So the next season of ITG's Heroes & Prospects is almost upon us with a release date of January 20, 2011 being set! What should we expect? Well, the base set will be comprised of 150 cards in total, and break down as follows:

#1-7 Heroes
#8-10 International Prospects
#11-88 CHL Prospects
#89-100 CHL Rookies
#101-136 AHL Prospects
#137-150 AHL Rookies


As per usual, autographs and memorabilia cards will be inserted into the product, both dropping at 1:8 Packs! At 16 packs a box you’re sitting pretty on hits.

What will the memorabilia look like? This is an area of strength for ITG so as one would expect they look sweeeeet! They will be released under National Pride, Net Prospects, Prospect Trio, Quad Patch, and Complete Jersey sub-set banners, while memorabilia-based parallels of selected base hero and prospect cards will also be available.





In addition to the base and memorabilia cards, ITG is also offering up 100 inserts across five seperate sub-sets: Calder Cup Winner, Memorial Cup Winner, Class of 2011 (Redemable for 1st round draft pick game-used memorabilia cards), 75th Anniversary of the AHL and 100 Years of Card Collecting.




Do I expect this set to be anything but the solid release it is every year? Not at all. I do have a few questions though:

1) For a series called "Heroes and Prospects" how can you only have seven "Heroes" cards? This may seem like a petty comment to some, but I feel it's a legitimate problem! I can understand not wanting to recycle the same heroes each year, but I see having some overlap from year to year being preferrable to having half of the theme you are advertising representing slightly under 5% of your base set. The original 04-05 release of this product had 57 Heroes out of the 180 card base set, making 32%. Then 60 of 380 (16%) across the Series 1 and 2 releases of 05-06. Fiftenn of 150 (10%) in 06-07, etc, etc. It's been decreasing drastically since the original release and me no likey...

2) If you're going to distinguish between CHL/AHL prospects and International ones, please include more than three! This is not completely new to this product as these cards have been limited to runs of 3 or 4 in the past, and to be honest I'm not complaining about it as much as I'd like to see more of them. In fact, why not make a group of 8 to 10 of these prospects and just make a sub set of them? Just saying...

3) The only thing worse than redemptions are screwey redemptions. Remember that "Class of 2011" insert set I mentioned? Here's the ITG down-low on it:

"In The Game has Inserted into packs of 2010-11 Heroes and Prospects cards 10 different Class of 2011 non-memorabilia insert cards.

Each card has a letter of a player on the front of the card from A-J.

The player associated with each letter will be announced two weeks after the 2011 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects game has been played. This will give us more time to access the players that might be drafted in the first round of the 2011 NHL Entry Draft.

Each of these 10 players will have 30 different versions stamped 1-30 on the card-back. The number stamped on the back of the card will designate that player's draft position number.

Once the player names are announced, you will know what player you have. Collectors will then wait until the 2011 NHL Entry Draft is held.

After the 2011 NHL Entry Draft takes place, simply check your player name and the position he was drafted. If your player is drafted in the position numbered on the back of your card, your card can be redeemed for a game-used memorabilia card of that player. There will only be ten of each game-used memorabilia card for each player.

If you do have a redemption card that is the player with the correct draft pick number send your card along with your complete name, address, telephone number and email address to either of our Customer Service offices."

Wow. I had to read it twice just to wrap my head around it. A cool concept but it takes too long to know if you've won anything, and I'm not even sure I'd know if I did win! Might just be me on this one but it's a bit convoluted for my liking!

These points aside I am looking forward to this dropping. ITG always put together a solid product and I reckon it'll be worth the buy. Check out the info and see what you think!





Shawn Gates
[email protected]
Twitter: ShawnHockeybuzz
Facebook: Shawn Gates
Facebook Group: Hockeybuzz Collectibles
BBM: 311A4F7D
__________________________________________________________________________


Previous Product Previews & Reviews

2010-11 Donruss Hockey
2010-11 Panini Score Hockey
2010-11 Panini Certified Hockey
2010-11 ITG Ultimate Memorabilia, 10th Edition


Previous "Devil's In The Details" Articles

#1: Beware the "Factory Sealed Box"!

#2: The Price Guide"

#3: What IS A Rookie Card?

#4: Beware the Money Order!

#5: The Counterfeit Gretzky RC



Previous “WHAT IF…?” Articles

#1 What If The NHL Contracted To 24 Teams?

#2 What If Quebec Traded Lindros To The Rangers Instead Of The Flyers?

#3 What If Calgary Drafted Martin Brodeur Instead Of Trevor Kidd?

#3a What If Calgary Drafted Martin Brodeur Instead Of Trevor Kidd?: A RESPONSE

#4 What If The WHA Never Existed?

#5 What If The Position Of Rover Had Not Been Eliminated?

#6 What If Pittsburgh Had Not Been Awarded A Team In 1967?

#7 What If Steve Smith Had Not Scored In His Own Net In Game 7?

#8 What If The NHL Had a Cross-Conference Playoff Structure?

#9 What If The NHL Asked For Fan Ideas For Improving The Game??

#10 What If Henderson Had Missed The Net In Game 8?

#11 What If You Could Sneak Into A Stanley Cup Celebration?

#12 What If The NHL Returned To Quebec City?

#13 What if Toronto and Edmonton Had Traded Teams in 1981?

#14 What if You Could Create Your Own Hockey Dream Team?

#15 What if An Active Player in the NHL “Came Out” as Gay?

#16 You Could Assemble Your Own Fantasy Pick-up Hockey Team?

#17 Hockey Had A Champions League Tournament?

#18 Team "X" Did NOT Make Trade "Y" At The Deadline?

#19 Gretzky Had Been Called For he High Stick?

#20 Star Players Hadn't Had Their Careers Cut Short?

#21 Mark Cuban Owned An NHL Team?



Previous “Who Knew?” Articles
#1: Gordie Howe

#2: The Zamboni

#3: Maurice “The Rocket” Richard

#4: Ron Hextall

#5: Stanley Cup Abuse, Neglect and Versatility

#6: The Puck

#7: Don Cherry

#8: Cam Neely

#9: The Early Years of Les Canadiens

#10: Hockey Superstitions!

#11: Olympic Hockey Pt1



Ultimate Set Build

INDEX



Previous Box Breaks

2010-11 Score Hockey



Previous “Display Case” Articles

#1: The “Frankenstick!”
#2: Your desk has the right to remain collectable!
#3: Have Pads, Will Travel
#4: Pick a Pekka (Rinne) Autographed Mask



Previous “Who Am I?” Articles

#1, #2, #3, #4, #5



Previous “Devil's Advocate” Articles

Gary Bettman and the Phoenix Coyotes



Previous “According to Twitter” Articles

Olympic Gold Medal Game

Olympic Hockey

Kovalchuk Trade



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January 27, 2010: National Anthems

February 3, 2010: Dion Phaneuf

February 10, 2010: Hockey Fans



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Hell, Michigan



Previous “Hockey Psychology” Articles

State Dependent Learning

Arousal and Performance

Depression