Collect call: 2011-12 Score Hockey

Posted Dec 12, 2011 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Dec 12, 2011 at 11:30 PM

I am a set builder by choice, and there is something to be said for sports card sets that allow me to grind my way to a finish.

It was like that for me as a kid, when I diligently worked to complete Topps baseball sets during the early 1970s. That’s the same way I feel about 2011-12 Score Hockey, Panini America’s first NHL product of the season. It’s a no-frills, straightforward and affordable product, with 500 cards in the base set. There are plenty of inserts, and even some autograph and die-cut cards.

A hobby box contains 36 packs, with seven cards to a pack. There is a glossy parallel in every pack, and one Gold Rush parallel per hobby box. There also are black border Ice Parallels, one per case on the average.

The card design is basic, yet simplicity works well for this set. Most of the photos are tightly cropped so there is one player in the photo — and that’s a plus, because hockey action shots can get jumbled and it’s hard to tell who the focus is on. There is no doubt in this set. The shots are mostly vertical, although are some nice horizontal shots, too. Two bars that curve are on the left- and right-hand side of the card and depicts team colors.

The team name is on the left-hand side of the card (you have to turn it 90 degrees to see it straight-on) and the player’s name is at the bottom, just to the left of the Score logo. The names look good, except in some cases where a light gray font just doesn’t seem to work. It makes the same fade back into the white border of the card.

Score has been out for about a month, but I was still eager to see some hockey product. After ripping open packs from a hobby box, I found 184 of the 500 base cards — 36.8 percent of the set.
There were 36 glossy parallels.

Every two packs yielded a Hot Rookies insert. There are 46 (with an additional three, non-numbered variations), and I pulled 19 of them —18 regular inserts, and a short-printed card of the Lightning’s Brett Connolly.

The Franchise insert set contains 30 cards, and the box I sampled contained one card — Minnesota’s Mikko Koivu. The Sudden Death insert set has 25 cards; the hobby box I saw had two cards.

First Goal is a 15-card insert set that depicts a player’s first NHL goal; there was one in the hobby box I looked at (Vancouver’s Cody Hodgson).

Playoff Heroes and Score B are 10-card insert sets, and there was one Score B (Marc-Andre Fleury) and two Playoff Heroes (Roberto Luongo and Michael Ryder). Another 10-card set is called Making an Entrance, and there were three to be found, including the Lightning’s Marty St. Louis.

Net Cam is a 15-card set that puts the card-holder behind the net, giving a fish-eye lens view of the action in front of the goal.

Some boxes do contain signature cards, although the box I looked at did not. Nor did it have a die-cut card.

It’s a pretty good start for Panini as the 2011-12 hockey season kicks into high gear. The set is simple, clean, with an uncluttered design and a nice sampling of inserts.