2012-13 Upper Deck SP Game Used Edition Box Break

Last year, I opened up a couple packs of Upper Deck SP Game Used Edition, and left disappointed. Then, I saw some box breaks on Youtube, and became more disappointed, causing me to have avoided that product like the plague. Apparently, I wasn't the only one, as Upper Deck took measures to make this a better product. Well, if they are really trying to fix what was broken, I figured I'd give them a shot. Here's what I came up with.

Each box contains five packs of five cards, one of which is an autograph or memorabilia card. With most products, the autos are usually the chases, but this product, like Panini Prime, does some pretty cool things with the memorabilia, so the autograph might not entirely be the big drawing point anyway.

Speaking of autographs, my one autograph was of Avalanche rookie defenseman Tyson Barrie. The rookie played in just 10 games last season, but appears to be a mainstay this year, so we'll see how this guy turns out.

Next up is a Team Canada Fabrics card of Tampa Bay Lightning right winger Brett Connolly. He spent 68 games of his rookie season with the NHL team, but right now, he is playing with the Lightning's AHL affiliate Syracuse Crunch, where he has scored 15 goals and 19 assists in 38 games.

Next up is a guy who may be stalking me via cardboard, Daniel Alfredsson. I only say that, because he seems to always creep up in packs that I open. In fact, of the two packs of Game Used I opened up last year, he was one of the hits that I pulled.

Next up is a dual jersey card of Ryan Kesler and Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks. Luongo may soon be dealt, as the team appears to have decided on Cory Schneider as not only their goaltender of the future, but of the present as well. Still, I like Luongo, so this was a good card for me to pull.

Lastly, is my big hit of the box, and what a big hit it was! I was lucky enough to pull a super rare Dominik Hasek Supreme Patches card, numbered 5/12. This is a beautiful looking card featuring a piece of the logo from the front of the jersey while Hasek was playing for the Ottawa Senators. Although his time with Ottawa was brief (just the 2005-06 season), it's really cool that they were able to match up the photo to the team from the patch.

I was planning on keeping this card, seeing how it is an awesome four-color jumbo patch of a future hockey hall-of-famer, until I saw what another less-cool Hasek patch went for on Ebay. So needless to say, I went ahead and listed mine, and will use those funds to pursue this card.

Well, there you have it. I definitely like some of the improvements they made this year and was very happy with my purchase. Single packs at $25 a pop will get very risky, especially with all the $.99 jersey cards in the set, but a full box should at least give you something to make it all worthwhile.