patches in the hobby box version are 1:5 packs, this is probably somewhere, oh I don't know, 1:144 or something. The UD series 2 blaster, instead of hobby's 1:12 pack jersey run, was 1:240!!!! I'm hoping that's a typo......

Anyway, certainly not the worst box I've ever had. Considering that a hobby box of this is running $65 on eBay - which with shipping is about 2 or 3 of these blasters.... - I would be better off spending the extra cash and getting that instead of another one of these. In fact, I just might. Then again, the new UD Ice looks nice...... but that sucked last time. I'm not that bright nor perceptive though.

I do have a retro box coming my way which should be fun to open........