Brian over at the great blog Waxaholic posted a review of the new 2010-11 UD Victory cards but I thought I’d add my two cents.

At the beginning of each season I always buy a few packs of Victory because a) it’s the first hockey product to hit the shelves and b) it’s cheap. At $1/pack, you know what you are getting, or rather, not getting. You won’t get high priced, serially numbered rookies from the draft and I think it would be a minor miracle if you pulled an autograph or jersey card. What you do get is six cards per pack and either a rookie or insert card.

Here are some base cards:

The design is fairly good. At first, I wasn’t digging the giant V but then when I looked closely I noticed that the background is mostly black and white which makes the coloured player picture pop out. I think I would have preferred that design choice (colour set against b/w) without the V, but it works here…sort of.

One thing that I really like about the front design is the lack of logos. Sure, there is the Victory logo, but the Upper Deck and team logo are nowhere to be found. Less is more and it works. Overall, if the front ditched the V and kept everything else, I’d give the design an A+. As it stands, it get’s a B+.

Before I move on to the other cards, I wanted to explain why I choose Hartnell and Thomas to showcase the design. As a sports fan, it is easy to root against opposing players that you dislike. Hartnell is one of those players. I don’t like his stupid hair and all the little annoying things that he does. Oh, and I hate the Flyers as a whole after last season’s playoffs. See, that’s easy and understandable. The more difficult task is rooting against a player on your own team. Tim Thomas is the bane of my existence. I have NEVER liked him. EVER. Whenever I see him between the pipes I think, “We are going to lose this game on some cupcake goal.” I have zero faith in him. ZERO! Oh sure, he makes these bananas saves from time to time but that is more because he is out of position and HAS to make them look spectacular. He makes the hard saves look hard but also the easy saves look hard. Thank god the B’s signed him to that obscene, untradeable deal. Ugh! I’d rather have a guy like Hartnell on my team.

Moving on, here is what the back of the cards look like:

Nothing special here. I guess we are only treated to the last five seasons worth of stats? I guess for $1/pack, we aren’t treated to extra ink. Also, I’ve said this before but I LOVE the phonetic spellings on the back. It’s useful most of the time, but I chose this one because Brad is spelled phonetically as Brad. That cracked me up for some reason. I’m easily amused.

Here is a rookie:

Oh, hey giant team logo, fancy meeting you here. I’m not sure why they have the team logo on the rookies and not the base cards. Whatever. The rookies are from last year, so we are treated to YESTERDAY’S ROOKIES, TODAY! Awesome. Brock Trotter is a good hockey name, but a better MMA or football name. I don’t think this kid is a goon, but he should be. And then Shawn Thornton can throttle him.

Here are what the Stars of the Game insert looks like:

Is Jason Spezza a star of the game? On one hand, he has more total points than games played and has averaged a point-per-game in the playoffs. On the other hand, he’s played in only one All-Star Game and has no hardware to show for his talents. The other Stars of the Game insert I got was Patrice Bergeron and, as much I like Patrice, he is in the same boat as Spezza. Maybe they should rename this insert set, Pretty Darn Good Players of the Game.

Here is a Gamebreakers insert:

FOIL! ZIGZAGS! A PLAYER I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF! I LOVE THIS INSERT SET! Seriously, who the hell is Niclas Bergfors? When a team trades their only recognizable player (Kovalchuk), Upper Deck is forced to include his hammerhead as their team GAMEBREAKER! Oh, and for those of us not in the know, Bergfors came over in the Kovy deal. Zzzzzz.

So there we go, 2010-11 Upper Deck Victory such as it is. The eight packs I bought will satisfy my hockey pack needs until the mid-range products are released.

If anyone has an Adam McQuaid rookie from this set, I am interested.