Released February 7, 2024 • hobby box includes 18 packs with 10 cards each, 180 cards total • click here for checklist on Trading Card Database
My review:
Depending on how you count, 2023-24 O-Pee-Chee marks something like the 67th O-Pee-Chee hockey set. It is definitely the 18th release in the current era of Upper Deck owning the OPC brand, and it again hits the mark as my favorite current hockey card release. The big base set clocks in at the usual 600 cards. Numbers 1-500 feature vets and 501-600 are short-prints featuring rookies and all-stars. Connor Bedard’s rookie is the star of the show. Bedard also shows up in the O-Pee-Chee Premier and (very tough) 3-D Marquee Rookies insert sets. The well-deserved hype around the young star makes ripping packs of 2023-24 an unusually expensive activity.
The base design is once again OK but disappointingly devoid of color. Here is a chronological look at all of the 18 base designs from Upper Deck-era O-Pee-Chee:
Ever since 2015-16 (upper left), Upper Deck has elected to mostly eliminate color, fun, and a retro feel from the base designs. I understand that base cards are now considered meaningless filler for many releases and collectors, but O-Pee-Chee should be an exception because it appeals to base set collectors and is meant to draw inspiration from a collecting era when there was little or nothing other than base cards. 2023-24 base cards can be found with purple, blue, red, and yellow border parallels, all of which are major improvements to the bland original. Why not splash in some team colors on the base card borders instead of the drab black and grey year after year?
Thankfully, Upper Deck went all-out and nailed another colorful and fun design for the retro parallels, which again are found one per hobby pack. A cream border sets the stage for various fantastic shocks of color combos framing player pictures. These are my second favorite OPC retros from Upper Deck (and are nearly as great as my top choice from 2019-20).
The inserts are almost identical to 2022-23. The main inserts you can expect to find in hobby packs are O-Pee-Chee Premier and the eighth (!) OPC playing cards deck. The Premier set looks and feels great and features 75 vets and 25 rookies headlined by Bedard, Luke Hughes, Adam Fantilli, and Leo Carlsson. I like the Premiers, but I again miss having a mini insert in OPC. The playing cards look fantastic as always, and while I sometimes think the concept is played out, I again found myself collecting the full deck.
My ratings /10:
base design 7.3 retro design 9.3 inserts 7.8 overall 8.9
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Regular Print Base Cards #1-500
Short Prints #501-600 • 1:1 hobby packs
All-Stars #501-540, Marquee Rookies #541-599, checklist #600
Connor Bedard alone makes this the biggest rookie crop ever found in Upper Deck-era O-Pee-Chee. (Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews rookies were both found as OPC updates inserted in Upper Deck flagship.) While Bedard is obviously the headliner, there are many more rookies with potential to be found, including Yaroslav Askarov, Arturs Silovs, Luke Hughes, Dustin Wolf, Devon Levi, Brock Faber, Adam Fantilli, Logan Cooley, and Leo Carlsson. I do enjoy how the shift to a later OPC release date allows for the inclusion of many top rookies.
Upper Deck-era O-Pee-Chee rookies have always been found in the high-numbered short-prints, but Upper Deck has experimented with many other subsets to fill out the short-prints. Last year saw the first addition of current all-stars to the short-prints, and they opted to stick with that approach for 2023-24. It makes sense that Upper Deck wants to squeeze in another card of stars, but their approach is falling flat. Slapping “2023 all-stars” on top of the base design while picturing the players in their normal team jerseys does not differentiate these cards enough from the regular print base cards. If Upper Deck continues with the all-star cards, I’d like to see them get creative with a significantly different design and pictures of players in all-star jerseys. Better yet would be scrapping the all-stars and going back to the Marquee Legends subset featuring retired stars. Hockey greats from the past are a natural fit for O-Pee-Chee.
Retro parallels • 1:1 hobby pack
The retros are utterly fantastic. Bravo!
My only complaint has to do with the high-numbered cards (which are not relative short-prints among retros). For cards 501-540, which make up the all-stars in the base set, there is no change or designation to differentiate them from the retro design found on cards 1-500. This results in 40 players having two ridiculously similar retro cards (see the Igor Shesterkins pictured below). At the very least, an “all-stars” designation was needed. Even better would be a totally different design inspired by great all-star cards of the past (see 1968-69 OPC for just one example).
Other Parallels:
retro black border • numbered to 100
retro blank backs • odds unannounced, estimated print run of 5-15
purple border • numbered to 49
blue border • 1:3 hobby packs
red border • 1:18 hobby packs
yellow border • 1:1 blaster pack
All-Stars/Marquee Rookies rainbow foil • numbered to 350
All-Stars/Marquee Rookies black rainbow foil • numbered to 100
All-Stars/Marquee Rookies green rainbow foil • numbered to 33
All-Stars/Marquee Rookies gold rainbow foil • numbered 1/1
red border blank back • numbered 1/1
printing plates • numbered 1/1, there are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black plates for every base card and every retro card
Inserts:
Premier • 1:6 hobby packs
Premier diamond rainbow • numbered to 75
Playing Cards • overall 1:5 hobby packs (2-10, 1:5.5 hobby packs, Jacks-Kings, 1:34 hobby packs, Aces, 1:101 hobby packs, Jokers, 1:203 hobby packs)
Manufactured Patches • overall 1:72 hobby packs, there are different tiers
Platinum Preview • odds unannounced, includes base cards as well as 10 parallels
Top Rookie Puzzle Redemption • 1:96 hobby packs
3-D Marquee Rookies • 1:864 hobby packs
Woodies • odds unannounced
Woodies Cherry • odds unannounced
base variations—black & white, portrait, hats off, pre-game jersey, draft day • odds unannounced
No update set
Because of the later release of the main set, there will be no 2023-24 O-Pee-Chee update cards.
From 2012 to 2015 opc designs nailed it for a collector like me but lately n I don’t collect anymore they are plain but u said it base is worthless even the many parallels 👎🏻 left this hobby for that reason too much is too much now even a parallel of the retro get back to what it should be a recap of the season it represents whatever happen to playoff cards
The year end first and second team allstars do not have to be in allstar sweaters it has nothing to do with a allstar game… it is really a subset of memories of the previous season the only thing is the cards should have a year end allstar designation crest on the card front and interesting information about the player being a year end allstar be it his first or tenth time