Released October 6, 2008 • hobby box includes 36 packs with 6 cards each, 216 cards total • click here for checklist on Trading Card Database
My review:
This was Upper Deck’s third take on an O-Pee-Chee set. The 2006-07 set was kind of a bummer before things started looking much better in 2007-08, and then things really took off for 2008-09. The base design strikes a nice hint at an old-school feel without being overly retro-fied. I think of the approach Upper Deck has taken to their O-Pee-Chee base designs since ’07-’08 as “what would O-Pee-Chee cards look like today if the same spirit they had from the late ’60s to the late ’90s had carried on uninterrupted?”
Unfortunately the designs from ’07-’08 through ’11-’12 are marred by much too big O-Pee-Chee word marks, as though Upper Deck was thinking, “We paid good money for this name and logo, so we’re going to plaster it on every card as big as we can!” But that move back-fires as the large logo detracts from the card and does not echo the look of classic O-Pee-Chee. Fortunately, Upper Deck has corrected this since ’12-’13.
While the ’08-’09 base design avoids going straight for the nostalgia-jugular, no punches are pulled with the newly-introduced retro variations. And I friggin’ love it. The one-per-hobby pack parallels of the entire set have been an O-Pee-Chee staple ever since and are my favorite cards being made today. For this first iteration, Upper Deck used the exact design of the famous 1979-80 Topps & O-Pee-Chee sets, with the killer baby-blue borders best known on Wayne Gretzky’s iconic rookie card.
Just as Topps has found huge success with recycling exact designs from the past for their yearly Heritage baseball sets, these O-Pee-Chee retros struck a chord with collectors and are real beauties. Not surprisingly, use of the design captured the attention of Topps, which served Upper Deck with a lawsuit alleging the old Topps/O-Pee-Chee designs belonged to them. The companies reached a settlement that prevented Upper Deck from using past Topps/O-Pee-Chee designs in the future.
The selection of other parallels and inserts this year does not do anything for me, but overall I still like this set a lot, and it is all due to those awesome retros.
My ratings /10:
base design 7.0 retro design 9.0 inserts 2.0 overall 7.8
Affiliate Links:
eBay: click here to shop 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee
SportLots:
Regular Print Base Cards #1-500
Short Prints #501-600 • 1:2 hobby packs
Marquee Rookies #501-560, Checklist #561, Marquee Legends #562-600
Key rookies include Claude Giroux, Kyle Okposo, and Kyle Turris
Retro parallels • 1:1 hobby packs
Other Parallels:
retro rainbow • serial numbered to 100
retro blank backs • odds unknown, estimated print run of 5-20
gold (rainbow effect) • 1:4 hobby packs
metal (no rainbow effect, slight emboss of player) • 1:1 Update packs only, but includes cards from the base set as well
metal X (like the metal but with rainbow effect; some have an X/tread pattern as well) • 1:6 Update packs only, but includes cards from the base set as well
Inserts:
Team Checklists, Season Highlights, Trophy Cards, 1st Team All-Stars, 2nd Team All-Stars, All-Rookie Team, Stat Leaders • combined 1:4 hobby packs
autographed buybacks • 1:432 hobby packs
box bottoms • two per blaster box (base design), four per hobby box (retro design)
Materials • 1:108 hobby packs
Signatures • 1:432 hobby packs
Wayne Gretzky retros • odds unknown to me
Wayne Gretzky Tribute • odds unknown to me
Winter Classic Highlights • 1:36 hobby packs
Update Set #601-800
Upper Deck’s O-Pee-Chee sets are released close to the start of every season, making the set ripe for updating later in the season with cards for players that have moved teams or made their NHL debut. Upper Deck has handled update cards in different ways over the years, but in 2008-09 the update set was a stand-alone release with 200 cards. The key card from the update set is a Steven Stamkos rookie. Other rookies include Blake Wheeler, Drew Doughty, Ben Bishop, T.J. Oshie, & Alex Pietrangelo.
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