2012-13 In the Game Between the Pipes box break review... with pictures!

It's everybody's favourite day, release date for In the Game's Between the Pipes.

What? It's not your favourite day? Well, it should be. Plus, it's Thursday, so only one more day until the weekend.

This year's box artwork borders on epic.

Alright, forget the borders... it is epic. Look at those masks!

Unfortunately, in my box, I didn't get any cards with any of theose masks on them. Is it my bad luck, or are they not in the set?
Hopefully, it's my bad luck. I have no other kind.

This product has a 200 card base set. Like past issues, the first section is for the CHL Prospects.

These aren't really the focus of the set. At least, in the buyer's eye. At past Cross Canada Redemption Tour* rip parties, collectors basically ignored these cards save for putting together their base sets. They're fun to look back on after a draft or two to see where they end up.... but that's about it.
Nice, colourful photos with colour matching borders... a slight peek into the background, but not too much. A little busy on the full page, but individually, each card really pops.

*Cross Canada Redemption Tours are when certain card shops host a BTP box breaking frenzy where you can redeem your box tops for special 1/1 BTP cards. There's another one coming up here in Calgary on May 11th. To check out if your area has one coming, go to ITG's website. LINK

The next section is for our current favourites. What I like about these is that for the most part, all of the Stars have their current mask on display. No old photography from last year etc... found here.

Everyone you'd expect to be here is here, except for Marty Brodeur. Licencing issues rear their ugly head into our hobby once more. But I think once he retires in a year or so, Marty will be back in ITG.

I'll show off this particular card on it's own.... Marc-Andre Fleury's current mask, complete with a rendition of last year's ITG BTP card of himself on the side. Hockey cards featuring masks featured ON a mask!

Nice!

Then, my favourite part of the set. The Decades section... featuring goalies from past decades...

Some really great shots on some of these...

some of the pics are a wee blurry, but trying to track down quality photos for some of these is next to impossible.

The last part of the base set is devoted to record breakers and International Stars.

a few random cards to give you the feel of it...

although I would not call Grant Fuhr an international star..... talk about getting the job because of who you know, and not on your abilities.... wow.
Other than that, some great names from International competition. Again, an obvious name missing from the checklist is Ken Dryden. But Mr Dryden isn't about to sign with any card company. Just not his thing.

Another cool part is the older Decades cards... guys from the 30's and 40's.

Some of you may recognize some of the names. For those that you don't, read the cards! Hop on to google and type in their names. The stories you find are fascinating. These guys built the game we all love. If it weren't for them, we'd all be watching cricket right now.
So give them some love and appreciation.

For you hit chasers, autographs are found 1:7 packs. With 18 packs per box, you'll get two. With four of every seven boxes getting an extra.

Mine weren't overly thrilling.... with young Etienne here in dire need of some penmanship lessons.

I hope card companies put clauses into their autograph contracts about lousy autos. The dude's sweater number takes up more room than his name.

Next we have current Dallas Stars starter, Kari Lehtonen.

I have no idea how you get Kari, or Lehtonen out of that.... but at least it takes up the space.

Relic cards are 1:8 packs. So every other box will get a third.

I got a nice dual of Jordan Binnington and Curtis Joseph. Cujo is retired now and Jordan was drafted by St Louis in 2011.

my other relic was from the Big League Debut subset, featuring Tim Cheveldae.

Did you know Tim led the NHL in wins in 1991-92 with 38? And he was second in wins over the years 1990-1993. He also played in the '92 All Star Game.

While I didn't get any of the really cool hits available in BTP ( I never do), I was lucky enough to get a three auto box.... and a really sweet third auto it was.

Gary Inness. Awesome. Mr Inness is a principal for a school in Ontario right now. I wrote him a year or two back for an auto and got a really nice letter back from him.

Also this year is the return of the Decoy/Puzzle pieces. These should be fun to build again this year.
He's 1/3 of Bernie Parent.

But I know some of you are screaming, "What about the MASKS!??!?!"

Okay... you've waited long enough. Found at 3 per box, here are the three I was lucky enough to get.

Cory Crawford (almost called him Carl)

These are awesome. Flat out Epic. Waaaaaay better in person than scanned.

Mike Palmateer... I normally trade away any silver of gold versions I get of these.... but having seen a gold one in person, I must acquire one or two for myself. They are very impressive this year.

Oh. Have you met Rogie?

Rogie, say hi to everyone.

Effing sweet. They really upped their game with the 10th anniversary diecuts last year. Since a diecut 11 wouldn't work well, I really like what they've done.

Looks like I'm chasing this set of 50 again this year.

I still need 4 more for last year.... *sigh*....

Goalie Grabs...

at the last trade night, (was it the last one? or the one before?) Okay, at a recent trade night, I managed to come home with a few new cards. Nice ones, if you ask me.

I'm always on the lookout for new Carey Price cards I don't already have. Quite often I end up swapping for a card and go to put it in the binder, only to find out I already have it.

This time however, I did good.

This year's Crease Cleaners from Limited. #/99 I like these a lot. I may have to chase more of them.

A Quad Diamond from this year's Black Diamond. Or is it last year's? Who can tell?

a nice little base card from the brand new SP Game Used.

speaking of SP Game Used, a Robert Mayer rookie numbered to his sweater number. This one, along with the Price base, and the rookie shown next, were freebies. Just given to me gratis. I love this hobby.

Robert however, is a smart guy. He knows damn well he isn't going to get playing time ahead of Carey Price, and with the recent acquisition of Dustin Tokarski, he decided to jump ship and head for Europe.
Robert will now be the starting goalie for HC Biel of the Suisse Elite League.

Okay, so Gabriel isn't a goalie.... I had to package him in here with the other two cards....

I also got a nice Craig Anderson patch auto... I may keep this, I may swap it. We'll see.

oh, and some dude named Patrick.

a pretty nice patch #/25. Not bad.

most of these I got in one trade. One that started in December with me giving up a couple of cards for "futures". These be the futures.

I hope you liked them.... and that's one more small pile off of my desk.

a little cardboard house cleaning...

I'm in a bit of a rut. A posting rut. It's not that I'm not posting... I am. But it's usually about something recent. Problem is, I have a lot of cards sitting on my desk from upwards of two months ago waiting for their story to be told.

oops.

So I took a random pile and added all of their scans to this post. It'll be random, but it'll get one pile off of my desk and in their respective binders where they belong.

Take a look, you may see something you like.

The first three cards were bought for a quarter. Total. Together in a penny sleeve, just waiting to be purchased by yours truly.

These were inserted into OPC packs in '77/78. The set consisted of 22 cards. Wayne Cashman of the Bruins....
.... Reggie Leach of the Flyers...

... and Rick Martin of the Sabres. R.I.P. Rick.

moving along in the quarter box, I found a couple of cards for my Watson brother collection.

First, a smiling Joe, with his false teeth on display.

and then younger brother Jimmy. This has been a fun collection to build.

I grabbed this one for no other reason than the epic mask on Mr Pete Peeters. That's a beauty.

Hmmm..... I believe I traded for this on card auto of Canadiens face off and penalty kill specialist, Doug Jarvis. I don't remember what went the other way though....

no matter. It's a great card.

Back to buys, these next two were .50 cent cards. Check out the knee pads on Mr Harris here...

... at least I hope they're knee pads... yikes.

and a great shot of Les Binkley. Pretty good smile for a goalie who payed without a mask.

and I love those old sweaters. The Pens should bring those back in 2014/15. ( I hear rumours that they won't be wearing a third jersey next season)

Finally (thanks for sticking with me) is my pity purchase of the month.

I couldn't leave Steve trapped. Both in the card shop, and in this horrible case. So me, Steve, and this case have a date with my band saw in the very near future.

Steve deserves to be free.

Thanks for looking, and if anyone has any Joe or Jimmy Watson cards they don't need.....

Mask Mania...

we had a delayed trade night last week. It was supposed to be the week before, but due to that Vegas Summit, everything got pushed back.
Kudos to bamlinden for letting me know, as I had no idea about the postponement. In case you've forgot, it's about a 45 minute commute to get there. Yummy.

aside from watching the Habs/bruins game on  the tele, there were a few trades to be had. Someone from out of province made the trip. Crazy, I know. And while he had a LOT of cards I was interested in, I didn't have the right lists with me. He had binders full of '90's inserts and rookies. Exactly the kind of low end stuff I'm looking for to fill out some of these half done sets.

But, it'll have to wait until next time he's in town. We did manage to pull off a swap though.... I'll show some of the cards I got here now...

I was immediately interested in these five cards. I had never seen them or heard about them before. They're from the 02/03 Upper Deck Artistic Impressions set.... an insert set called Retrospectives.

judging from these cards, I assumed they were a painted mask insert.

nope. wrong again. all kinds of players are featured in the set.

but all he had were goalies.  so that's all I have.

price wise, these cards are pretty much worthless according to the book. that's fine with me.

whoever the artists were, they did a good job. Even without the name bar, I could still tell who each goalie was.


Speaking of mask inserts... I picked up this one from 1992. No, I'm not collecting 1992 Pinnacle.

No I'm not collecting Mike Richter, nor the Rangers. I just thought it was cool and it will look good in my trade box.
Someone will want this card eventually, I know it.

Thanks for looking. Just a quick post to show some of the cards piling up on my desk. I'll get through them eventually. I hope.

You ever have one of those days?

Nationwide on prime time tv in two countries....



Sweet.


and by the way, three stars for Peter Budaj. Outstanding performance.

I don't believe in coincidence.

I never have. Chance favours the prepared mind and all that. But sometimes... sometimes odd little things happen that appear to be a coincidence.

 

I'm not sure what to call these oddities... so maybe I'll just show you an example.

 

As most of you know, I build the OPC set every year. This year I was actually serious about it, unlike last year.

This year, I went all in, actively trading and seeking out others to trade with rather than waiting passively.

Card shops, card shows, online, whatever... I wanted to finish this set, short prints and all.

 

And I did. Quite quickly and cost efficiently I might add. Not only did I finish the base set with SP's (1-600) I finished the sticker insert set (1-100) and.... AND... the retro parallel set with SP's (1-600).

 

I actually finished all of this quite awhile ago. But a little thing called laziness stopped me from bragging posting about it until now.

 

What does all this have to do with coincidence?

 

Well here is the card, the last card, I needed to complete the regular OPC base set, including the high number SP's.

 

Card #498.  A base checklist. Not even a short print. You'd think I would at least need a short print.

and here is the card I needed, the last card I needed, to finish off the retro parallel set with short prints.

Card #498  A base checklist. Not even a short print. And yes, the same damn checklist I needed for the regular set.

After getting 599 of the 600 cards for BOTH sets, I'd say it took me around two months to finally track down and acquire these last two pieces of the puzzle.

But I guess hard work pays off in the end.

Chance favours the prepared mind and all that.

Knockin' 'em down, one at a time...

That's the thing about us set collectors. We're happy going after sets, with our rumpled lists, even years after initial release. It doesn't bother us to root around in long forgotten boxes, looking for even one card that will put us ever closer to completion.

Of course when you can knock off more than one in a deal, that's all the better.

Perhaps you remember me mentioning a fellow at a card show that remarked on how I never buy from him. Well I made an effort to go to his table this time and see what he had. As luck would have it, he had 7 of the Pop Up inserts from OPC that I needed. I asked him how much, because as per usual, nothing was priced. He picked up his Beckett and after a brief moment of him frantically searching for them, stated he'd let them go for $45.

After I had regained conciousness, I politely declined and moved on to his neighbor. He had three Pop Ups at the front of his table. Again, I asked how much? (why can't people price their frakking cards???)
He said $5 for the lot.
Sold.
And both of us received dagger eyes from the dude that I never buy from.

Sir Patrick of Cup

Along with Marian the Shifty

and Jarome the Lost.

Every card gets me closer....

Then at trade night I found a guy with ten, TEN! Young Guns I needed from various years. I managed to deal for six of them... and it pained me greatly.

 

From the 08/09 set, Okposo and Boedker

and from the 09/10 set, a quartet. Letestu and Gunnarsson...

followed by Grabner and Marchand.

Having to trade for, let alone own, that last card was a painful process. I just had to focus on the number on my list. That generic little number that I got to cross off, nay, obliterate from my list.

I'm gettting closer... every day a little closer. If you can help with any of it, drop me a line.