2014-15 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Details & Review: Enter the Minis!

Released September 14, 2014 • hobby box includes 32 packs with 8 cards each, 256 cards total • click here for checklist on Trading Card Database

My review:

After two straight absolutely killer base designs, the base look for 2014-15 is a little underwhelming. I don’t hate it, but I do find it a little bland and think the borders are too large, particularly at the bottom, where an over-sized team name in text and a team logo take away too much space from the photo. Perhaps if the team name in text was removed and the photo extended to the bottom of the card these would start to work a little better.

The retros are similarly just pretty good to OK. I like the white stick silhouette but the rest of the cards don’t do a whole lot for me. The typography on the player name is especially stale and begging for liveliness.

2014-15 really shines when you come to the inserts. It includes the third and final year of the decently fun stickers inserts, but as a total sucker for minis, what I really love is the V Series A inserts that fall two per hobby box. They are a callback to the earliest O-Pee-Chee hockey cards of the 1930s that have been given the names V Series A through E. (I suppose Upper Deck could have called the 2014-15 insert set Series F but perhaps that felt presumptuous.) The ’14-’15 minis measure 2.5″ x 2.75″, similar to the 1935-36 Series C cards that are 2.75″ x 2.875″. Thankfully, minis of one sort or another have been included in every O-Pee-Chee set since.

My ratings /10:

base design   7.2
retro design  7.7
inserts       7.7
overall       8.7

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Regular Print Base Cards #1-500

Short Prints #501-600 • 1:2 hobby packs

Marquee Rookies #501-550, Marquee Legends #551-599, Checklist #600

Evgeny Kuznetsov and Johnny Hockey are the main rookies to look for.

Retro parallels • 1:1 hobby pack

The retro set has 18 extra, unannounced, super short printed cards added to the checklist at numbers 601-618. Nine awards winners from the previous season are included along with nine retired “all-timers.”

Other Parallels:
rainbow • 1:4 hobby packs
black rainbow • serial numbered to 100
retro blank backs • odds unknown, estimated print run of 5-20
red border • 5 per wrapper redemption pack

Inserts:
V Series A • 1:16 hobby packs
box bottoms • two per blaster box (base design), four per hobby box (retro design)
Stickers • 1:3 hobby packs
Signatures • 1:192 hobby packs
Buyback autographs • odds unknown to me
Team Canada Signatures • 1:384 hobby packs
3-D • unannounced, very rare
Sport Royalty autographs • odds unknown to me
Team Logo Patches • 1:96 hobby packs
Heroic Inspirations Josh Harding auto • serial numbered to 25
Mini Tall Boys • 1 per wrapper redemption pack

Update Set #U1-U42

Inserted into Upper Deck Series 2. There are quite a few good rookies included, headlined by Leon Draisaitl and Andrei Vasilevskiy.

2 Comments

  1. I like this base design but I agree with you that the photo should have run down to include the team name instead of having it in a banner. Love the colors if this set. The retros are decent I do enjoy them,So many parallels, must think modern times if only this was done in the 70s n 80s.
    Now the inserts are great butI never liked the box bottoms and this dates back to the 80s the legends should be part of the inserts only my opinion.
    I’ll say this once but league leaders highlights record breakers milestones trophy winners playoff recap of each series should be there EVERY YEAR as part of base set. Replace the legend subset like I mentioned above.
    Now why would I want to buy upper deck series Cards to get my opc update cards put them in the following year opc like they did with 2010 11.

    • Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

      I guess the good news on the update cards being inserted into UD is that they end up being relatively cheap to buy as singles.

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