Score Hockey will arrive before NHL season

Posted Jun 20, 2012 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Jun 20, 2012 at 05:32 PM

It’s great when a sports card product arrives before the season starts. There’s no better way to get excited about a sport than to see those cards at your local card shop or retail store. Topps figured that a long time ago with its signature Series 1 baseball set, and now Panini America is following suit with its 2012-2013 Score Hockey product.

Score Hockey will hit the shelves in early August, which will give fans nearly two months before the start of the NHL regular season to put the set together.
And the price will be nice, too, at $1 per pack. Those prices are a welcome sight and can only help drive the product. It’s nice to see Lightning star Steven Stamkos on the box top, too.

Of course, having some nice cards and inserts will drive the product even better. Rookies will be represented well, with 40 new cards depicting players who played during the 2011-12 NHL season but made their debuts after the All-Star Game. Those rookie cards will fall one in every other pack.

God Rush parallels will be seeded one per hobby box, along with one Gold Rush Hot Rookie. The black-and-white parallels will offer a stark counterpoint to the color displayed in the base cards.

Autograph cards will be harder to find, as there will be only four per case.

For collectors who buy retail, there will be a Franchise Retro insert (exclusive only to retail packs and blaster boxes) that will feature famous members of the NHL’s Original Six franchises.

Panini said there also will be autographed versions of these cards.

The Check-It insert will pay homage to the league’s hardest hitters, while the First Goal insert will commemorate historic “first goals” from the 2011-12 season.

Now hockey fans will have something to look forward before the first puck is dropped for the 2012-13 season.